Month: September 2021

EPISODE 428     AIDAN COFFEY..IRISH PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND.IRISH PAINTER SENDS A PERSONAL 

alan skeoch

Sept. 2021

NICE THINGS DO HAPPEN EVEN IN OUR VERY TROUBLED WORLD.

Right now we are living in a very troubled world.  The troubles need not be mentioned here because this story

is about a little village on the south coast of Ireland where I suddenly found myself in 1960.  A village that burned

itself so deep into my psyche that I remember every event as if they happened yesterday.  And that was 62 years ago.

Earlier in these Episodes I told many stories about Bonmahon and the mysterious abandoned copper mine of Knockmahon whose

abandoned tower broods over the village.

Take a moment and study the painting by Aidan Coffey below.   Then read Aidan’s very flattering email message.

Hello Alan,

I’m from Ballylaneen, near Bunmahon, County Waterford. I was fascinated with your photographs from the Bunmahon area from 1960 on your website. I’ve been travelling through your writings about your time there, downloading photos with people in them, and I’ve been getting my mother (now aged 83) to help identify them. I knew Mrs Kennedy, who you mention and Sis Kirwan of Kirwans pub, long deceased. As well as my interest in local history, I have painted many scenes from around County Waterford. I have attached a few of my efforts here, and you may recognise them. I still travel to County Waterford once a week and take my mother for a drive around all those areas you would have been familiar with, photographing as I go with paintings in mind.

I look at your photographs as precious documents of local history. Thank you for taking them (as such a young person in 1960) and thinking to post them on the internet. The attached photo you took of the Bally Inn in Ballylaneen in 1960 is one of my favourites. I remember it exactly like that as a child. The building got renovated in the early 70s and changed a bit, though it still does have the thatch today: it closed recently and is now for sale. I worked there in the bar as a 14-year-old in 1976 – and painted a picture of it in  1981 for the then owner. That’s your car, the unusual one in front? Your photos of the little isolated church and the thatched cottages are also interesting (the area is called Faugheen, a mile from Bunmahon). The cottages have now disappeared, but the little church is still well maintained. I wondered do you have other County Waterford photos not yet posted on your website? I would like to see them and get persons in them identified while my mother’s memory is still good.
I won’t write more here now in case you don’t get this email.
Kind regards

Aidan Coffey
Address etc, etc

Ah yes,  John Hogan and I spent one evening in the Ballyaneen pub  … frothy draughts of Guinness

coupled with spontaneous outbursts of song.  Not done for our benefit.  Singing and drinking for the pure joy of

people getting together in a small pub in a small village on the western edge of the County Waterford.  Folk songs.

Good time songs mostly …’ When Irish Eyes are Smiling’ —those kinds of songs but more local than that.  “Danny

Boy” kind of music with a twist.  We were told about the music at this pub by one of our employees.  Early in our

job I hired most of the men and boys in the village of Bonmahon.  Paid them one pound a day plus a pack of Wilde 

Woodbine cigarettes as a kind of tip. They needed the work.   Our boss back in Canada wondered why we needed 

so many employees…i.e. about ten men.  I did not mention that need was the reason.  It was partly so.  But there were

jobs to do.   Deep trenches had to be dug in hope that a copper bloom would be found on the bed rock,   A boy had

to guard our motor generator form marauding pigs   I needed a man to lift me over the stone fences that bound the tiny Irish fields.

A couple of line cutting survey crews had to be trained, Lots of reasons.  Good public relations.  Intead of being

regarded as intruders we wanted to be loved as pseudo-Irish.

WHAT WERE WE DOING?

Just a quick explanation for those who did not read the Earlier Episodes.  I was a second year student at the University of Toronto

who has been trained in the operation of a Turam Electro-Magnetic Mining survey system on a job in western Alaska the previous

summer.  Good luck.  So I was sent to Ireland in the summer of 1960.  I wanted to do a good job for my Canadian boss,

Dr. Norman Paterson who trusted me.  We were a team of three.   Dr. John Stam, a geophysicist…John Hogan, a geologist

with Denison Mines and me, a young 22 year old venturing into the world like Voltaire’s Candide.  I was designated as a

‘Field Man’.  My job was to get the magnetic readings for Dr. Stam to interpret and John Hogan to oversee as the

contractor’s rep.  Let’s not overstate my role.  I was the grunt…the guy who got his hands dirty.  Or better stated

I was the guy who had to pick the ticks off his body after work each day.  The grunt.  As a result I got the closest to

the Irish who lived in the village.  And I still remember them.  Even the village priest got involved, or so I thought, when

the boys pointed him out standing on the road sometimes watching.  

Our project held the promise of reopening the abandoned Knockmahon copper mine last open in the 1870’s

Everyone hoped we would do that.  I wish we had been successful but we were not.

Here is Aidan Coffey’s painting of the Mahon River spilling into the Atlantic Ocean.  In the distance is the Catholic Church

where i attended Sunday Mass and tried to avoid the Holy Water that the lads tried to hit me with knowing I was a

Presbyterian.   Bridey, our maid, ripped the covers off my bed on my first Sunday and announced it was time for 

Mass.  Got to really enjoy being part of this tiny village community.

This is Bonmahon as it appeared in 1960 and as it appears today. See the house on the curve.  We rented the

top floor in 1960.  Mrs. Kennedy and her family lived below us somewhere in the rambling building part of which was 

the only store in Bonmahon.   Mrs. Kennedy was a powerful woman who kept a close eye on us because a previous

group of Canadian mining men had raised hell in the village.  She grew to like us because, initially, we played pinochle at night

Even our drinking was restrained.  Down towards the sea there are two buildings …two pubs.

The pub on the left was the Anglican (Church of Ireland) pub and the pub almost hidden by trees is Kirwin’s pub

which was the watering hole for the Catholics who were the great majority.   We drank in Kirwin’s with our employees.

The Mahon River weaves its way to the sea (top left) and far in the distance stand the old mine workings.  The black

cliffs were not black…coloured with mineral stains.   Here and there along the cliffs were old adits…horizontal mine

holes which Barney Dwan, my main man, took me on adventures many evenings.  Crawling on our stomachs at times.

Doing the kind of things that 22 year old single males adore.

This is the Kennedy family.  Wonderful people.   I got to know their son Gerald best of all because he tended to follow me around quite

a bit along with his guardian, an aged and long suffering Labrador dog that Gerald sometimes tried to ride.

Here are some of our employees flanked by Dr. John Stam on the left and John Hogan on the right.  The young man in the middle

in the checked shirt is Barney Dwan who became a close friend leading me into the bowels of the earth in evening explorations.  I called

him Bandy for a long time because the Waterford accent was so different.  That made everyone laugh each time I said it.  By the end

of the job they were all calling him Bandy.

One curious thing about Bonmahon was the fact that no one was the descendent of a miner even though there were once over 2,000 people

living here in the 19th century.  Miners are nomadic because mines are finite.  Once the ore is gone, the miners leave.  Many of the 

Bonmahon 19th century miners came from Cornwall and moved on in mass to mines in the Unied States.  Another curious fact was

that many were Methodists.   The Catholic Church was once Methodist I seem to remember discovering.  The presence of Methodists

played hell with the numerous pubs that were once present.

Hell is a word that should not be forgotten.  Mining in Bonmahon was the closest thing to hell I have experienced.   Low pay  Dirty dangerous

work in the darkness of the earth with just candles and little else to light the way.  Before closing the Knockmahon copper mine had

tunnelled under the Atlantic Ocean.  Think about that.  Think about climbing up and down long wooden ladders in a darkness so black

that sight was useless.

The publicists of County Waterford now call the region around Bonmahon “The Copper Coast” in the hopes that it will become

a mecca for tourists.   Lucky for Bonmahon the skeletal remains of the Knockmahon mine still towers over the community giving

the area a charm not to be forgotten.   I remember the open main shaft here because it had been used as a garage dump with

all kinds of treasures particularly a whole truckload of glass milk bottles.  Seems the milk was being packaged differently or

the bottle style was obsolete.  I never had the nerve to crawl down that sloping mass of waste in search of treasure. 

That is Dr. Stam and John Hogan going for a stroll along the Copper Coast Highway.

MUCH MORE TO COME…BUT FIRSST WE NEED TO CONSIDER 

‘THE QUIET MAN’…REMEMBER THE MOVIE?

alan skeoch

Sept. 2021

alan skeoch

sept. 12, 2021

While I am waiting for permission to send surprise email from Bonmahon, Ireland,

I send this filler … just an attempt to document the nature of a movie return to our barn storage.

Boring?   See if your imagination can suggest the story line in the movie.

alan skeoch

Set. 2021

“Come into the office on Sept. 9?”

That was all I heard.   The word ‘procedure’ may have been used by the doctor

but that was all Greek to me.  So  I carried on as usual. 

 “Marjorie we have two trucks coming

to the farm today ,both delivering things of ours from Erica and Naomi…then at 2.30 I have a doctor appointment

to look at my head…bump that’s been there for 40 0r 50 years.. 

 Busy day lugging beautiful objects from the back of a five ton truck. A plow, sap pails, electric motors.. Marjorie sometimes uses

the word ‘junk’ which grieves me even if she might be right Second truck had big things…work benches

a pile of ladders, broken grind stone, large mobile racks.   For five hours we unloaded.

Hard work.  Near completion Marjorie set out coffee, bagels and cream cheese for the movie

people.

“Have to rush.  Doctors expect promptness  Wants to take a look at the bump…my brain is so big 

it is expanding.”

So we rushed back to Mississauga.  I changed clothes…even put on a new (used) pair of shoes

we got at the Salvation Army Thrift store.   Then I zipped over to the medical place.  Took ages

to get through the door. Like a space capsule.  Then the receptionist cross examined me for Covid 19.

Mostly verbal. Made me wonder if people lied when asked.  I was cleared . Took a seat. Alone.

  I do not remember anyone who used the word ‘procedure’.  Then Nurse Stephanie welcomed me

and ushered me down a long hallway lined with perfect sheets of mahogany.  Quite a spiffy

place.  What is a plastic surgeon? Attractive nurses for sure.

A door opened to a room in stark white with all kinds of mobile things attached to the ceiling.

“Take off your shoes, please, and sit on the bed”  

“How will I get the shoes back on … no shoe horn..must they be removed?”

“Yes, afraid so.”

I sat on a bed that was really a gurney.

“Will you lie on your back.”

“Is that necessary…I would rather sit.”  (How the hell would I get back up if flat on the gurney?)

“Yes, necessary to do the procedure.”

(Procedure?…that word again)

Bright lights on my head.  Closed my eyes.  Then my head was covered with a disposable sheet

with a hole for the ‘procedure’.   And another cover was over my eyes.  Any air I could get came

from under the sheets and then through the goddamn face mask.  This was no joke…this ‘procedure’

business.  My forehead was rubbed with some goop, perhaps alcohol and the doctor began some

fast cutting.  Hurt but not screaming hurt.  This was not what I expected.

“Are you OK?” asked one of the nurses.

“I am beginning to feel like Frankenstein.”  (Remember his head with the wires and cuts?)

Someone may have laughed.  Nor sure anyone was listening to me.  They…I counted four voices…were

chit chatting and talking about the incision…the scarring.

“Will this raise or lower my I.Q?”

“How does that feel?”

“How does a kick in the arse feel?” I responded honestly if a little impolitely.

(How long was this going to take…what if I throw a panic attack? No one

said anything about stitching up my head.  No one needed to. I felt the needles

work.  No big pain though.  Best not to think about it.  I thought of my brother

getting his throat cut to have his  thyroid  removed. Far worse.  Of course he was not

awake like I was.  Also thought of my high school friend Kaye Donovan who just

spent two months in a hospital  bed.  I would be off the gurney soon..and out of here

in the outdoor air with no need for the mask.

 Then some tape was applied and a bandage of some kind. Gently.

“And now for your chest, Alan.”

(God. no!  Damn close to my heart.  Had the little red spot for 30 years  Why did I tell

Dr. Maharchand about it?  Stupid.)

“More cutting and stitching?” I asked. careful not to stutter or use bad words.

No answer.  They probably feared I would use the F word.

“There, all done…and look what I found?”

Don’t tell they took out my heart.

“See?”

And nurse Stephanie held up a shoe horn and proceeded to put my shoes back on.

“Thank you.  Don’t know how I would have managed.”

“Anything for a patient, Alan.”

“Can I go now?”

“Yes, follow me.   Now remember only take showers.”

“I like my bath tub.””

“Only showers for the next three weeks.  And no strenuous activity.”

“My business involves physical activity…need to work.”

“What business?”

“Movies.  We provide sets and props.  People need to be entertained.”

“How interesting.”

“This place would make a good movie.  Lots of tension.”

( I did not say horror movie but thought about the time Dad took me

to the Doric theatre way back in 1949 where evil doctors were selling

corpses…that movie terrified me so much that I could not go to the

Doric for ages.)

“Thank you Stephanie, were you the person who stitched me up?”

“One of the persons…there were two of us doing that.”

Somehow a ,mental image of Scarface took form.

Then “Click!”  I was out the door.  Different door than I came in … just

like the doors in the 1949 horror flick.

Later the nurse  phoned and got Marjorie.

“Alan had no idea he was to be operated on today.  You know

he is deaf…hard of hearing.   He probably never heard you say

the word procedure and just nodded.”

“Really?”

“Marjorie, I heard the word ‘procedure”…I just did not know what it meant.

Now I know.”