Angela Byrne - Not Forgotten: The Story of an Extraordinary Irish Woman

Not
Forgotten

The Story of an
Extraordinary Woman

Angela Byrne

NOT FORGOTTEN

First published 2011

by New Island

2 Brookside

Dundrum Road

Dublin 14

www.newisland.ie

Copyright Angela Byrne, 2011

The author has asserted her moral rights.

ISBN 978-1-84840-134-1

All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owner.

British Library Cataloguing Data. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

New Island received financial assistance from

The Arts Council (An Comhairle Ealaon), Dublin, Ireland

Dedicated to Kittys memories

For my husband, John, and our children:
Lisa, John-James, Noel and Declan.

Thank you to my sister
Maura for her contributions and research.

Contents

Preface

Y ears ago a young mother sat with her dying aunt who begged her to fetch a notebook and pen so that she could write down the details of her family history. The old woman insisted that she should know the full story because she was sure that one day her niece would want to write a book about it. To humour her aunt, the young woman did as she was asked.

I was that young woman and my aunts words resonated through the years after her death until I finally came to realise that my familys story was indeed extraordinary. However it is also, sadly, a typical tale of the Irish diaspora: of fortunes sought, quiet lives torn by separation, loves lost and heart-rending reunions. The story haunted me until finally, one day, I was driven to my computer to record the history of my grandfather Olivers betrayal of my grandmother, Nora, and the impact that this betrayal had on the life of his daughter, my most unusual Aunt Kitty.

*

When I was a little girl I found Aunt Kitty difficult and even bad-tempered sometimes. My first memory of her is from when I was very small and she came to take care of me and my siblings when my mother, Betty, was ill. I missed my mother desperately and could not accept the stern Aunt Kitty. But when I grew up and became more patient and thoughtful, I became fascinated with the stories that Kitty had to tell, with her powers of recall and insight into her own life and the society that she grew up in. I have preserved her stories as much as possible in the pages that follow, adding information gleaned from old family letters and records and the memories of our mutual relatives, as well as official sources such as libraries and archives, many of which are now available online. However, most of what you are about to read is Kittys own testimony, taken both from my memories of conversations with her over the years and those notes that she requested I make in the leather-bound notebook. I have changed all of the names in the text to protect the privacy of our surviving relatives.

This is the story of events that took place from the 1920s onwards in a small, quite ordinary, Irish town events that have reverberated down through the generations of our family. But it is more particularly the story of one young Irish girl, Kitty, and how she grew up and reached womanhood under the most challenging and difficult of circumstances. It describes how she confronted the many obstacles in her path with all the resources available to her at a time when money was scarce, girls were expected to do what they were told, and opportunity was only there for the fearless. It is about how Kitty lived her life to the full and how, when the right moment came, she looked straight into the eyes of the person who had hurt her the most and confronted her own deepest fears, sorrows and anguish.

To a lesser extent, this book is also about us, the younger generations of her family, for whom Kitty has been an inspiration and a source of knowledge and insight not just about our own background, but also about an Ireland that has vanished and will never be seen again. We feel no nostalgia for this long-gone Ireland since, imperfect as things are today for most people and certainly for this family, they are still immeasurably better than they were then.

Angela Byrne

Kilkenny, October 2011

Kitty with her dog Brandy, Templemore Co. Tipperary

Prologue

P icture the Manchester Palais dance hall on Valentines Day 1919 the first Valentines Day after the end of the Great War. Four young girls from Tipperary notice a rather dashing stranger walking towards them and their hearts begin to pound as they look at each other and wonder which girl is about to get lucky. Oliver McManus is by far the finest man in the room that night and in just a few moments it will be Nora Langleys life that he turns upside down forever.

Will you dance? he asks, holding out his hand in the expectation that she will accept his invitation because Oliver has never been turned down by a girl before.

Hesitating for just a fraction of a moment, she smiles a breathless yes, puts her smaller hand into his and follows him onto the floor where scores of couples are already swaying to the latest dance tunes. It has happened and the electricity between the two is palpable. Nora melts into Olivers arms and they dance all night: slow dances, the foxtrot, quicksteps, the waltz and a few Irish dances for good measure. They seem bewitched by each other. Mary, Alice and Margaret, Noras friends, are intrigued too. Although they are all asked up onto the floor themselves, they cannot help sneaking glances in the direction of their rapt friend and her handsome partner. Who is this stranger that seems to have swept her off her feet? Where has he come from, and what are his intentions?

After the dance Oliver walks Nora and her friends home. When they reach the girls boarding house he is quite forward, asking if he can come in for a cup of tea and a cigarette so as to enjoy their company for a little longer. Nora agrees, of course. How can she resist? After all, she has her friends as chaperones and she can hardly bear to say goodbye to this captivating young gentleman.

The five young people sit up all night talking and smoking and drinking cups of tea. Oliver is full of stories about his time in France during the war, life in the trenches, and his heroic ability to get both himself and his friends out of life-threatening situations. He is, he assures them, a brilliant marksman, and it is because of this that he has survived and made it through against all the odds. What the girls do not know is that his ability to spin a tale has always made him popular company amongst his peers and enthralling young women is his favourite pastime. He has these four pretty friends eating from the palm of his hand tonight, captivated with his tales of derring-do and begging him for more until the room brightens to a grey, cold dawn.

Later that morning, with the dew still shining on the black railings outside the house, Oliver bids Nora farewell at the bottom of the stairs to the building. Will you come to the pictures with me tomorrow night? he asks. It would make me very happy indeed if you would say yes.