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Black Irish White Jamaican
my family's journey
By NIAMH O'BRIEN AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2013 Niamh O'Brien
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4817-7077-4
CHAPTER 1
We're not in Ireland anymore
If my grandfather had had his way on that cold January day in 1951, my mother would have never set foot on that ship for a seasick-prone journey that would ferry her far away from her native Ireland. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, he had no say in the matter. Mom, twenty-one and already married with a two-year-old son, was six-months pregnant with me and making the long journey across the Atlantic to join my father in that "godforsaken place" (my grandfather's words). As she found herself on the docks of Dublin, about to leave her safe, sheltered life, she had no clue that she was about to embark on a roller-coaster adventure that would last over thirty years.
That "godforsaken place" was actually the hot, sizzling, tropical island of Jamaica.
My grandfather, Peter Daly, had already lost his son Paddy to Australia a few years earlier, and as it turned out, he was never to see Paddy again, nor meet any of his six Australian grandchildren. He felt an ache in the pit of his stomach as he watched his beloved daughter Maeve also prepare to sail out of his life. He could detect the mixture of both fear and wonder in her eyes, but knew he was helpless to stop what was about to happen. He was painfully aware that his influence in her life was almost over.
"I am so sorry that I can only go with you as far as Southampton" he told her in his thick Irish brogue. "You'll be on your own for the crossing of the Atlantic. Do you think you'll be able to manage?" He was truly worried about her.
"I think I can, Daddy, but I would feel so much better if you were coming with me the whole way."
Even if she didn't want to go, my mother actually had no say in this life-altering journey, as my father had already accepted a position managing a large canning factory in Kingston, Jamaica's capital. He had traveled ahead (in comfort by plane) to arrange accommodations for his young family, leaving his wife to make the long, exhausting journey alone. I want to believe this was not a deliberately thoughtless act on his part, just poor planning.
In spite of a deeply rooted Irish heritage, for my father, the opportunity to start afresh in a new country was an exciting adventure of mammoth proportions. It was the chance to escape the repressed, post–World War II Ireland and build a better life for himself and his family on a warm, exotic Caribbean island. My mother didn't see her future in quite the same light. She had barely travelled outside of Dublin, much less Ireland, and was naïve as to the ways of the world. But her destiny had been sealed. Besides, she would have followed my father anywhere then.
As Mom and my young brother Peter boarded that ship in Southampton, she looked back at her heartbroken father waving good-bye from the dock, apprehension building inside her. She was leaving behind everything that was familiar to her: her friends, her family, and her Irish way of life. She had no way of knowing what lay ahead, which was probably a good thing, because if she had, she might never have stepped on board that ship. All she knew was that her journey had begun. Was it bravery or ignorance? Surely it had to be a little of both. She was taking a huge leap of faith as she headed toward the strange, foreign country she would soon call home.
My mother, Maeve Daly, was a stunning Irish beauty with long auburn hair and beautiful blue eyes. She was petite, gentle, and soft-spoken, often referred to by her siblings as "the delicate beauty." Although her life had been somewhat sheltered, she was outgoing and popular among her peers. She had a large following of loyal friends who loved life and, like most Irish people I know, always seemed to know how to have a good time.
Both of her parents came from West Cork, a majestic area on the southwest coast of Ireland. My grandfather, Peter Daly, was my grandmother's second husband. He came from a large farming family, and my grandmother, Bridget Keane, came from a family of mostly professionals—teachers, doctors, and lawyers. An unlikely combination, those two, but they seemed to have a lot of friends in common, and more importantly, they shared the same political ideology and both were Catholic. When they met, which was around 1924, the country was still recovering from the 1916 uprising against England and the Irish War of Independence that followed. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was formed at this time to spearhead the revolution. Both my grandparents supported the IRA then. The war was brutal and bloody, but in the end, two-thirds of Ireland won independence from the British, who had governed and controlled the country for over seven hundred years. Unfortunately, the war did not end there. In 1922, when England decided it wanted to keep six counties in the north of Ireland for themselves, a civil war broke out in Ireland. Half the population was willing to compromise and allow Northern Ireland to remain under British rule, but the other half wanted total independence from Britain.
Back then in Ireland, and even today, sharing the same political ideology about the fate of Northern Ireland was crucial to maintaining any kind of loyal friendship. You either supported the British rule of Northern Ireland or you were vehemently against it. No Irish family survived that war without developing passionate feelings for one side or the other. Today, my observation is that only the Protestant population of Northern Ireland is totally comfortable with British rule, while the Catholic population in the North and the South are still angry and resentful about it. Things have quieted down a lot since the turn of the twenty-first century, but sadly, this has happened only after suffering through many decades of bitter fighting between the two sides.
In 1922, toward the end of the civil war, a shocking tragedy occurred. My grandmother's husband, John Cotter, was ambushed and murdered by the IRA as he was walking home from work. The men who shot him later admitted it was a case of mistaken identity, and they wrote a deeply apologetic letter to my grandmother, but that did not take away the pain or huge void this horrific event left in her life. What was even worse, her two sons, Billy and Noel, who were very young at the time, witnessed the murder, and although people around the scene tried to shield them, both sons saw their father's bullet-ridden body lying in a pool of blood in the middle of the street. This was a traumatizing experience for everyone in the family but especially for my poor grandmother who was left as a young widow with three small children to raise on her own: Billy, Noel, and a three-year-old daughter, Maureen.
It is amazing to me how, under the guise of war, unforgivable heartbreaking events can occur, and somehow all sense of accountability is ignored. In peace time, these men would have been tried for murder, but sadly, because there was a civil war going on, there were no consequences, just a terrible loss. It is unbelievable to me how war can warp a man's conscience into excusing and forgiving inhumane behavior—just a sad observation on my part.
Meanwhile, all during the war Peter Daly had been a staunch supporter of the revolution against England and a good friend of Michael Collins, one of the heroes and leaders of the uprising. They were both from West Cork. Unfortunately, Michael Collins was also ambushed and murdered by his fellow Irishmen during the civil war. I believe that if Michael Collins had not been assassinated, he would probably have been independent Ireland's first leader. This was another reminder of how horrific events during war time can change lives forever. Even after Michael's untimely death, Peter Daly always remained friends with the Collins family.
As fate would have it, my grandmother Bridget Keane Cotter, was a school teacher and worked with the sister of Michael Collins, Margaret Collins O'Driscoll. They became especially close after they both had loved ones killed in the "troubles"—as the war was called—my grandmother losing her husband, and Margaret losing her brother. After the war was over, and things had gone back to some kind of normalcy, Margaret Collins O'Driscoll loved to have friends and family over on Sunday afternoons. I am told it was at one of those Sunday afternoon gatherings that my grandparents, Bridget Keane Cotter and Peter Daly, met. I would like to add "and fell in love," but I hesitate because according to my aunt Maureen, they never truly fell in love. She always suspected it was just a marriage of convenience. But whatever the reason, they did get married. I am sure my grandmother was only too happy to find a bachelor brave enough to take on her three young children. Together they had two more children, my mother Maeve, whom my grandfather absolutely adored, and Paddy, who, unfortunately, always had a bit of a tumultuous relationship with his father. (Maybe that was why Paddy headed off to Australia at the tender age of nineteen.)
My grandfather also loved his three stepchildren, Billy, Noel, and Maureen, and although Noel was always a bit unstable and often tested his stepfather's patience, Peter Daly was good to all his children. I think Noel never really recovered from witnessing the murder of his father. He grew up physically, but emotionally he was stuck somewhere in his childhood, which, I am told, can happen if you have been traumatized at a young age. Consequently, his behavior was often totally outrageous and immature, resulting in frequent headaches and heartaches for his parents. I could write another book about Noel's antics, but for now, I can give you a tiny taste of how unstable he was. During World War II, he joined every possible army that would take him, and he was thrown out of every possible army that took him, including the US Army. You know he must have been pretty bad, because during World War II they were holding on to every enlistee they could get. In spite of the challenges Noel put him through, Peter Daly remained faithful to my grandmother his entire life, so they must have had something good to hang on to.
My grandfather, Peter, was born in a farmhouse in Rosscarbery, West Cork that has quite an interesting background. He was the eleventh of fourteen children born into the Daly family and was subjected to the traditions of rural Ireland where the eldest son inherits the farm and everyone born after him gets diddlysquat. So my grandfather, having many brothers born before him, got diddlysquat. Thankfully, he was a very smart man and studied hard, going on to have a successful career with the Ministry of Agriculture in Dublin and proving to be a very good provider for his new family. Maybe my grandmother knew what she was doing after all when she agreed to marry him.
Even though the eldest granduncle's branch of the family inherited the Daly farm and all the land, I have had the opportunity to visit this wonderful old property many times. Today, my second cousin, Peter Daly, who is named after my grandfather, still makes a good living from the land. The actual farmhouse is over 350 years old and shares a common wall with Castle Salem, an old castle that dates back to the 1040s. You can open a door in the cozy carpeted farmhouse, step through, and find yourself in middle of the ruins of this eleventh-century building. It feels as if you are traveling through a time machine. Except for the roof, the castle, for the most part, is still intact. You can see where the sink in the kitchen was and identify a hole where leftovers were thrown down a shoot, landing in a trough outside for the pigs to feast on. You can also see where the toilets were on each floor of the old castle. They were built of stone in the shape of a square seat with a hole in the middle and emptied directly to the ground far below. On each level, the toilet was two feet away from the one above it, so the waste would not fall onto the floor below but travel straight through to the ground. Apparently, they used moss for toilet paper. I find it quite amazing that the castle had not only an eleventh-century version of a garbage disposal in the kitchen but also indoor plumbing. Very civilized for the time, especially remembering my young experiences in Ireland in the 1950s of being sent to an outhouse in the middle of the backyard to use the toilet.
Another interesting thing about the family farmhouse was that it was built in the only Quaker community in all of Ireland, and apparently William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was a Quaker, and he would stay there when he went back to Ireland on visits. I am told I actually slept in the same bedroom as Penn. Although the floor now slants about five degrees, it is a solid old house and a unique place to visit. My granduncle's branch of the family always welcomes my family to the farm with open arms. I love going there and visit as often as I can. Knowing that my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and my great-great-grandfather were all born in that very house, I often hope to connect with them in some way. I have never actually gotten in touch with any of the spirits of these ancestors, but the experiences on the family farm have given me great insight into my mother's strong Irish heritage.
My father, Tom O'Brien, was a strikingly good-looking Irishman. He had a thick head of wavy black hair and deep blue eyes. He played every possible sport, so his body was one of an athlete, firm and muscular. Tom was born into a large middle-class family that originated in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. The O'Briens were hard-working people who lived in the middle of the Catholic neighborhood in this Protestant-governed city. Dad's father, William, was a serious man who fought hard in the war of independence against England and was an active member of the IRA during the uprising in 1916. He was captured and tortured by the British during the war. A gruesome experience I am sure. All Irish people have heard the many horrific stories of torture and heroism that came out of that war, mostly told through haunting Irish ballads that are indelibly embedded into the memory of every patriot and sung in pubs all over Ireland, even today. Somehow, and very thankfully, my grandfather William O'Brien, managed to escape from the British, and when he did, the family quickly found themselves moving to Dublin. He died in his forties, so I never knew him. Neither my grandmother nor any of her children ever spoke about what happened during those years—sometimes war is too painful to talk about.
After the war was over and the South finally won its freedom from England, life settled down for the O'Briens. My grandfather worked in a fish market and earned just enough money to get by, but at least the family always had a steady diet of fresh fish. When he died, the IRA had a full military funeral for him. This was quite a shock to his wife and family, who had no idea why he deserved such honor. I think it was best that they did not know the details of their father's duties as an IRA soldier during the war. For all we know, he might have been part of the plot to assassinate my step-grandfather, John Cotter—a terrible thought that would not surprise me in the slightest. My grandmother always said she would have much preferred to be compensated with some kind of widow's pension from the IRA instead of an expensive funeral. My grandfather O'Brien had left his family penniless, so all the children who were of age had to go out and earn an income to keep the family going. This included my father, who at age fifteen was helping support his mother and four younger brothers. The family was strong though, and they made it through just fine. My grandmother, Jane O'Brien, although widowed at a young age, continued to live a simple but comfortable life, remaining in Dublin until she died at the age of ninety-five.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Black Irish White Jamaican by NIAMH O'BRIEN. Copyright © 2013 Niamh O'Brien. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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