Down Memory Lane: The beginning of the story in Castlebar

By John Hughes, native of Cappavicar, Castlebar, now resident in Cobh, Co. Cork, who grew up in Mayo in the 1940s

PART 1

FOR many years I’ve made promises to myself and to others and have toyed with the idea of recording the memories I have of my childhood. Naturally some are good, some not so good, but they are all a part of my life. I often think when my generation is gone, as they said when they came off the Blasket Islands, there won’t be the likes of us again. That’s true. So, starting at the beginning, let's take a trip down memory lane.

As I sit here now this evening, a beautiful evening with the birds singing, I reflect back on all those years, the most of 80 years, and realise how little the more recent generations know about that life. I’m thinking about Mayo, Castlebar and Cappavicar.

The beginning of my family’s story started when my Mam left Mayo to join my Dad Jack in England, and that’s a story in itself. My Dad, Jack Hughes, was from Carramore and my mother came from Cappavicar, a little townland about five miles away.

Dad worked in the haulage business at the time when it was just horse and carts. He was also a great footballer. There were no nine to five jobs back then.

The Barretts were neighbours of ours and some of them were employed by the well known Wimpy’s contractors. One of them, John, also known as Ginger, was a very good friend of my dad’s. In fact, they shared a room later in England. So, because of this connection, Dad was able to get a job with Wimpy’s and went to England.

He had already met my mother, an only child, who was living with her father. I don’t think they had the best relationship; Mam could be very volatile at times.

She didn’t wait long once Jack went to England. She brought her father his dinner one day - he was working in the fields - and left straight after that without saying a word to him about her plans. My mam and dad ended up in Harwich, North London, where they got married. They rented a room there, and that’s where Seamus, my brother, was born, Lord have mercy on him. I followed not too long after.

They had great plans, but they didn’t work out, unfortunately. There was a man over in Germany who had other ideas.

When Hitler declared war in 1939, the bosses at Wimpy’s told Dad that because he had a wife and two very young children, it would not be safe for them in London, and they would have to leave.

And so, as the song goes, Hitler was heading falling. So they found themselves back in Mayo a lot sooner than they had expected. They went back to Carramore, and stayed initially with my dad’s uncle Patrick, and his wife, who had no family of their own, and were made very welcome until they were able to move back to Cappavicar.

When we had settled, my dad returned to England and was there right through the war. One of Wimpy’s main contracts at the time was to keep the airports open and that kept them busy.

I was too young to appreciate the challenges of those times and to realise how difficult it was for my mother rearing us on her own. My grandad was getting old and wasn’t in great health and so a lot fell on her shoulders. She was a great woman to provide for us. She grew everything, cabbage, spuds, onions and rhubarb, and was very proud of her garden. We had two pigs and some cows, so we were self-sufficient really.

And so, from these humble beginnings, a new generation began, and it’s from here that my story really begins.

Our home place was Cappavicar and my memories of it are mostly happy, though I missed my dad a lot. He was a lovely man. I never lost contact with his home place in Carramore. We used to go there on our holidays. It is a beautiful village, and the homestead is still there.

When I look back on that life from where I am today, I was starting out on a journey I couldn’t have envisaged in my wildest dreams.