EPISODE 82 BUNMAHON 2960…A STARTLING LETTER RECEIVED JULY 16, 2020
NOTE: OUT OF THE BLUE…out of the internet I mean,..I just received a letter from Dan Dwan, a relative of my right hand man Barney Dwan in Ireland in 1960. He
found the Bunmahon stories on the Internet. Amazing. wonderful. Sixty years ago. So I am sending him a bunch of pictures. IN addition one of the stories I never sent to others…i.e.
my Irish date with Rena Casey.
There are periods in our lives that are frozen in our memories…and once warmed up those memories return ins such graphic detail
that they must seem to others as fabricated. That is why the pictures are so important…they establish that my memory has recorded
that summer of 1960 quite accurately.
DAN DWAN.
HI Dan…here is a pile of pics…most of which I used.
Maybe you can with help of Barney identify some of the characters in Kirwin’s pub.
Send pic of yourself and Barney…I will tie them into the final entires
(I called him Bandy for weeks which
made the crew laugh…and then they started to call him Bandy…followed by hoops of
laughter that confused me for a while. Barney just grinned. His Irish accent had confused me.)
One story I have not told and will do so now…i.e. the date I had with Rena Casey…entirely platonic as
she was just a nice person who walked on the cliffs and seemed interested in me. A replica of Maureen O’Hara. I Rented
an old van from Mr.s Kennedy…wreck…drove to Tramore to see a movie and then home. The
car stopped suddenly part way home which i think alarmed Rena…certainly alarmed me…got the
crank and got it started again. We were both nervous. I still remember the spot on the Tramore road
where the breakdown occurred…a dark place in the shadow of the Copper Cliffs of Tankardstown
I think. What must have been going through her mind? The car was at fault …not me.
Then a day or so later Mrs. Kennedy said
“Master Skeoch, the Casey’s bought a new studio couch”
“So?”
“Just informing you there may be expectations.” (Mrs. Kennedy did not approve)
I never spoke with Rena again as I feared hurting her feelings…I liked her as a person
not as a conquest. And I was certainly influenced by the Quiet Man…John Wayne and Maureen
O’Hara romance. A romantic at heart. I was more frightened by the ‘studio couch’ than
crawling through the abandoned mine adits and shafts. Years later, in 1965, Mrs. Kennedy told
me Rean had moved to London, married with three kids. Good for her.
My girlfriend in Canada at the time, Marjorie Hughes, later became my wife and we returned to
Bonmahon with my brother in 1965…and also later in the century. Both of our sons and both
of our daughters in law have been to bunmahon…passing through. The place lives in many
memories.
I found the people of Bunmahon fascinating
and loved our regular pints at Kirwin’s…loved the banter…the stories…the sprays of
Holy Water thrown at me on Sundays. No Irish hostility…no nastiness…just good times.
Hunting Technical and Exploration Services trusted me to do the job. That was flattering
and I worked hard lest I let them down. I hoped the project wold help Bunmahon. It did
not but the later publicity pushed by historian Des Cowman certainly did…now called the CopperTrail.
My company in Canada wondered why I hired so many people. They were paid so little
that I tried my best to get a little money in their hands. And the Irish cattle herds justified
the extra expense. So many cattle chewed up our lines that I thought the local milk
would be copper coloured. We needed men to patrol our base line. Even then the
cattle got the wire and regurgitated it in the fields in balls the size of baseballs. Many farmers
hated me I think…demanded compensation. I do not know if they were ever paid although
they should have been.
For the life of me I could not
understand how they could afford those pints of Guinness….dinner in a glass as they say…
We dared not start to buy rounds fearing our employees at Kirwin’s would feel duty bound
to reciprocate.
As a stupid gesture, I gave each man a pack of cigarettes on paydays…I did not know that
Wild Woodbine cigarettes… were the cheapest of cheap tobacco. I think I even gave out chocolate
bars just for fun. My company never complained. My boss will get this letter as well as you.
He once described me as precocious which I have found amusing.
alan skeoch
July 2020
P.S. Send a couple of pics.
