It’s that time of life...

It’s that time of life when I am finally interested in genealogy.  Looking through my family trees to trace back in time and elicit the stories of interest. Farmers feature a lot. Generation after generation. Irish history is echoed through the generations and it is quite surreal to recognise that my great-grandparents lived through the famine and beyond. How did they fare through it? Tenant farmers where the land must have provided vital nourishment and income in the midlands. My grandparents bought farming land through the land commission at the beginning of the last century. To be owners of land and not tenants must have been a proud time then after the long fight to gain independence and autonomy. How did it feel to plough that land with a growing sense of security? Wars and world events may have been secondary to the toil needed to sow and harvest raising a typical Irish family held tightly by religious traditions. The oldest son of a large family later, my father, reluctantly continued the farming tradition in the place he was born. He could not leave due to his place in the sibling hierarchy. An age-old tradition to ensure succession to protect that land. Siblings scattered to their destinies of emigration, religion, civil service, a step away from the land but they too kept a regular connection with the ground that nourished them. Cousins were regular visitors and memories were made. We heard stories as children of good old days of gatherings there on the farm, of music and dancing in the barns, of bicycle trips to Dublin after haymaking. The sun shining on the freshly made reeks. The corncrakes in the meadows and horses stopped work as the church bell rang out. The land did continue to yield forth a life and a living for us all with a wisdom gleaned from before but I know it was a challenge for my father to accept the modern techniques that were becoming popular in agriculture. He resisted silage for many years arguing he would wait until they fed this to horses. Meanwhile, I as one of nine children were mesmerized and seduced by the device called a Television. Learning about shiny new things that were far away from the land….yearning to leave and shake the dust off our feet. Three generations before me. All returned to the land where they rest now. No matter how far away from the land we do go there is no escaping the fact we will one day return. 

Anne Maher