Being afraid to tell her a lie, we confessed the truth. We had not the cunning to hide the stolen property, with the result that Sister Anthony questioned us about it. Not content with that, we went into the college buildings and stole pencils and stationery. Some of us who were more daring strayed away from the others, and raided the orchard.
During the summer, the children being on holiday, we were allowed into the college ground to play. It was on a summer’s afternoon in the grounds of the college. One particular incident concerning her I shall always remember. She was good to the boys, we all liked her. I remember well one nun, a tall woman named Sister Anthony. The sisters, to my eyes, were all alike though I grew to think that the tall nuns were always good natured and gentle, while the small ones were harsh and forbidding. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles which suited his smiling face. The Dean of the College, Dr McGlinchy, a stout man in his early forties, taught us to sing O’Donnell Abu, Wrap the Green Flag Round you, Boys and The Soldiers Song. We dared not complain to the good man for fear of the consequences. But the Sisters, to whom he would give the sweets for distribution amongst us, would usually take them away, so that we never saw them. He was very popular with us, for often he brought sweets. At that time – about 1921 or 22, I remember him as a middle-sized man with brown bushy hair and thin features. He was well liked by the boys because he often gave them sweets and other presents, or, as a special treat, a drive in the coach.Ī frequent visitor was Dr Farren, a professor of St Colum’s College. She beat the boys terribly, but the nuns took little notice of her actions.Īnother of the servants was Devlin, the coachman, who drove the Sisters when they had occasion to go out. She had favourites, but her enemies were in the majority.
Peig sayers descendants full#
Most of the time she had full authority, and she was never backward in using it. She had been brought up by the Sisters at one of their orphanages, and, being unable to find work outside, was kept on to assist the nuns. She was the most dreaded figure of them all. 6Ī woman aged about forty, named Fanny Mullen, helped the nuns to look after the boys. His body was swiftly taken away, and we were brought immediately to the chapel to pray for his soul. 5 Then we saw the boy falling from the chair, blood streaming from his head. Once, during the Derry riots, one of my companions stood on a chair and looked out of a skylight window in a bedroom at the top of the building. The fate of the manuscript is not known but the following appears to be taken from it, and relates to his childhood in an orphanage in Derry in the early 1920s.
He wrote an autobiography of his years travelling the roads and though there was great interest in his work, he was unsuccessful in securing publication. Ward was then a well-known character in Ireland, his ballads enlivening many a fair and pattern. Ward was very much at home in Kerry and especially in Ballyferriter – the ‘Dingle Republic’ – where lived his good friend Sean Kavanagh. Ward was welcomed into Peig’s cabin and sat by the fireside with her and her family where they exchanged stories. Peig was, he said, one of the hidden souls of Ireland seldom shown to the stranger and recalled how her voice settled in the depths of his soul, ‘more beautiful than I can describe.’ 1 Wandering bard, Eoghan Roe Ward, left a touching snapshot of Peig Sayers in her twilight years when he visited her in her home in Vicarstown, Dunquin, in 1944.
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