14
When I read about the ‘depressing’ 1950s I cannot believe it. For us living in Oughterard the 1950s were a never-to-be-forgotten period. For my father in particular, it was a wonderful era. Rain on the Wind being published in 1950 had allowed him to give up a weekly wage packet and concentrate on earning his living as a writer. It was (and still is!) very difficult to rely totally on writing to earn a living. My mother often told me how hard my father found living without the security of a weekly wage packet.
I think that we moved to Oughterard either the end of July or the beginning of August 1951. As a boy of seven, the journey seemed to me to be very long. We set off from Ardpatrick Road very early in the morning and it took hours to reach Galway. Then the final part of the journey to Oughterard and the trip out the narrow road to Glann, the name of the area where we lived, seemed to take forever to my mind. I seem to remember that when we drove into Gort na Ganiv, it was about 2 a.m.
I will never forget that first morning waking up in Gort na Ganiv. I got up, dressed and walked out the back door. The sun was shining, and I began to explore. There were two sheds at the back of the house and then through the bushes, I spotted a sort of path running up through the hedges. I pushed my way through and discovered the path lead up to a concrete tennis court. There was even a little tennis pavilion where spectators could sit and drink lemonade and watch the matches. Behind the tennis court, the path led to a gateway to our own forest. It looked huge to me, it was about an acre with a wide range of trees. I even noticed one tree that was bent down towards the ground in such a way that you could sit on it and ride it like you were riding a horse.
After I had explored the forest, I turned my attention to the orchard which stretched back towards the house. There were almost a hundred fruit trees, cooking apples and eating apples, pears, rows of raspberries and a bed of strawberries. There was a huge lawn in front of the house and then to the right-hand side there were hidden gardens that we called the Upper and Lower Glades. It was a wonderful place for a young boy to grow up.
My father soon established his own daily pattern in Gort na Ganiv. We got up every morning at about 7 a.m. My father and mother, coming out of their bedroom coughing, would wake me up – they were both very heavy smokers. There was a washing and shaving routine and then we set off for morning mass in Oughterard. My parents were daily mass-goers and so we always went to 8 a.m. mass. After mass, we went to the local shop where my father bought the Irish Press. We were back at home about 8.40 a.m. and then had breakfast. My father read the newspaper from cover to cover and then he left us in the kitchen. He went into what we called the living-room, where he had his typewriter on the large table, and closed the door. He walked around the table smoking cigarettes and working out what he was going to write.
In my memory, I see myself and my mother waiting anxiously in the kitchen. My mother would actually be saying a few prayers to herself aloud, but I have no memory of my brother being there during these morning sessions. When we heard the typewriter going my mother would say a prayer of thanks! My father typed for maybe half an hour or three-quarters of an hour. Then he would open the door and call out – ‘Peggy’. My mother went in to listen to him reading the piece he had just written. She was his first audience and he always watched her keenly to see her reaction. When Peter died in Rain on the Wind, she cried. ‘Ah,’ my father said, ‘it’s working.’
He then worked in the garden during the afternoon and there was always a walk. In those first months, my mother was often too busy to accompany him and so I was his walking companion. We would leave the house and walk up the road a bit until we came to what was called the old road to Oughterard, and there were wonderful views of Lough Corrib and the islands stretching towards the horizon. My mother always had lunch ready at 1.30 p.m. and tea at 6.30 p.m. At night, my parents sat in the living-room, reading books.
There was a huge amount of hard work to do with the gardens. My father, with help from local men, built concrete footpaths right around them. We sowed vegetables and of course he went fishing on Lough Corrib. He spent his first season on the lake in 1951–52 going out with local man, Paddy Mons. Once the season began on 14 February, they tackled the lake most days and were sometimes called ‘bellmen’, because they used long lines attached to a plain wooden rod. On top of each of the rods there was a little bell and when a fish struck their bait, the bell rang. They used a small version of a Corrib boat, called a punt, suitable for one person.
There was a pattern to their fishing season. The first few months was called the ‘bricín’ season. As bait, they used small little fish, ‘minnows’, which were readily available in the streams right around Lough Corrib and kept alive in a tin can until they were used. Professional fishermen earned a living from the lake – when they caught fish they brought them into local dealers in Oughterard and the fish were picked up by train and taken from Oughterard to Galway and from Galway to Dublin and could be on sale in Billingsgate, London, the following day.
By the second season, my father had his own boat and knew the best fishing areas in the lake and I would go with him. As soon as I hooked my first trout and landed it, I was hooked on the sport. I often fished on school days with my father’s consent and he wrote letters of regret to the school principal. The season was as follows: bricín fishing from February through March; fly fishing March/April; dapping with the Mayfly to the end of May; then fishing for the summer salmon (grilse) in June/July and Harry and Daddy Long Leg dapping in August /September.
Before leaving Dublin, my father had completed The Bogman, which had been very well received by the publishers. Once he had finished writing The Bogman, he began writing what would become his best known play – Home is the Hero. It was first staged by the Abbey Players at the Queen’s Theatre, Pearse Street, Dublin on 28 July 1952 (they had moved because of the fire at their own theatre). The kernel of Home is the Hero is the story of Paddo O’Reilly who was imprisoned for five years for the manslaughter of a neighbour, killed in a drunken rage. As the play opens, the family are anxiously waiting for him to come home. It’s clear the family had a difficult time while he was away in prison and had to take in two lodgers, an old drinking friend of Paddo’s, Dovetail, and his wife Bid. Also in the house is Paddo’s son, Willie, who has a lame leg and taught himself to become a cobbler, and his daughter Josie, who has smart alecky boyfriend, Manchester Monaghan. Under the influence of Bid, his wife Daylia has begun to take an odd sup of alcohol.
The play opens with Dovetail excited about his friend coming home and he wants to make sure that there is a big welcoming party for him at the station. Paddo avoids the crowds and comes quietly into the house. Paddo is a different man to the man who went away and wants nothing to do with Dovetail or any of his friends. He objects to his wife drinking and he is shocked to find out that Dovetail and his wife are actually living with them. He is very angry when he learns that Josie is seeing Manchester Monaghan and he is equally horrified to find out that Willie is going with Lilly Green, the daughter of the man he killed. That original Abbey Theatre production was the most successful run of one of his plays and ran for seventeen weeks. Up to the 1960s and the arrival of Brian Friel’s plays, it held the record for the longest-running play in the Abbey.
Reviews for The Bogman in both England and America seemed to suggest it was destined to be successful, but there was disappointment again at home, as once again this new novel was banned. My father was deeply hurt; again the basis on which it was banned seemed to be that there is some suggestion of a sexual encounter between a traveller wife and Cahal. And of course at the end of the novel, Cahal leaves his wife and goes away with his true love Máire – an unmarried woman.
I talked to my father once about The Bogman and what he was aiming to do with the story, as he had planned to write a sequel. He asked me what I would do about the ending of The Bogman and I said that I would kill off the old woman.
‘Ah,’ he told me, ‘that’s where you are wrong, I plan to kill off the young woman.’
The success of Home is the Hero led to talk of it being staged in America and there were a lot of conversations and letters and telegrams about it. Finally in January of 1954, a concrete proposal was made when the Theatre Guild in New York decided to produce it:
The Theatre Guild,
23 West 53rd St,
New York.
Directors: Therese Helburn Laurence Langner, Armenia Marshall
January 18th 1954
Dear Walter Macken,
Again you must forgive me for being so long in answering your letter. We had our cast fairly well lined up but were delayed and then disappointed by the director. It is now so late that we think it is unwise to open this season.
We now think it would be much wiser to open early next fall with the chance of a long run. We can set the director now for an early date and would like to go into rehearsal around the middle or the end of August, opening out of town in September and coming in to New York at the end of September or early in October. This will also give us the chance to get the right theatre for New York.
We all very much want you to play Paddo, and I hope this will make it easier for you to do so, since it will give you time perhaps to finish your book, dispose of your sons and to get away without too much difficulty.
We are trying to communicate with Miss May, but she has not yet returned from Europe. If she is abroad now, perhaps you will see her. We are also contacting Joe Magee and advising him of our change of plan and our desire to have you with us in September, but please let me hear from you direct as soon as possible.
I hope you will be able to come. I personally can think of no one who would be as right for the part as you are.
Sincerely,
Therese Helburn
Good fortune came in March 1954, when the US Treasury Service decided to pay back the taxes he had paid in 1951–52, and he received a cheque for $6,202.78.
He completed the manuscript of his fifth novel, Sunset on the Window Panes, which he had begun in spring 1953. The principal character is Bart O’Breen, a tough young fellow who always gets into trouble. The world he creates come alive on the pages so much so that you think you actually know the people.
His friend Lovat Dickson loved it:
Macmillan & Co. Ltd.
11th March 1954
Dear Walter,
I should know better after twenty-two years of publishing, but after reading half ‘Sunset on the Window Panes’, last night, I cannot refrain this morning from writing you a note to say that I think you have really pulled it off this time. I read until the early hours of this morning, and found myself to be completely gripped throughout. It seems to me to be far the best book you have written, and I cannot tell you how delighted I am. All this is most irregular. I should wait until several readers and Directors have read it and give you the consensus of all their views. However, it is impossible to control my enthusiasm, and you are the man to whom I want to impart it.
There are so many things I would like to talk to you in connection with this book: the title for instance, the American market, possible serial rights, time of publication, and a host of other things. I wonder is there any chance of you and Peggy coming to London for a few days? If it is a matter of finances, let me know and I will see what my fellow Directors think of that. If it is a matter of leaving the boys, then I will understand if you cannot make it and will write about everything – though how much I should prefer to talk to you.
Yours ever,
Rache Lovat Dickson
From this time on Lovat Dickson starts using his popular name Rache, when signing letters to my father. He was so enthusiastic about the new novel that he wrote a follow-up letter the following day:
Dear Walter,
I finished ‘Sunset on the Window Panes’ at an early hour this morning. It was a tremendous finish. I do congratulate you. I think it is a wonderful story and will be remembered for a long time. The title is absolutely right, of course, the end of the story makes that clear.
I wish I could convey to you how much moved I have been by this story. It had a tremendous effect on me, and I think it will have on all its readers. The characterisation is so consistent: one sees so at the end looking back. I cannot suggest a change throughout the book except that part in Chapter 19 where Breeda tears up Bart’s letter and throws it into the sea and then the pieces come together again to form the ‘tumbled words and sentences’ and you get a further bit of Bart’s story. I do not think I would have the end of this chapter, but this is a point we can talk about.
The MS will now be read by my colleague, Thomas Mark, and he will prepare it for the printer. Meanwhile we will be getting a contract ready and will send it to you for signature.
Yours ever,
Rache Lovat Dickson
Meanwhile the Theatre Guild was making arrangements for the staging of Home is the Hero on Broadway. It was very common to get telegrams rather than phone calls when someone in America wanted to contact my father. The following was one such telegram, which was sent on 4 June 1954:
Worthington Minor directing Hero, he and we want you for Paddo could you hold yourself available to start rehearsals on either August 15 or 22. Do you know Dinah Sheridan age and ability and can she play with Irish accent, who played Dovetail there and any other suggestions besides Barry Fitzgerald, please reply immediately. Will confirm definitely within two weeks also could you airmail photo of Irish stage set. Thanks and greetings – Therese Helman
Following on this invitation, my father agreed to go to New York, because a week or so later, on 15 June, the following piece appeared in the New York Times:
Temporarily stymied in getting a leading man for Walter Macken’s Irish drama, ‘Home is the Hero,’ the Theatre Guild is furtively eyeing an ace up its sleeve to solve the problem. It is trying to persuade the author to portray the chief role, for which Thomas Mitchell was last mentioned. An actor since his salad days, Mr Macken gave a sample of his histrionic ability in the swashbuckling lead in Michael J. Molloy’s, ‘The King of Friday’s Men’ seen here briefly in 1951.
If all the loose ends are tried up firmly, count on ‘Home is the Hero’ being the Guild’s first local entry of the 1954–55 season. One thing is set though, C. Worthington Minor, who hasn’t been associated with the Broadway stage since 1940, will grip the directorial reins.
My Dad wrote to Sabina Walsh on 12 July to tell her that he and Peggy would be in New York on 15 August and he hoped to see her and her family when they arrived. He told her that Cyril Cusack had invited him to go to Paris in July to play the part of the old man in The Playboy of the Western World at an international theatre festival. He declined the invitation as he told Sabina in his second letter, sent to her at the end of July:
Gort na Ganiv,
Oughterard,
Co. Galway.
July 28th 1954
My dear Sabina,
I didn’t go to Paris. I didn’t like the play. Instead, Peggy and myself and the two boys went on a tour of Switzerland and Italy. We had a marvellous time, used all our money. Otherwise I would hardly be going to act in New York even if it is in my own play. We expect to fly over on the 14th of August. Rehearsals are to start on the 16th. When we meet you can expound all the great mystery. My agents have booked a room for us in a hotel. I don’t know where as yet but will get in touch with you.
With regards to Peter and the family.
Sincerely,
Walter
PS. By the way the play is my own play – ‘Home is the Hero’ and it’s to be directed by C. Worthington Minor – do you know of him?
Another telegram came from the Theatre Guild, this time spelling out that the play would open in Westport on 23 August, with a New York opening shortly afterwards.
My father received two letters from actors in August wondering was there any chance they could be offered a part in the Broadway production: Brian O’Higgins who had played the part of Paddo in the Abbey wondered if he could act as understudy to my father, while Jack McGowran, another Abbey actor, who was finding it difficult to get work, asked to be considered for the part of Willie. A letter came from my father’s theatre agent, Joe Magee, posted on 12 July:
William Morris Agency.
Dear Walter,
It was good to get your nice letter and we are all looking forward to your arrival. Rehearsals begin in New York about 10 a.m. on August 16th and continue for two weeks. Then you open at the Westport County Playhouse, Westport, Connecticut for a one week try-out there the week of August 30th, then either to New York for the Broadway opening tentatively set for September 30th.
Best wishes,
Joe Magee
My father wrote a rough note to himself, names of people that he would like to meet: Lee Strasberg, Julian Compton and Clifford Odets [prominent American theatre people]. In a second letter, Joe Magee suggested that my parents could rent his apartment for $200 a month. I do not know whether they did that although it strikes me that it was probable. While they were in Westport, they met another first cousin, Rita Joyce, for the first time and she became a good friend of theirs.
The play opened in Westport on 30 August and among the cast was Glenda Farrell as Daylia, Richard Lupino as Willie, Peggy Ann Garner as Josie, Frances Fuller (Worthington Minor’s wife) as Mrs Greene, J. Pat O’Malley as Dovetail and Christopher Plummer as Manchester Monaghan. My mother told me how Chris Plummer regularly sat her down to talk at him so that he could learn a proper Irish accent.
The play opened at the Booth Theatre on Broadway on 22 September.
My parents were in America from 14 August until nearly the end of November. Wally Óg and I primarily stayed with our relatives in Galway; I think we spent some time with the Kennys in Salthill and the rest of the time with the Lohans in Woodquay; both families were relations of my mothers. Every week my father wrote and included a US dollar for me.
When they returned to Galway my father began a period of great productivity and he wrote the following article analysing his work which I found among his papers:
I believed that my first work would set the world on fire. I knew that first novels rarely became best sellers (outside of America) but I now know that each writer considers himself a special case. It’s the egotism that keeps you going. In few other professions is your ego in for the mangling it’s due to receive just when you think everything is lovely.
Your poor ould ego is due to be kicked and battered and despised and spat upon and sat upon and jumped on from a height. So at the time when you think everything is going to be fine, you wake up and find you are farther back than when you started. You will never again have that untarnished beautiful knowledge that everything you write is perfect and is going to be greeted warmly immediately it is released.
When my first play and my first novel had been launched with moderate success, about one millionth of what it deserved. I had to sit down and set to, considerably shaken, feeling that my faith in myself was on very unsolid ground. I wrote two novels containing almost a million words. I knew they were trash before anybody told me. They told me. My second published novel was on the cautious way back. I believe I have steadily improved since that. I believe this cautiously, keeping my fingers crossed as I think it. I am now very critical of what I put down. My fractured ego is recovering. It will never be the same. It will always show the marks.
I believed that the people among whom I was born in my own home town were the people to write about. They weren’t people who were well off. They had to struggle for their food, their clothes and their relaxation. I was interested in everything about them and me and where we lived. But would other people in other lands be interested in me and my people. I didn’t really give a damn. They were, because people are the same everywhere, as delightfully unpredictable in a Galway street as they are in a small town in America or England or France. So you put your money on the people you know and they will win out. I still believe this, that a writer should write about the things and the people he knows. He should write so that the people he knows would get a kick out of what he writes if they ever bothered to read what he writes about them, which they probably won’t.
Once a writer starts writing so that people in a foreign place get a kick out of what he is writing about his own people, he is on the way out. He is getting tired. It is easy for a writer to get tired in Ireland. People in Ireland have very little respect for Irish writers. They write them off. They ban their books. Three of my novels are banned in Ireland. I can’t tell you what a hurtful thing this is. You are supposed to be artistic and laugh it off. A good joke. You are supposed to talk about clodhoppers and jumping Jesuses and craw thumpers, but I must confess (is this literary weakness) to be hurt and bewildered every time they ban one of my books.
You are writing for your own people. What’s going to happen if they stop your own people from reading you. Is your writing as they say indecent and/or obscene or is this in their own minds, or are they reading excerpts out of context like picking out the dirty bits from the Bible. I don’t know.
But I still believe that you should write for and about your own people. I believed writing would be a great adventure. I still believe this. Once you have reached the stage of reason where you can let your mind wander over a story, and be stuck with it and can’t go on. Day after day, month after month and you see no resolution. And then in the middle of the night when you awake from the tail end of a dream, or when you are out walking on a city street, or catching trout on a lake, it comes into your mind, so clear and so real, the solution you wanted, that quite likely you will say out loud, I have it! I have it! And if there is somebody with you looking at you with wide eyes it will be a bit of an anti-climax to try and explain what you mean, you probably won’t, but there is a great river of joy inside you that lasts until the next depression. The next depression begins when you have to sit down and write out what your brain has already written.
You will find many excuses to avoid this writing business. The weather will be heavy or there will be a few jobs to do around the house, or the fishing will at that point become particularly good and you just have to go and get a few fish while they are on the take, or you have a cold coming or you don’t feel so well or you have some urgent books to read that must be read at once. There are a million excuses but eventually you will have to be drawn to that typewriter and when you sit down and get going, you will wonder why you have been fighting so hard against the inevitable, and why is it that each time you get away from it, you have the same struggle to get back with it. At times like this you so envy the writers you read about in interviews who go to their studies each morning at six o’clock and work steadily until breakfast time at nine. Then back to work at ten and quit at one, having completed six solid hours of writing.
They never deviate from this, four to six hours a day. You can envy those writers and pray that you may emulate them because after the first fine rapture is over, every instinct you have will be crying out for you to go the contrary way. I think you will have more fun being contrairy [sic] if that’s bad advice, I can’t help it. I’m sticking with it. Apart from all that, you know yourself in your own head where you are going, and nobody can stop you from going there. You know when you are good and when you are bad. Deep down in you, you know all the answers and you will keep sending them out until your well is dried and that will be when you are six feet under or a handful of ashes scattered on a hill.
Details of his earnings from the American production of Home is the Hero were sent to him as follows:
Dramatists Guild,
6 East 39th St.,
New York.
Gentlemen,
Enclosed is the statement and our check covering the balance due to Mr Walter Macken on ‘Home is the Hero’. The check is made out to his agent, Miss Ruth May Bendukov at the instruction of Mr Macken. The check represents the following:
Sept 5 Westport $875.61 Gross $11,756.10
Sept 25 NY $621.47 Gross $ 9,214.72
Oct 2 NY $675.30 Gross $ 9,752.99
Oct 9 NY $701.64 Gross $10,106.41
Oct 16 NY $958.29 Gross$12,582.94
__________
Total $3,832.31
Less advance $2,100.00
$1,732.31 (check
enclosed)
Statements for the Westport engagement were sent to Miss May, statements for Sept 25th and Oct 2nd were sent to the Dramatists Guild and I enclose statements for Oct 9 and 16.
If any further information is needed, let me know.
Sincerely yours,
Margaret Becher (Bookkeeper)
In November, my father wrote a letter to Sabina Walsh, his first cousin in New York:
Gort na Ganiv.
November 13th 1954
Dear Sabina,
Peggy is of course completely ruined on me. My counter-reformation assaults are moving very slowly. We have had to give up window shopping. Anything she sees under £50 – she just scoffs at it. We haven’t got the new car yet. We gave up the old Ford and decided to buy a small car for Wally Óg. We did and now we are stuck with it because Wally Óg can’t get insurance cover until April when he will be 17. But we managed to put the fix in and got him a licence.
All the days are passing in a sort of Celtic Dream. My old typewriter gave up the ghost at last and it takes years to get a new one – so I have a great excuse for not working. I’m afraid that new typewriter will turn up any day now. Ruth May has been fired. I have a new agent now [Don Congdon] and he is panting to perform and I have nothing for him to sell … The station is of course not a station [station mass due to be held in our house]. They call it that. The main purpose is to say mass in homes that are far away from churches so that the old and the feeble may have a chance to get mass and Holy Communion either in their own homes or in the homes of a neighbour. It is a terrific privilege for us that he will say mass in our home. It will never happen again because it is principally a privilege of the poor. I told the priest that I could always qualify under that heading, but it is decent of him to grant us the opportunity.
The people of the neighbourhood, five or six families come to the mass and they get a cup of tea afterwards. If you are not joking about coming, I can’t tell you how pleased we would be to see you. I have sent you page proofs copies of ‘Sunset on the Window Panes’.
All my love,
Walter
It’s not clear why my father changed his American agent at this point.
My father’s cousin, Rita Joyce wrote long and detailed letters to my father and mother. Here is one of my father’s replies:
Gort na Ganiv.
January 25th 1955
Dear Rita,
Thank you for your letter. I’m glad you liked the book [he had sent her a copy of ‘Sunset on the Window Panes’] and pleased you wrote and said so. It’s encouraging to know that here and there; there are a few people who like what I’m trying to say.
We are very pleased to get home. It’s wonderful to sink into the old routine and watch the elements. We had a very bad winter since we came home, rain and floods and recently snow and frost, with pipes bursting and cars sliding. We are not used to weather like that so we are not geared up for it like Americans. Now the weather is grand and mild and there seems to be a suspicion of spring in the air. Very soon we will be on the lake fishing for trout and I will have to be resisting the temptation to fish unless I have done enough to earn our daily bread. I’m sure all around you is lovely in the spring with all those woods ready to burst.
Give our love to your mother and the rest of the family we didn’t meet. I don’t know when, if ever, we will get to America again, but I am sure (no matter what your mother says) that even if it is twenty years she will still be there to chat us.
All the best from the lot of us,
Yours sincerely,
Walter
In the summer of 1955, there came great news from his new American agent, Don Congdon:
Harold Matson Company,
30 Rockefeller Plaza,
New York 20.
June 22nd 1955
Dear Walter,
I’m delighted to report that Randy Williams of Macmillan wants to go ahead with a collection of short stories. He says: ‘We’ve read them with interest and genuine enthusiasm and while some are considerably better than others, that’s as might be expected in a collection of short stories.’ He says that he has worked out a plan for all the stories we have sent along. I am asking him for a formal list for the record. This I’ll send along to you when I get it.
The terms offered are $750 advance on signing, royalties of 10% on the list price to 5,000 copies, 12 and a half percent on the next 2,500 and 15% thereafter. If you’re agreeable I’ll forward the contract. They also want to have an option on your next novel. I hope that’s all okay with you.
Yours sincerely,
Don Congdon
More concrete news came in August 1955:
The Macmillan Company,
New York.
August 11th 1955
Dear Mr Macken,
Before we proceed to place your book of short stories, we should like to know in what order you would like to have the various stories appear in the book. For your convenience, these are the names of the stories:
The Proud Man, Gaeglers and the Wild Geese,
The Young Turk, Duck Soup,
Green Hills, The Curragh Race,
Barney’s Maggie, The Fair Lady,
The Gauger, The Wasteland,
The Atheist, Tuesday’s Children,
Hallmarked, The Lady And The Tom,
The Eyes of The Cat, Foreign Fish,
The Sailor, The King,
The Hurling Match,
The Boy and the Brace, The River.
We are a little disturbed at the title you have selected – namely, ‘Tales of a Citie’. The title is quite clear when one reads your dedication, but we are wondering whether it has in itself enough inherent appeal to capture the interest of a prospective buyer.
I talked to Mr Don Congdon about this and he thought that probably it didn’t make much difference what the title was, the book being a collection of short stories. Some of us rather liked the title ‘The Green Hills and Other Stories’ and others liked the title ‘The Proud Man and other stories’. Perhaps it does not make any difference, and we shall use the title you have suggested, unless on further thought you wish to make a change.
We are delighted indeed to have the privilege to publishing these stories and are most happy to have you back on our list of authors.
With kindest regards to you and Mrs Macken,
R. De Wilton
The year 1955 was a productive one as regards publishing – Sunset on the Window Panes was published and now a book of short stories, The Green Hills and Other Stories, was accepted and his new play, Twilight of a Warrior, was about to open in the Abbey Theatre and was going to be published as well. A letter came from Lovat Dickson at the end of August:
Macmillan & Co. Ltd.,
London.
Dear Walter,
Thank you for your letter of August 24th. Yes it will be fine if you send us the book of short stories when they are in proof. It will do splendidly if you get an amended script from the Abbey Theatre of ‘Twilight of a Warrior’ when they have rehearsed and have made their cuts. We will go ahead and try and get a London production for you. It’s a wonderful idea for a play, and should just appeal at this moment.
Yours ever,
Rache Lovat Dickson
In my father’s letters to Rita Joyce there is interesting news:
Gort na Ganiv.
Dec. 23rd 1955
Dear Rita,
Many thanks for your letter and card. It was kind of you to remember us. We were reading about the hurricane there with you and felt sorry remembering what the last one we experienced was like. My pen has been pretty slow for the past year. I wrote a new play called ‘Twilight of a Warrior’. It was produced in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin for a few weeks. It was very well received – adding enormously to my reputation but not a lot to my purse – and perhaps that’s the best way. It will be published in the New Year and I will send you a copy.
I have a collection of short stories being published in the US in the New Year called ‘The Green Hills’. You would be able to get a copy of that more quickly from your bookseller than I could get it to you. It is being published by the Macmillan Company. I hope when you have read it you will tell me which stories appealed most to you.
My eldest son Wally Óg will be going to University next year. At the moment (this is his 5th choice) he intends to study for his Master of Arts and after that to do an exam for the Diplomatic Service. I don’t think this is his final choice but he has until next October to decide. We are very well Thank God but it is very doubtful if you will see us in America in the foreseeable future. I have given up acting altogether and am endeavouring to live solely on the pen. It saves a lot of wear and tear on the body. So I’m afraid you will have to take a trip over to see us. That’s a more likely proposition. However, if we do get to New York, we won’t fail to go and see you. Tell your mother we send her our love and think of her often.
Sabina Walsh spent a week with us when she was in Europe last year. We had good fun. It’s a pity you don’t know one another better but sure that’s the way it is with close relations – the further apart they are the better it suits them and that has been going since the creation of the world. It’s the same way with ourselves. This Xmas is a bit sad for us. Just when the play started in Dublin, we had to rush back from the first night to get to the bedside of the eldest child of Peggy’s sister, Annette.
We watched her die for three hours. She was only 14, but the behaviour of Peggy’s sister and her husband in their terrible trial was a wonderful pointer for the strength imparted by our faith. It wasn’t that they weren’t heartbroken – they were and are – but they got the grace of fortitude. How awful if would be to have nothing to fall back on! We are setting up a Christmas tree for them and having them all out to our house – in a rather futile effort to induce forgetfulness.
We loved Christmas in New York the first time we were there. The whole world seemed to be lit up. But then of course we were separated from the lads and that wasn’t so good. So long, write again when you have time. Peggy sends her love to you and to your Mother and the lovely rosary beads always bring her to our minds.
God bless,
Yours sincerely,
Walter
My father also wrote to his American cousin Sabina about the death of Annette Lohan:
Gort na Ganiv.
Dec. 23rd 1955
My dear Sabina,
We were very relieved to get your letter, but sorry to hear about all the trouble [Sabina had been ill] and hope with the help of God that it is all now past – that you will recover your strength in the shortest possible time. We had a spot of trouble ourselves – not directly – you remember Peggy’s sister May – the tactless one!
Well my play was on at the Abbey in November and we went up for the first night, but on the way we heard that their eldest child, Annette, 14, was in hospital for an operation. That was Monday (the 21st November). We came back from Dublin on Wednesday at 3 p.m. and spent from then until 5 p.m. watching poor little Annette die. She was only sick for one week. If she had recovered, she would have been a semi-invalid for all her life – she had some sort of blockage in her intestines. Anyhow she suffered a lot of agony before she died. Even when one knows there is a logical theological reason for children to suffer before death – it is very hard to watch it. But out of this tragedy came the light from May of all people and her husband, Mick – incredible fortitude that could only come from deep faith.
It was a revelation to me. Not that they weren’t heartbroken but the way they took it! This all happened just a month ago. It seems much longer. We are having them all out here for Christmas, putting up a tree and inducing Santa Claus to pay a call in the hope that they might help them get over Xmas.
Do you remember Jimmy Joyce and Alma? Their baby – a girl – was very sickly when she was born but the doctors got to her in time. Jimmy got an attack of gall bladder and when they brought him in they discovered a TB patch on his lung. They haven’t told him yet.
I go to visit him every day. In six weeks if he shows no sign of improvement they will just have to tell him. Dr Seán Maguire told me. Alma knows but there is great stuff in that woman. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this tale of woe but I just thought it might help to console you with your own troubles. Tell Big Pete I was asking for him, all the best to you and Pete and Stephen and I hope that 1956 will bring us all together again.
All my love,
Walter
We had the Lohan’s out for Christmas 1955 and, from that time on, they became regular visitors to Gort na Ganiv. The father of the house, Mick Lohan, began fishing regularly with us on Sundays and sometimes on Thursday afternoons.
Twilight of a Warrior was first staged in the Abbey Theatre on Monday 21 November 1955. It was very realistic contemporary play as it tackled a very modern theme for that period in Ireland. The father of the house, an old IRA man, Dacey Adams is a successful businessman who suggests that his daughter Elva visit one of his old haunts, Toobreena, where he had staged a successful ambush. The play opens when Elva arrives back at her home with a new boyfriend, Abel, a young farmer Elva met at Toobreena. Elva has been engaged a number of times before and her father believes that this new boyfriend will be as easy to dismiss as the previous ones.
Living in the house with Dacey is his brother Affy, who is a bit of a drunk; his sister Gubby, who spends her time criticising everyone; Dacey’s wife Nessa; and their son Ross, a poet. Dacey married into the business and is, to a degree, under an obligation to his wife and her family. This new man coming into their lives causes friction, he is not afraid to face Dacey.
It struck me that the hostility between Dacey and Elva’s boyfriend is a bit like the way that my mother’s father regarded my father as not being good enough for his daughter. Even the way that Dacey spells out for his daughter what she would be facing her if she was to marry Abel – having to go back to live in a backward small farm where she would have to work to the bone – reminds me of my grandfather’s attitude to my mother marrying a thirty-shilling-a-week actor.