Paddy Furey –Magical visits from a much-missed uncle
May 16, 2024

No, I never could fill Willie’s shoes.
No matter how many stockings 
I put on my feet, I still couldn’t 
fill Willie’s shoes….

Willie’s Shoes by Ciarán Rosney 

While his mastery of wood, wind and wave made him perhaps the finest Irish boatbuilder of his generation, Jimmy Furey always generously acknowledged his elder brother Paddy was the superior craftsman.
 
Paddy’s resourcefulness and skill is still evident all over the Furey family home in Mount Plunkett. Sixty-odd years after my toddler’s thoughtless fingers slammed it open and shut numerous times daily, the intricately hinged front door he crafted for the cottage remains considerably more robust than its young tormentor.

With the scars of the recent Civil War still smarting and the riches of the Celtic Tiger Years half-a-century and more away, the Ireland of the 1930s and 1940s remained an unimaginably poor country. Struggling to support two adults and five children, the Furey smallholding held out zero hope of any kind of meaningful future once those kids began raising families themselves. 

In those unenlightened times, the most that might realistically be expected of girls like my aunts Mary and Kitty was that they grow up to find husbands and have children of their own. The youngest of the five kids, Jimmy, elected to be the ‘son who stayed’ and supported my grandparents, Charley and Mary, in running and eventually taking over the family farm. And so it fell to his brothers Jack (my Dad) and Paddy to roll the dice of life far from the serene riverfront setting that was all they had ever known. No easy task in a world still reeling from the seismic impact of its second global conflagration in just over twenty years. 


Family legend tells of how Paddy did his bit to help by running away to sea and joining the UK’s merchant navy around the start of World War II. He went on to spend the next four-and-a-half decades toiling in furnace-like engine rooms deep in the bowels of the ships in which he crisscrossed the world. What few letters of his I was able to find in Jimmy’s cottage speak of the firm friends and happy memories Paddy made on every ship and in every port of call. 


Many of Paddy’s journeys are documented in the dozen or so seaman’s service books Jimmy entrusted to me when he died four summers ago. While the passport-sized books detail where Paddy’s career took him and the ships that took him there, what they don’t – can’t – tell you are the unspeakable hardships he must have endured during wartime.


Between 1939 and 1945, 4,700 allied merchant ships were sunk by the Axis Power navies of Germany, Italy and Japan. Fully 29,000 of the brave men who risked their lives keeping vital supply lines to the UK open were lost at sea while doing so. Paddy was one of the fortunate few who made it home.


From the few facts I was able to glean from friends and neighbours who knew him far better than I ever did, it seems that Paddy was shipwrecked on at least two occasions.  With Z-list celebs on reality TV shows now regularly caterwauling how some minor inconvenience has caused them incalculable emotional hardship, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder has become an unjustly devalued term.  Like most men who somehow managed to survive that terrible time, Paddy rarely spoke of how close the conflagration that raged all around came close to consuming him and his shipmates. Respectful of those who had paid a far, far heavier price than he himself, he would take a sip of his pint and gently change the subject. 


While my Mum, Dad, sister Mary and I would see Jimmy as regular as clockwork every summer at Mount Plunkett, Paddy was an altogether more enigmatic figure. Once in the bluest of blue moons, I’d arrive home from school and there he’d be beaming news of magical far-off places direct into our Coventry living room. 


While my sister and I would have loved him regardless of whether or not he brought us souvenirs from his wanderings, Paddy never skimped on his avuncular responsibilities. Best of all, the presents he’d picked out and carried halfway around the world to place into our eager hands were invariably marvels to behold. To this day, I have never forgotten – and indeed never will forget – the beautiful brown leather-sleeved salmon and cream Panasonic transistor radios he brought home for us in the mid-1960s. The bearer of exotic-sounds from radio stations like Luxembourg and Caroline during pop’s Golden Age, Paddy’s present was my ticket to a lifetime of listening pleasure. 



Equally unforgettable was his roar of laughter two decades later when I told him how the tranny he’d bought me all those years before was now accompanying me as I ventured out into the world myself.  While my copywriting career eventually took me all over Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, I doubt I ever saw as many places or drank as deeply of life as Paddy had. Sadly that March 1983 night in London was the last time I was privileged to hear him uncoil one of his inexhaustible stock of sailors’ yarns. 


Not long after our meeting, Paddy returned to Ireland to enjoy his Autumn years in the one place in the world where he should have felt safest – the childhood cottage where he’d been born and raised.  Tragically, any chance of a contented worry-free retirement was wrecked one night in the late-1990s when several local thugs on a crime spree broke in and mercilessly beat him and Jimmy. While at least one gang member was gaoled for his involvement in other local robberies that took place around the same time, no one was ever prosecuted for the vicious assaults on my poor uncles. 


Jimmy and many of his and Paddy’s friends went to their graves maintaining that Paddy never really recovered from the events of that awful night. While the blows he and Jimmy suffered at the hands of the brutes who attacked them must have been agonising, bruising and scars fade over time. The wounds left by the violation of his childhood home and safe haven must have cut Paddy a million times deeper; hurt him a million times more. 


And so it was, twenty five years ago this spring that Paddy weighed anchor on a journey from which not even the bravest and most skilled sailor can ever hope to return. Though forever after forced to limp because of the beating he took himself, Jimmy would live on for a further 21 years after Paddy’s death. Despite leaving some pretty big footprints in the sands of life himself, the master boatbuilder would often admiringly quote Ciarán Rosney’s Willie’s Shoes when recalling his much-loved and sorely missed brother.


Article by 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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