Tourmakeady - a 40-year perspective from 1948 to 1988

THE late Joe Mulrooney, who lived in Partry, a former Mayo Man of the Year (1970), a member of Mayo County Council, the Vocational Educational Committee, and a founding member of the Western Care Association in 1966, contributed an article to the Mayo Association Galway magazine, Seventeen Years A-Growing, in 1988, writes Tom Gillespie.

In it he looked back on what changes he had encountered since arriving in Tourmakeady as a teacher in 1948.

He wrote: The donkey and horse have been replaced by the car and tractor. The good slanes man is just a memory and the big turf machine cuts as much in a couple of hours as a man would for a week.

Outside the church the biggest problem is the parking of cars - a far cry from the hundreds or more bicycles leaning against one another and against the wall.

In 1948 the country was recovering from the Emergency - all the rest of Europe was counting the cost of the war. There was no work for the young people. They were restless and turning their eyes to greener fields far away.

Toiling from early until late had little appeal when post from England told of plenty of work and good pay rebuilding the houses and factories bombed during the war.

The trickle of emigration soon became a flood as the young people who went in search of work and ‘craic’ made it much more enticing for others to follow.

Tourmakeady was a close-knit community, Irish speaking to a great extent so that my earliest memories of them were to hear them speaking our native language in Ballinrobe on a market day.

It was then the hungry ‘30s, when money was really scarce and opportunities practically non-existent.

Still the shopkeepers in my native Ballinrobe had a saying that 'You could give credit without worry to a Tourmakeday man because he always paid his way'.

My childhood memories had predisposed me to think of the men and women west of Lough Mask as people rather special or at least not just run of the mill. So here was an opportunity to find out as I set out on my bike to teach in Tourmakeady (Treanlaur) for, as I thought, a year or two - I stayed happily for practically 40 years to my retirement.

I found a happy, contented community, proud of their part in the Black and Tan troubles and taking the rough with the smooth without undue complaint.

The schoolchildren were a delight, happy and enjoying their childhood. Judging by today’s standards (1988) they would seem deprived but how wrong that impression would be.

When people speak of bare-footed children as if they were deprived they obviously never saw the joy of kids throwing off their shoes when the first of May arrived and for the first week all the bare toes in the school never seemed to stop wiggling as if to prove that the restrictions of the shoes had gone.

The deprived children were those, who for one reason or another, had to keep their shoes on, though it must be said that it was not unusual to find pairs of shoes hidden in a hole in the wall.

Of course, there was the odd operation to remove a thorn or to deal with a stone bruise, but sure that was part of the teacher’s job!

The atmosphere in the school was different to today's because it was only the very odd one who was able to participate in secondary education and therefore they stayed in the national school until they were 15 or 16 years of age.

While those days were enjoyable they were also frustrating as you knew, without doubt, that in a few years time they would call to the school to bid ‘Slán’ to the máistir prior to taking off for London or Chicago. It was mass exodus by the time they reached 18 or 19 years.

In 1956 I went back on the school register to find out where the 18-year-olds and upwards, who had been in the school, were now residing. Out of 100 boys and 100 girls there were but 17 in Ireland. Eight-and-half per cent had managed to avoid the boat.

An interesting statistic that we found was that there were more people who were born in the school area in Chicago than there were people then living in the area.

It was not all gloom and doom. Gaeltarra Éireann opened their knitting factory in 1950 and at last there was work for the girls, though in the early years the girls only worked there until they ‘were strong enough to go to America’.

A new parish hall was built by Fr. Fair and that gave a focal point to the community. The ESB arrived and made life that bit more pleasant and gave the hall an uplift. Because we had lighting we were able to organise plays and many a good night’s entertainment was enjoyed as the locals trod the boards.

Plays in Irish were performed regularly and for six years we ran an Irish drama festival. It ran every night for a fortnight each year and became one of the highlights of the year.

It reached its climax in 1960 when President De Valera, on his first visit to the west as president, came to officially open it.

My fondest memory of the day is the performance of my own school play and the excitement of the children to be performing for Dev.

Our leading actor, Mick Lally, was probably the most awe stricken of the lot. Here he was putting his best foot forward with his childhood hero in the audience. Boy’s dreams are made of such but here was reality. No wonder Mick made it big since - we trained Miley in Tourmakeady.

The 1960s and ‘70s were the era of hope. Gaeltarra built a new modern factory and began to employ men to work on the big knitting machines. The men married and kept the girls at home. Many of the emigrants of the ‘50s came home. New houses sprang up and the old ones were modernised.

A football team was formed and went on to win Junior and Intermediate county honours. We progressed to senior ranks and gave a good account of ourselves.

There was a new vibrancy in the area and everyone seemed to walk a bit taller. Where there had been six cars 20 years ago (1968) there were now 200. The EEC brought in the subsidies. There is not a horse in the area - particularly every farmer has his own tractor. It looks as if we will never see hard times again.

But, mo bhrón, the crisis in the economy turned everything turtle. The demand for our top class knitwear diminished, and even through a second factory opened with jobs for women, the chill of unemployment was again being felt.

The emigration flood is in full spate. Many of our best are illegal emigrants in the US and many more are earning a good living in England. Will we see them back again?

It is in time of crisis that the true worth of a community is tested. The Sisters of Mercy, after three decades of dedicated service in Tourmakeady, decided to close Coláiste Mhuire in 1990. The shock shook the parish. A local committee was formed and with the kind cooperation of the Mercy Order took over the management of the college. Money was needed urgently and in one month £20,000 was subscribed by the 200 houses in the area.

So with the good will of the Sisters and the backing of the local community the college has been saved. There will be hard work to be done, and much more money to be collected but, sure, we are used to hard work.

What of the future? We have weathered many storms and we have no intention of foundering in the present.