Mary O’Donovan

Title

Mary O’Donovan

Description

Mary is an elderly woman who recalls her life history. She feels that her memory is not so good, but she clearly recalls personal rather than more general events. Mary was born (circa 1901) in Sarsfield Terrace. Her aunt was ‘a lady’s companion’ to the wife of a colonel who lived in Sunday’s Well. Her grandmother wore a black cape and a black bonnet. The family moved to Hibernian Buildings, and then to Church Avenue, Chapel Hill. Her mother was a dressmaker. As a young woman she worked as a shirtmaker in Dwyer’s factory, and then met her husband. (She states later that she got married in 1922). She and her husband lived with her mother before the corporation gave her a house in Farranferris Avenue. She remembers a fragment of a skipping rhyme she sang as a child. She briefly describes the religious ceremony of ‘churching’, which she describes in a positive light. Mary worked for Tomás Mac Curtain, the Lord Mayor of Cork who was shot by the Black and Tans, and she describes her last day at work with him before he was killed. She sings a verse of ‘Wrap The Green Flag Round Me, Boys’, which a street singer had sung earlier in the day before Mac Curtain was shot. As a Girl Guide she joined others saying the Rosary outside a prison in Cork where Republican prisoners were on hunger strike.

Date

11.05.1998

Identifier

CFP_SR00197_odonovan_1998

Source

Cork Folklore Project

Rights

Cork Folklore Project

Language

English

Interviewee

Interviewer

Duration

43m51 s

Location

Cara House, Redemption Road, Cork

Original Format

Cassette

Transcription

Sample of Transcript:

C F:  Did you have your children at home Mary?

 

M O D:  I had mine at home.

 

C F:  All of them

 

M O D:  All of them, yes.

 

C F:  And did you have the help of the local lady?

 

M O D:  Pardon?

 

C F:  Did you have the help of a local woman? --

 

M O D:  I had?

 

C F:  For bringing them into this world? Who would she of been?

 

M O D:  Well, if there is a girl here in the room here next to us, Annie Murphy, her mother was a midwife for three or four of my children. The last of mine, and the one’s previous to that there. Of course she’d be a Mrs [long pause] I can’t remember you know, but they were like, oh I can’t remember her name now. But Mrs. Murphy anyway was at three or four of my last children, she lived over there on St. Mary’s rd. And her daughters a patient here at the moment. Annie Murphy I don’t know if she is here yet or not.

 

C F:  Oh I think I know who you are talking about. I do.

 

M O D:  Yeah.

 

C F:  I do, I think I do, is she from St. Brendan’s road?

 

M O D:  No, no, no, the house that Mary, Annie Murphy, was born and reared in and she is a patient here so now you can imagine.

 

C F:  Ok Mary.

 

M O D:  And she is the last of her family there all of them, all of them dead, but Anne is, and she still alive. But you know the way at the moment, she’s a patient at the moment here –

 

C F:  Oh I see ok.

 

M O D:  And her name is Anne Murphy

 

C F:  Alright Mary. And can you remember, can you tell me some things about the Black and Tans, what they did?

 

M O D:  Oh don’t be talking girl, they done terrible things, first of all you know they shot Tomás Mac Curtain.

 

C F:  Right.

 

M O D:  You know that don’t you.

 

C F:  I do.

 

M O D:  Yeah, I was working with him at the time, and the first, that night, he wouldn’t stop, selling [phrase unintelligible], himself inside the counter and I was, twas like, in the month of March you know and I was going out and it was wet and dull and it was misty. And I was going out, and the factory was at the back of that shop, that I told you. And I was going out, I was finishing off an order or something myself and I was going out and this man was singing outside the shop door. Ballad singing, it was around that time you know now. And I was going out the door and Tomás, the Lord have mercy on him now. He called me back and he said give that to the poor fella singing outside the door. I dunno was it a six millimetre[??] or a schilling he gave me now. He gave me something to hand to the poor singer outside the door. And I said you know now. And he was singing ‘Wrap the Green Flag Around Me Boys’, that’s the song he was singing.

 

C F:  Right.

 

M O D:  He was singing that song but I handed him that anyway outside the door, it was quiet a coincidence wasn’t it? --

 

C F:  Back in the day --

 

M O D:  It was only that night, that he was murdered. The Black and [Tans], his wife was expecting, a baby, sure they had twins after, the same night, [phrase unintelligible] they shot her [means him] dead, they shot him dead. On the 17th around then, I dunno the exact date now, in the month of March.

Citation

Cork Folklore Project, “Mary O’Donovan,” accessed March 28, 2024, https://corkfolklore.org/archivecatalolgue/document/503.