{"id":5146,"date":"2020-07-16T16:49:42","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T20:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=5146"},"modified":"2020-07-16T16:52:11","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T20:52:11","slug":"episode-82-bunmahon-1960-a-startling-letter-recieved-july-16-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=5146","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 82 BUNMAHON 1960 … A STARTLING LETTER RECIEVED JULY 16, 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"
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EPISODE 82    BUNMAHON 2960\u2026A STARTLING LETTER RECEIVED JULY 16, 2020<\/div>\n

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NOTE:  OUT OF THE BLUE\u2026out 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<\/div>\n
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\u2026i.e.<\/div>\n
my Irish date with Rena Casey.   <\/div>\n

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There are periods  in our lives that are frozen in our memories\u2026and  once warmed up those memories return ins such graphic  detail<\/div>\n
that they must seem to others as fabricated.   That is why the pictures are so important\u2026they establish that my memory has recorded<\/div>\n
that summer of  1960 quite accurately.<\/div>\n

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DAN  DWAN.<\/div>\n

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HI Dan\u2026here  is a  pile of pics\u2026most of which  I  used.<\/div>\n

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Maybe you can with help of Barney identify some of the characters in Kirwin\u2019s pub.<\/div>\n

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Send  pic of yourself  and  Barney\u2026I  will tie them into the final entires<\/div>\n

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(I called him Bandy for weeks which<\/div>\n
made the crew laugh\u2026and then they started to call him Bandy\u2026followed by hoops of<\/div>\n
laughter that confused me for a while.  Barney just grinned.  His  Irish accent had confused me.)<\/div>\n

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One story I have not told  and will do  so now\u2026i.e.  the date I had with Rena Casey\u2026entirely platonic as<\/div>\n
she was just a nice person who walked on the cliffs  and  seemed  interested in me.   A replica  of Maureen O\u2019Hara.  I Rented<\/div>\n
an old van from Mr.s Kennedy\u2026wreck\u2026drove to Tramore to see a movie and then home. The<\/div>\n
car stopped suddenly part way home which i think alarmed Rena\u2026certainly alarmed  me\u2026got the<\/div>\n
crank and got it started again.  We were both nervous.  I still remember the spot on the Tramore road<\/div>\n
where the breakdown occurred\u2026a dark place in the shadow of the Copper Cliffs of Tankardstown<\/div>\n
I think.  What must have been going through her mind?  The car was at fault \u2026not me.<\/div>\n

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Then a day or so later Mrs. Kennedy said<\/div>\n

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 \u201cMaster Skeoch, the Casey\u2019s bought a new studio couch\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cSo?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cJust informing you there may be expectations.\u201d  (Mrs. Kennedy did not approve)<\/div>\n

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I never spoke with Rena  again as I feared hurting her feelings\u2026I liked her as a person<\/div>\n
not as  a conquest.   And  I was  certainly influenced by the Quiet Man\u2026John Wayne and Maureen<\/div>\n
O\u2019Hara romance.  A romantic at heart.  I was more frightened by the \u2018studio couch\u2019 than <\/div>\n
crawling through the abandoned mine adits and shafts.  Years later, in 1965, Mrs. Kennedy told<\/div>\n
me Rean had moved  to London, married  with three kids.  Good for her.<\/div>\n

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 My girlfriend in Canada at the time, Marjorie Hughes, later became my wife and  we returned to<\/div>\n
Bonmahon with my brother in 1965\u2026and also  later in the century.  Both of our sons and both<\/div>\n
of our daughters  in law have been to bunmahon\u2026passing through.  The place lives in many<\/div>\n
memories.<\/div>\n

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 I found the people of Bunmahon fascinating<\/div>\n
and loved  our regular pints at Kirwin\u2019s\u2026loved the banter\u2026the stories\u2026the sprays of<\/div>\n
Holy Water thrown at me on Sundays.  No  Irish hostility\u2026no nastiness\u2026just good  times.<\/div>\n

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Hunting Technical and Exploration Services trusted me to do  the job.  That was flattering <\/div>\n
and I worked  hard lest I let them down.  I hoped the project wold help  Bunmahon.  It did<\/div>\n
not but the later publicity pushed  by historian Des Cowman certainly did\u2026now called the CopperTrail.<\/div>\n

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My  company in Canada wondered why I hired  so many people.  They were paid so  little<\/div>\n
that I tried my best to get a little money in their hands.   And the Irish cattle herds justified<\/div>\n
the extra expense.  So many  cattle chewed  up our lines that I thought the local milk<\/div>\n
would be copper coloured.    We needed men to patrol our base line.  Even  then the<\/div>\n
cattle got the wire and  regurgitated  it in the fields in balls the size of baseballs.   Many farmers<\/div>\n
hated me I think\u2026demanded  compensation.  I do not know if they were ever paid although<\/div>\n
they should have been.<\/div>\n

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 For the life of me I could not<\/div>\n
understand how they could afford those pints of  Guinness\u2026.dinner in a glass as they say\u2026<\/div>\n
We dared not start to buy rounds fearing our employees  at Kirwin\u2019s would feel duty bound<\/div>\n
to reciprocate.<\/div>\n

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As a stupid gesture, I gave each man a pack of cigarettes on paydays\u2026I did  not know that<\/div>\n
Wild Woodbine cigarettes… were the cheapest of cheap tobacco.  I think I even gave out chocolate <\/div>\n
bars just for fun.   My company never complained.   My boss will get this letter as well as you.<\/div>\n
He once described me as  precocious which I have found  amusing.<\/div>\n

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<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
July  2020<\/div>\n

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P.S.  Send  a couple of pics.<\/div>\n

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EPISODE 82    BUNMAHON 2960\u2026A STARTLING LETTER RECEIVED JULY 16, 2020 NOTE:  OUT OF THE BLUE\u2026out 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}