A letter to My Father on His 100th Birthday

A letter to my father on his 100^th Birthday

 

Dear Daddy,

You, like my mother were born one hundred year ago in January 1915.Born into turbulent times your own life was to bear the signs of the time. The Great War was taking its toll abroad and at home plans for the 1916 Easter Rising were gathering momentum.

As a babe in arms you left Belleek, the place of you and your sister Mary’s birth – your senior by three years – and came to live in Ballindrait.

Within the year your sister Kathleen was born.

You had barely started school when Ireland was partitioned and Civil War broke out.

Things were happening at home in Donegal too. Your sister Gertie was born.

Wars seemed irrelevant when your sister Mary, aged twelve was stricken with Tuberculosis and died. Fear that the toddler Gertie might also catch TB forced your father to take her to live in Scotland. Sadly she lived only to meet an untimely death that took her to her grave aged twenty.

Then, when you were nine, your mother caught TB and died.

Literally orphaned, bereaved and suffering from the loss of your mother and your sisters, you and your surviving younger sister Kathleen were, as was the custom,(as your father worked in Scotland) taken in by distant relatives.

You survived the ‘Hungry 30s’ and as the possibility of WW2 loomed you met and married my mother Madge on 3^rd August 1938.

There were three brides at the altar that summer morning. One of them, Maggie Mc Garriagle became your neighbour; first in Church St and later in the Old Trust. I used to love listening to her telling the stories about when you all lived in the flats – or what Maggie called ‘Milligan’s Mansions’, and the fun they had as newly-weds despite the living conditions and war-time shortages.

Soon, you had three daughters, Kathleen, Patricia and Annette.

War rages across Europe. Ireland remained neutral but that didn’t stop the Irish from signing up in their thousands – not only at home but in America, Canada and Australia.

Your younger sister Gertie joined the WRENS and was posted to Inverrary in Scotland. It was a decision that was to cost her, her life at the hands of an unknown brutal murderer

The old neighbours in Ballindrait used to say ‘The road was black wi’ people, mournin’ when your father and grandfather brought her coffin home for burial in Ballybogan.”

 

By the 1940s you had two additional daughters, Gertrude (called after her dead aunt) and Gemma.

I’m smiling as I write this. I knew intuitively that you yearned for a son. The last thing you needed was me, a fifth daughter.

I knew nothing about psychological warfare but I knew how to use being a daughter instead of the son you wanted to get what I wanted as a child.

By the time you reached your 40s you had four sons and five daughters. You did your best to put manners on us and teach us respect for Church, State and those less fortunate than ourselves. But we had our mother’s feisty O Donnell spirit and your intransigent attitude.

One by one we all went our own way: England, Scotland, Australia, Belfast and Antrim.

No doubt you heaved a mighty sigh of relief; Peace and quiet at last. No other faces in the mirror fixing hair or trying to put on lipstick as you tried to shave!

Oddly enough you were left with your fifth daughter, me!

Far off fields did look green but you decided I was needed at home to help with the business and help my mother with my younger brothers.

I remember how angry I was at you. My friend Anne was going to England to nurse. I wanted to go too.

You were right, Dad. I would have hated being a nurse.

Life hadn’t done with you yet. A sick daughter returned in need of care. Once again you had children in the house – two granddaughters this time.

I didn’t notice at first when ill health and heart problems began to shorten your footfall.

And before I knew it you were gone.

Gone, before I got a chance to adjust the image I had of you as a formidable, stern man. Gone, before we could share our lives as adults together.

It took me years to reconcile to that loss.

In search of closure, I went to a medium. She told me my father was proud of each and every one of us.

No doubt it was what I wanted to hear.

On reflection, when I now look around family gatherings with your children, grandchildren and great, great grandchildren, I think she was right.

So, rest now Dad; take time together, you and mammy. Keep an eye on us and the new generations. Help us to pass on your integrity and your sense of right to them.

Love and a very happy birthday, Dad

Your fifth daughter

Gemma

xxx