Mo Laethanta Saoire: Ballybunion and the Big Brown Suitcase
When you came in the front door of our old farmhouse you were in a small red tiled porch with a door on your right into the kitchen and on your left into the parlour.
The seldom-used parlour was a large low-ceilinged shadowy room with a long oak side board along the back wall and a matching enormous table dominating centre floor.
Come the last weeks of summer this table became the focal point of our lives. On it had appeared the big brown suitcase!
By then the hay was saved and drawn by horse and float up from the meadows down by the river and piled high in the barn. We were the meitheal that hauled the hay back from the top of our fathers uplifted pike and spread it out evenly layer upon layer.
Then we packed it down in compliant tiers that rose higher and higher towards the rafters. After weeks of haymaking out in the meadows, the soles of our bare feet were a well-seasoned barrier against any thorny thistle or spiky sop incorporated in the heaps of hay to be flattened beneath our feet.
During hot days of sweltering strenuous exertion under a roasting galvanised roof the barn was eventually packed to the rafters and we were ready for a week in Ballybunion!
Out in the fields the corn was not as yet sufficiently ripe for harvesting so there was a gap in farm life between haymaking and harvesting and in through this gap the glowing prospect of a week in Ballybunion shone through in a brilliant glow of anticipatory visualisation.
The appearance of the big brown suitcase on the parlour table was the first step on that journey.
The first morning it appeared we gathered around peering into it and marvelling at its copious depths. But into this had to go all the needs of my mother and the three of us children who were accompanying her to Ballybunion.
The week before departure the big brown case gradually filled up with our sun bleached cotton dresses now washed and ironed for the week ahead.
On the Sunday morning of departure the last item was finally forced in and the yawning gap between cover and the main body firmly clamped shut with the pressure of a weighty bottom.
The old case groaned in protest but the seams held fast and when the two brass hasps finally clicked into location they were reinforced with the support of a strong leather strap around the girth of the case. The end result was rock solid.
Back then car ownership was still for the privileged few so we were transported to Ballybunion by kindly patient Dick who was the driver of the large spacious hackney car that facilitated any journey not achievable by foot, bike or horse.
Into the roomy accommodation of his large booth, a huffing and puffing Dick landed our big brown boy.
Normally on exiting our farm gate we turned right to our local town but the road to Ballybunion went left and west so there was the added thrill of a long car journey viewing countryside beyond our usual perimeter.
We peered out the windows in wonder as we drove up into the high unfamiliar countryside around Rockchapel and the hills rolled away around us. Approaching Listowel we craned our necks looking out for The Listowel Arms that was then owned by Joseph Locke with whose wonderful voice we were familiar from playing his records of ‘Good Bye’ and ‘Jerusalem’ on our gramophone.
He was our pop star idol and viewing the gracious old hotel that was his home with the yellow roses draped around the door was one of the delights of driving though Listowel on our way to Ballybunion. Then we were on the long straight road run into our exciting destination and our anticipation was bubbling over.
We screeched with excitement when glimpses of the sea appeared and disappeared along the horizon.
Our first sighting of the Tricky Tracky Shop was the opening of the gates into our heaven! Tricky Tracky was a chock a block wonderland overflowing with shelves of bright clattering clutter. Piled high in front of this Aladdin’s cave were stacks of red, blue and yellow buckets and spades but even better still, along the surrounding wall rows of little colourful wind mills clattered in the breeze.
This treasure trove of nick knacks promised the further delights of a visit later in the week.
Easy going, tolerant Dick who had acted as tour guide on the road, now having arrived at our destination dragged our big brown boy out of the booth and into a designated location accessible to all of us in the house in which we were to stay. But where we were staying for the week was of little interest to us, because as far as we were concerned it was all about the sea and the strand.
So we rushed my poor mother though the settling in process and propelled her down the hilly slope toward the strand. As we ran down that slope our senses were smothered with the smell of the sea, the sound of the waves against the rocks, donkey carts with trailing loads of seed weed for hot baths, and the glorious sight of the towering one walled castle dominating the skyline. This was Ballybunion!
Down on the strand, as more suitable attire was still at the bottom of the suitcase, we whipped our flimsy short skirts into our knickers and got down to the real business of the holiday, digging deep holes, making sandcastles and paddling and splashing in and out of the warm pools curled in by the rocks.
We watched the tide swirl in and ran along the edges dancing over the frothing waves trying in vain to prevent them flattening our slowly toppling sandcastles.
We were soaking wet from top to toe but we were in heaven! And there was still more to come.
Every morning on arrival down on to the strand we picked our patch which was a large open-mouthed sunny cave just below the seaweed bath emporiums of the Collins and Daly families.
Both of these establishments as well as incorporating the first green shoots of a prospective health spa with their sea weed baths also had little ice cream shops and served teas.
Mary Collins baked huge trays of juice saturated apple cakes and sitting on the warm sand enjoying this apple cake with scoops of her multi-coloured homemade ice cream was one of the delights of days on the strand. And the days swam by in a haze of sunshine and sand.
Walking the headlands of Ballybunion was an exciting adventure as the towering high cliffs arch out above the sea often incorporating deep inlets where the waves thunders in below against the rocks. The Nine Daughters Hole was the most fearsome of all these where down in a huge deep crater the sea roars in and out and to peer down over the edge of this is to scare yourself with daytime nightmares.
It supposedly got it’s name from a legend that a man once drown his nine daughter in there because they would not marry the man of his choosing.
It was our chamber of horrors and we walked gingerly around it’s edges peering down into it’s cavernous depths in terrified awe until we came out in goose bumps of fright. It scared the living daylights out of us but we loved it!
The nightly entertainment was a pandemonium of bumper rides, pongo, big spinner, wheel of fortune and one arm bandits. All housed in a big barn like shed along the main street. Balancing our budget was the biggest problem as all these thrilling experiences did not come cheap so we had as my grandmother advised - ‘to cut your cloth according to your measure.’ Not always easy!
And an additional challenge to our budgetary restraints was to plan our spending so as to have enough money left over at the end of the night to buy a bottle of milk and a packet of biscuits for a late night picnic sitting on one of the benches along the high headland overlooking the then darkened beach listening to the sea thundering in and out below us.
By then the one walled castle on the headland was a black shadow dominating the night skyline.
To add to the night entertainment there was the additional bonus of the travelling theatre companies who moved in for the summer. Their standard of productions was for us jaw dropping and gave us a view into another world. One night they staged “ Rebecca” which made a huge impression on me. I cried for Rebecca, could have cheerfully choked the evil Mrs Danvers and fell in love with dark handsome Maxim de Winters and for a long time afterwards I like Rebecca dreamt that I too ‘ returned to Manderly’.
Finally our exciting week came to an unwelcome end and we tearfully waved goodbye to Ballybunion.
The big brown case was packed to overflowing with crumpled dresses, colourful cockle shells, miscellaneous bits and pieces from the Tricky Tracky shop and sea weed that my mother had gathered off the rocks to later brew as a cure for winter colds.
The strong strap was no longer able to constrain this entire menagerie together so the big brown case landed into Dick’s booth overflowing with trailing evidence of our wonderful week.
During the following days it’s contents gradually emptied and eventually our big brown buddy found it’s way back under the old sideboard in the parlour where it gathered dust for another year.
* Alice Taylor's latest book, A Cocoon with a View, is now available
