Notebook
My uncle Syl (Cotter) had an unusual job. Every time his mother had another child, it fell to him to do the circuit of her siblings with the news. This was in the era of no phones, when even letters were slow (and expensive for poor people). When my father was born in 1917, Uncle Syl made his last circuit, announcing that his mother had had a ninth child. And to that annunciation, he added “and we had enough already”! Nine children was a lot in a small farm on the side of a hill in West Cork.
Uncle Syl’s parents were two very different people. His father was a hard worker but a poor manager. His mother was shrewd; she learned early on that education was the key to advancement. In those days, standards varied from school to school; the Cotters were unfortunate enough to live in a spot where the local school had a poor record.
Advised
The younger Cotters didn’t lack intelligence, but they were badly advised by their teachers. The fifth child, Timmie, found he had a talent for handwriting. His teacher then told Timmie that copperplate handwriting would get him extra marks in his exams. It didn’t, and in writing perfectly his answer to one question, he failed to make any answer in the remaining sections. Failing the scholarship exam for teaching three times was a major setback in his life, from which he never recovered his confidence. Teachers can influence with wisdom — or none.
After the birth of her sixth child, my grandmother made a big decision. She realised her children had no prospects because of their poor education; if more children were to come along, they should be given a better start in life. She looked outside the parish for a good school; when one was found in the next parish, she insisted that a farm be bought there (and God alone knows how they managed to cobble together the money that cost).
Outside farm
Once they had the ‘outside farm’, her last three children could be educated in that parish’s school — and the results bore fruit in all of their lives. Her youngest girl got a job in the civil service in a year when only 20 posts were available in all of Ireland. The next-born son was accepted by the Christian Brothers and was a teaching member of their community for all of his life, which brought great fulfillment. And my father also became a teacher, first in Dublin and finally in West Cork, where he spent many years looking after the first six children of his parents, who hadn’t been given the chances he’d got.
There was no great difference in the intelligence of the nine children of my grandparents; the opportunity of an education was what changed the courses of their lives. If my grandmother had known that there would come a time when education would be free and available to all, she would have been amazed. We should be so grateful.
Handshakes are missed terribly
What will come back to church and parish life when the pandemic has eventually gone? How many aspects of life will return to what we were used to? I don’t often bet, but I would certainly bet that the Irish funeral will make a return: there is nothing we have missed more over the past 15 months. Some adaptations have meant a lot, like the written tributes now gathered in the ‘Condolence’ section on rip.ie, and the new tradition of guards of honour along our streets and lanes when the cortege passes. But handshakes and hugs are still missed terribly…
Only one G7 leader went to Mass…
The ‘Group of Seven’ leaders of western democracies (‘G7’) held a weekend meeting recently in St Ives, Cornwall. It was interesting to note that five of the seven leaders were baptised Catholics: Joe Biden of the USA, Justin Trudeau of Canada, Emmanuel Macron of France, Mario Draghi of Italy and Boris Johnson of England, his Catholic credentials confirmed in his recent Church marriage. Yet only one of the five apparently went to Sunday Mass: Joe Biden, who turned up the local parish church, and apparently enjoyed the experience. It seems that those Irish Catholic roots bear fruit in many generations!