Mairtín Ó Catháin reflects on memories of Christmas in rural Ireland

Will I be able for this? That was the question rumbling in your mind as you eyed the table. Mary Ann had chopped off one good lump of a homemade cake of bread and covered it high and wide with butter and jam.  

Christmas! 

Her worldly effects might be small but there was bread and butter and jam. And the butter and jam were heaped on at Christmas. This was the treat.

You were not going to refuse the butter and jam even though it was a mouthful of some proportions. This was especially for you at Christmas.

Christmas in rural Ireland

Mary Ann’s house was a home for all age groups at Christmas. They would talk about the past. Old events, old times, and Christmases that had faded from the memory only to be resurrected again at Mary Ann’s fireside.

We, children, did not have a past to talk about; a future full of Christmases lay before us. But one thing intrigued us – the melodeon on top of the dresser.

Where did it come from? Who played the music? Could it be brought down so we could see it in detail? The answer was no.

The melodeon was all right where it was; it has been there for a long time. If Mary Ann’s husband, Peadar, was needed to copper fasten her stance on the melodeon, he also stepped in with a firm “no”.  

It was jam and butter and plenty of both to celebrate this special time – in a different world and a different time. A townland in the far west of Connemara. And leave the melodeon alone.

Caroline Kennedy

On my travels in America, I had the experience of meeting Caroline Kennedy on two different occasions. One of those meetings was during the pre-Christmas period about 20 years ago.

She was doing a book signing at the President Kennedy Library in Boston. She had selected the pieces and edited the material for the book entitled ‘A Family Christmas‘. 

One of the first items in the book is a letter to Santa from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C. in December 1962.

Dear Santa,

I would like a pair of silver skates – and one of those horse wagons with lucky dips -and Susie Smart and Candy Fashion dolls and a real pet reindeer and a clock to tell time and a covered wagon and a farm and you decide anything else.

And interesting planes or bumpy thing he can ride in or some noisy thing or something he can push or pull for John.

                                                    Love from Caroline.

P.S.  I would like a basket for my bicycle.

That was the letter Caroline Kennedy, the little daughter of President John F. Kennedy sent to Santa in 1962. The John she refers to was her younger brother.

I remember asking Caroline Kennedy if she had memories of those halcyon days as a little girl in the White House. 

I noticed how her demeanor changed, how her voice weakened for a moment. “Yes, don’t we all have memories of Christmas in our hearts.” But I sensed those memories would not be talked about.

Memories of rural life

But what about the melodeon in the little thatched house in a small townland in the far west of rural Connemara? As the years went by, I learned what it was all about.

Mary Ann and Peadar had a son who played the melodeon. People used to hear him play on summer evenings. But his tunes would be limited by the vagaries of time; he developed a psychiatric condition.

He was brought on the long road from west Connemara to what was then, unfortunately termed the ‘mental’ (now known as psychiatric) hospital in Ballinasloe and there he spent his life until he passed away. The melodeon was the only reminder of him now. 

And I often wondered what Mary Ann felt when we pestered her about the accordion.

Two women in two different worlds at Christmas – Caroline Kennedy in the White House and Mary Ann in a thatched cottage in Connemara.

But, their human hearts were the same, and the stories that haunted their memories at Christmas might never be told.