‘Knocked out’ with chapter in Breaffy book

By Tom Gillespie

I HAVE just finished reading Bennie Scahill’s (neé Heneghan) fabulous book, Living Outside The Castle Gates, where she recalls growing up in Breaffy outside Castlebar during the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s.

The castle in question, the 'Big House', was Breaffy House and it was a time when the era of landlordism was coming to an end.

The book is dedicated to her mother and father, Thomas and Sarah Heneghan, who are lovingly remembered in the 227-page memories.

I remember when her father passed away as Bennie’s brother, Martin, was in my class in St. Gerald’s College in Castlebar.

It was May 1968, just a short time before we sat our Leaving Certificate examination. Thomas worked in Teddy Bourke’s garage on Market Square and later at Castlebar Bacon Factory.

Along with a few of my class mates, we thumbed a lift to Breaffy for the funeral Mass. Ironically, it was my brothers-in-law to be, Andy and Sean Redmond, who picked us up at Kilkenny Cross.

After the Mass we walked with the funeral cortège to Breaffy Cemetery on the Cottage Road.

We were to have returned to class but instead we were ‘invited’ back to Babs McTigue’s Shamrock Bar, opposite the old St. Aloysius Breaffy Church, where just a month off 18 years I had a few pints of Smithwicks.

One section of Bennie’s book struck a deep cord with me.

On page 56 she wrote about ‘The Mystery Tour’, where one day a doctor and nurse came to Breaffy National School to examine the tonsils of the pupils. Bennie was about nine years old at the time and unfortunately she, along with a few others, were chosen to have their tonsils removed.

She wrote: 'We were put into some kind of bus or ambulance and transported to a big building in Castlebar.

The next thing I remember was that we were all in front of a curtain, with the girls at the front sitting on a form.

'When I looked around the boys were all standing behind us with only long shirts on. I don’t even remember what gear I was in at this stage, but I was kind of wondering what happened that the boys had no trousers on them.

'Then all of a sudden someone was putting a hand into the group and taking a hold of me, so I must have been the first for the operation. I was taken into a large room with big lights over a bed.'

Then she wrote, which for me were these deja vu sentences: ‘Cotton wool with a funny smell on it was put over my face. The next thing I knew I was in another bed and all the other children were in beds all around in this big room’.

This rekindled the memory of when I had my tonsils out, and it was not at all a pleasant one.

One morning when I was about eight or nine I was duped by my mother to go up town with her. We called into Bourke’s bicycle shop on Ellison Street where Miss Bourke said she would bring us for a spin in her car. This obviously had been prearranged.

We walked to Market Square where her car was parked and then the bomb was dropped that I was going to the County Hospital to have my tonsils removed, but not before I was safely placed in the back seat.

When I realised the dilemma I was in, I tried my best to escape, but to no avail as the car was a two-door vehicle and I was trapped in the back.

We drove back up on to Ellison Street, on to Mountain View, pulling up outside the main door of the old hospital.

All the while I was resisting their attempts to have me incarcerated in the hospital. I even tried kicking out the side windows.

Eventually they got me inside the main door and I made several vain attempts to run away and escape their clutches.

However, the ever vigilant head porter, Michael Ralph, aka Dr. Ralph, proved stronger than me and I was ushered – no, dragged screaming - to the theatre where surgeon Paddy Bresnihan awaited my arrival.

I struggled on but the chloroform-loaded cotton wool was held over my face and, still flailing, I succumbed to the anaesthetic.

Like Bennie, I awoke, unable to speak and with a very sore throat.

I feared for my release because of my pre-operation antics and what my mother would say over my protestations.

Thankfully, it seemed they were all forgotten.

My father came to collect me from the hospital in Billy Newell’s hackney car. On my arrival home at Marian Row I got the greatest sympathy from the whole family.

I was put to bed for a while and when I arrived down in the kitchen I was in for a rare treat - ice cold ice-cream and strawberries.

Getting back to Bennie’s book, it is a nostalgic masterpiece for anyone with Breaffy connections or those who enjoy peeps into the past on how our parents and grandparents eked out a living.

This is a social history of an era when the main mode of transport was the bicycle.

Among the entertaining chapters are a visit to the dentist, the bacon factory, Rineanna (Shannon) Airport and memories of the Brown’s of Breaffy and the estate workers.

A superb addition to the book is an accompanying 13-track CD dedicated to the people who lived and died after the evictions and famine of the 1800s, with singing, reciting and storytelling.

The book is available at the Castle Book Shop, Castle Street, Castlebar, priced €20. I recommend it as a must for Christmas.