In Praise of a Not-so “Ordinary” Man
August 12, 2023

Discover John Fuery's moving journey to connect with his dad's heritage.

“I’m an ordinary man, nothing special nothing grand
I’ve had to work for everything I own
I never asked for a lot, I was happy with what I’d got
Enough to keep my family and my home”

Christy Moore, Ordinary Man

On Sunday December 4th last year, I got to experience a feeling most of us never will. It was then that I stepped over the threshold of the cottage and enter the bedroom in which my father had been born exactly 100 years before. 

Built some two centuries and more ago, my family home is one of those ancient Irish cottages that nature cannot shift despite its having been built with no foundations. Jammed into the ground like a building brick abandoned by some giant toddler, the house has long since been declared uninhabitable. Whilst a trifle unnerving, to enter and drink deep of all its history so many years later is a truly life-affirming experience. 

Dad was the third of the five children – three brothers and two sisters – who were born in this house; this room; this bed. While quiet, unshowy individuals, all five of them had their own genuinely extraordinary story to tell. 

Dad’s eldest brother, Paddy, ran off to sea and circumnavigated the world several times; an adventure – and, who knows, a girl – in every port. His youngest brother, Jimmy, never cared to explore much further than Dublin and became the ‘one who stayed’ to tend the family smallholding. When not tilling fields and tending sheep, he found time to teach himself how to clinker-build rowboats and later sailing dinghies. By the time he died three years ago, he was arguably the finest Irish boat builder of his generation. 
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My aunties, Mary and Kitty also lived long and fulfilling lives. Mary married the eighth-son-of-a-seventh son and raised one son and four daughters. Kitty ended up getting wed to the uncle of the man who headed up the CIA under Barack Obama and had a son of her own.  

All bar my Dad, who died in his mid-sixties, and Paddy, who barely scraped into his eighties, lived until well into their tenth decades.

Like so many of those born around the time of the Civil War, mid-1940s Ireland held out few prospects for Dad. Bravely exchanging the bucolic simplicity of his rural childhood for the smoke-belching strangeness of the UK’s industrial heartlands, he embarked on the tricky task of trying to build himself some sort of future.  

With ‘No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs’ signs a depressingly common sight in the windows of post-war British boarding houses, life for those ‘fresh off the boat’ must have been incredibly dispiriting. After working in Ipswich for a while, he and my Mum eventually married, settled down, moved to Coventry and started a family.

While overseas trips were a luxury few could afford back then, going ‘home’ for the Holiday Fortnight was a yearly ritual for the city’s large Irish diaspora. Dad, Mum, my elder sister, Mary, and myself were no exception. Perched precariously atop cheap cardboard suitcases in the impossibly over-crowded and smoky corridors of boat trains, we’d inch with molasses-like slowness towards Holyhead and the overnight ferry. 

Once in Ireland, we would spend the first week of our holiday with Mum’s family near Athlone. The second Saturday marked the start of the happiest days of my childhood: 
Seven blissful days in this tiny cottage by the Shannon that I now co-own with my sister and am blessed to be able to visit any time I need to calm and centre myself.  

Granted a brief escape from the crushing monotony of factory life for a couple of short weeks, most men would have been content to sit by the turf fire and toast their toes. 

Not my Dad. 

On the rare days, Roscommon had exhausted its seemingly infinite reservoirs of rain, he’d head across the fields and join his boyhood friends in forking hay into stacks for their livestock’s winter feed. Back and shoulders seared an incandescent red from the sun, he’d later wash up, eat his tea and walk the mile-and-a-half to Coffey’s Bar to sink a couple of well-deserved post-work pints of plain.

To the left of the bedroom in which Dad entered the world is the parlour. In here was located the dresser where my grandparents’ best delft was kept for special occasions. Our annual return ‘home’ was one such event and was invariably marked with a celebratory high tea. To the right is located a cosy living area whose thick stone walls and rudimentary concrete floor served as a kitchen, dining and sitting room all in one. 

Sitting here all these years later, it is impossible not to recall images of the smiling faces of the ‘ramblers’ whose happy chatter filled that space with warmth and light long before – and long after – the arrival of mains electricity in the early 1970s.  

The years (as years are wont to do) ran away like wild horses over the hills. Family raised and grandkids running round the house, Dad and Mum were preparing for a well-deserved retirement. Having been the first member of my family to ever make it to Uni, I’d followed in Dad’s footsteps and moved overseas to seek my fortune. 

All too soon it was August 1988 and Dad and I were standing on the concourse at Coventry Railway Station as I awaited the first leg of the long journey back to Hong Kong. Slowly being eaten away from the inside by the cancers that were killing him and so many of those who worked by his side, Dad looked agonisingly small, shrunken and worn out. Aware as kids often are, I knew I would never see him again, and for the first and last time in my life told him that I loved him. Three short months later he was gone.

That’s not the way I choose to remember Dad, though. My most cherished memory of him is of the many times Mum and I took the train to nearby Birmingham to seek treatment for a medical condition I suffered as a child. Standing impossibly high on the gantry on the side wall of the electroplating factory where he literally worked himself to death for a quarter of a century stood my Dad waving us God speed. 

Having attained an age my poor father never managed to reach, here I stand on the threshold of a house whose only contents are memories too cherished to ever fade. 

Gently closing and locking the door before heading back to town, I feel humbled by the struggles of all the genuinely remarkable family members on whose shoulders I now stand. While many people have offered to buy this ramshackle house and the windswept riverfront land it stands on, some memories are simply too precious to put a price on. 

An earlier version of this article appeared in The Roscommon Herald in December, 2022. 
The author has requested that any fees payable for this contribution be donated to Focus Ireland 

John Fuery
 

Lá Mór na Gaeilge - Irish Language Day 2025

January 24, 2025
The Coventry Irish Society are delighted to open registration for this year’s Lá na Gaeilge / Irish Language Day which will take place on Saturday 8 March 2025, for all levels, as part of the Coventry Irish Society’s St Patrick’s Festival and Seachtain na Gaeilge 2025 (Irish language week). 1. Taster Irish Language Class Áit / Location: Ground Floor, Quaker Meeting House, Hill Street, Coventry CV1 4AN Arrival: 9.15 – 9.25 am Session ends approximately 11.10 am to allow a short break before the next activity. The group are welcome to stay together, on location, during the break. Múinteoir / Teacher: Nollaig Doughan The session will be suitable for all levels and will include various activities, including the opportunity to learn the Irish National Anthem, as Gaeilge (which might come in handy for the rugby later!). 2. Síulóid / Bilingual Walking Tour of Coventry 12.00: A fascinating síulóid /walking tour around historical city centre sites will be led by Christy Evans and will take approximately one hour. Christy writes a column, in Irish, for The Irish World. Christy is a gaeilgeoir and has dedicated his life to teaching and promoting Irish. His notable achievements include being the European Commission Language Ambassador for Irish, Winner of The Pride of Ireland Award 2007, and Founder of Coláiste na nGael. Coláiste na nGael - Wikipedia Christy has written a short Irish / English guide booklet on Coventry and this will be provided to participants on the day. The meeting point and end location are TBC, but will be around the Cathedral / Broadgate area of Coventry. Adults booked on the tour may bring children with them, free of charge (1x child per parent / guardian / carer who is fully responsible for the child’s supervision and care at all times). Please ensure that a child’s place is booked in advance, at the same time as purchasing the adult’s ticket. Attendees should wear comfortable footwear and suitable outdoor clothing as this will be an outdoor event. They may also wish to bring a drink / light snack. 3. Free-time or option to join the language group for the Six Nations Rugby (Ireland v France) Áit / location: The Hearsall Inn, Craven Street, Coventry CV5 8DS Am / Time: approximately 1.45 pm – 4.15 pm. This part of the day is not formally organised by the Coventry Irish Society and so we cannot reserve seating (or control the result!!), but we do hope that Irish speakers will stay together to keep speaking Irish and to sing the Anthem, as Gaeilge! 4. 7.00 pm Pop Up Gaeltacht & Bilingual Quiz Áit / Location: The Hearsall Inn, Craven Street, Coventry CV5 8DS Am / Time: 7.00 pm – 9.00 pm Over 18s only Tickets Adult Full Day Ticket £10 members / £12 non-members. This includes the Taster Session, Walking Tour & Evening Quiz. Adult Half Day Ticket £6 members / £8 non-members. This includes the Walking Tour & Evening Quiz. This will be a popular day and advance booking is essential. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. Tickets do not include food / drink. Admission to watch the rugby game is free. Please contact Caroline Brogan, at caroline.brogan@covirishsoc.org.uk or telephone 024 7625 6629, or visit our office at Eaton House during office hours, to obtain a booking form and arrange advance payment. On receipt of payment, a confirmation email will be sent to you as proof of booking. Leibhéal / Level: The day is suitable for all levels, from fluent speakers, to beginners. Where possible, we will try to tailor the level of Irish to the attendee. All activities will be bilingual.

Registration for Spring term now open - Scoil Ghaeilge Margaret Keane - The Margaret Keane Irish Language School

January 20, 2025
We’re delighted that our Irish Language School, named after the late Margaret Keane, is returning for a Spring term from February 2025. This 8 week course will commence on Thursday 20 February 2025 and will run until Thursday 17 April. The Spring Term class will continue to use the below text book and will pick up where they left off at the end of the Autumn Term 2024. The course book is not included within the cost of the course fee and students may wish to purchase this themselves. For anyone who missed the Autumn Term but who would like to join the Spring Term course, then they are very welcome. As the classes will be continuing from work covered in the Autumn Term, those registering this term will need to have some basic level of Irish. £55 per student for members of the Coventry Irish Society / £60 per student for non- members. The course fee is for a course consisting of 8x classes and is payable in advance to the Coventry Irish Society by 12 February 2025. Please contact Caroline Brogan: caroline.brogan@covirishsoc.org.uk or telephone 024 7625 6629 to obtain a booking form. Registration closes 12 February 2025. Would you like to write for our website? We would like to include a section on our website dedicated to An Ghaeilge. If you may be able to provide a few hours volunteering time to help us write a welcome section, as Gaeilge, with links to helpful resources, then that would be ar fheabhas! Please contact our Caroline Brogan: caroline.brogan@covirishsoc.org.uk if you may be able to help.

Meet the author - Dennis Carey

January 9, 2025
If it’s a land war they want, there are people prepared to fight back. In 2016 Mayo-born author, Dennis Carey, released An Untilled Field, a historical story of the violent eviction of the Walshe family in 1870s rural Ireland. Based on true events the story focused on sixteen-year-old Liam Walshe who watched his parents being taken away by the Royal Irish Constabulary leaving him homeless and caring for his four-year-old brother Aiden. As his adventure unfolds, Liam makes contact with representatives of the Irish National Land League, the organisation founded at the Imperial Hotel in Castlebar in 1879 to fight for justice for land tenants. Almost nine years later, Dennis has released the book’s gripping sequel, Land Wars. The stories are set, predominantly, in County Mayo during the Irish Land Wars of the late 1800s. In both books, Dennis draws on actual events in England and Ireland to bring the harsh history of this period to life on the page. “I owed it to young Liam Walshe and the other main characters in the first book to continue their story,” Dennis said. “Unfortunately, in the sequel, life doesn’t get any easier for Liam and his family. If anything, it gets more dangerous.” Dennis has been writing since leaving Further Education in August 2014. This is his fifth novel. Along with An Untilled Field his other titles are The Ditcher, Sins of the Mothers, and Killing Alma. He will be here at Coventry Irish Society on Tuesday 28 th January 2025 at 2.00pm to talk about the books and the inspiration behind them. Copies of all of his books will be available to sign and dedicate after the talk.
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