5

DURING THE SUMMER we spent a lot of time at the riverside. Wading about in the water, with our boots tied together by the laces and slung around our necks, was a favourite pastime. I do not remember what we were doing – we certainly were not fishing; that activity came into its own only when the river was in flood. In any event we became very knowledgable about that stretch of the river near the town. We could pinpoint every hole and underwater rock and the likely locations of a resting trout or a coiled eel.

On other days we would go up the river bank as far as Camas where the water is dark and deep even in summer. Seven fields up the bank of the river there was a chance you would see a seal, and there would be hundreds of swallows skimming and diving when the midges appeared in the sunlight.

These were stirring times in the political life of the country – war and unrest were in the air. Nevertheless, if I had to choose the quietest, happiest days I can remember in my whole life, I would pick the years 1917 to 1920. I remember especially long summer days when we would be lying on the high grassy banks at the riverside. Days when you could imagine that the sun was standing in the sky – with time suspended – no movement except for the river and no sound except the hum of insects and the far-away throb of the shirt factory giving out the pulse of summer.

The river was only one aspect of our lives in Strabane. Apart from our life at home, the rapport we had with my mother’s family influenced us enormously.

As I’ve already said, my mother’s father was John Gormley. His father before him was a shopkeeper. My mother’s mother was from the MacLoinsigh family. Her father, Liam MacLoinsigh, was a miller in Clare, near Castle Derg in County Tyrone. The walls of Clare Mill are still standing but the water-wheel has not survived.

Just as there are twelve in our family, there were twelve Gormleys, but five of them died in childhood. The Gormleys, in order of birth, were: Teresa, Mary Louise (died in infancy), Jack, William (died in infancy), Agnes (my mother), Thomas (died in infancy), Thomas, Edmund (died in infancy), Mary Josephine (died aged six), Eugene, George and Joseph.

Only Teresa, Eugene and Thomas are alive today [1973]. As for the others, Joseph died in 1969; and there wouldn’t be a middle-aged journalist in Dublin who would not remember George Gormley, who died in the mid-sixties. He spent his life working in the Dublin newspapers, most of it with the Irish Independent.

As children we were aware of the unrest and excitement that was all around us during those years, although we did not understand it. England was threatening to conscript the Irish into her army and send them to France. It is unlikely that there was a town in Ireland where active opposition to this threat was not being organized. My aunt Teresa and her friends from Cumann na mBan used to meet in a hall in Barrack Street where public meetings, concerts and céilithe were held to raise money. I remember being at a céile in the Town Hall and looking down at the dancers from the gallery. It was exciting and somewhat special for me to be out so late at night. Against this glamour of an evening céile something ominous was happening – young men were drilling.

Uncle Eugene was the first to start organizing opposition to conscription. In 1918 he was arrested, brought by train to Belfast and marched between two policemen from Edward Street Station to Victoria Military Barracks. A contingent of soldiers from the Northumbria Fusiliers accompanied them. Belfast people must have wondered at this young man who was being escorted through the streets with such a strong guard – who was he and what had he done? My uncle thinks it was simply a coincidence that the soldiers were returning to barracks at the same time.

Trial by military court quickly followed. A soldier who escorted him to court advised, out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Don’t let those f—ing bastards send you to jail – recognize the court.’ Refusing to recognize the court, he was sentenced to six months in Crumlin Road Jail. Ernest Blythe and Austin Stack were fellow prisoners. Uncle Eugene was arrested again in 1922 and imprisoned on the Argenta, where the other prisoners elected him as their leader. Cahir Healy was among those held on the prison ship. Eugene was never a member of the IRA.

In 1918 a virulent flu spread across Europe – it killed more people than had lost their lives in the war. It was like the nameless plagues that have followed wars from times immemorial. I was the only one in our house to catch a dose of this flu and I believe it was the most serious illness I’ve ever had – I was in bed for three weeks.

Our father came home at weekends whenever he was within reasonable travelling distance. On one of these occasions he took us on a walk to Victoria Bridge and we came home by train. Another time he took us to the top of Knockavoe, the mountain overlooking Strabane, and we gathered mulberries.

Brian Gearóid and I visited Maggie Payne, a native Irish-speaker from Donegal. Maggie was an old woman at the time and lived in a little house a short distance out the Derry Road. Our exchanges with her were in Irish, of course.

Another day we were at a farm on the ‘threshing’ day. The farm was only a quarter of a mile from our house in Ballycolman Lane. Today you would need to explain to young people what used to happen on threshing day. On an arranged day at harvest time the threshing machine would arrive, pulled by a steam engine that was not unlike a railway engine. This machinery and many willing hands were there for the full day to thresh all the grain that the farmer had, which would be standing ready in stooks. There is no describing the excitement, fun and noise of that day. I was lucky to catch a glimpse of a field mouse escaping through the stubble.

That autumn Brian went into McAleer’s shoemaking shop at the Bridge End and asked for work. Mr McAleer assented and said he could start the next morning. Of course, my mother did not let him out next morning – he was about eight years of age at the time!