Legendary folk singer Christy Moore has given what may be his most personal and revealing interview yet.
Speaking with Ruairí McKiernan (with Christy above) on the Love and Courage podcast, he reflects on fond memories of growing up in Kildare.
In the wide-ranging hour-long conversation, the 73-year-old musician talks about how his Meath-born mother Nancy met his father Andy in Waterford.
At the time Nancy was working in a hotel in Tramore and Andy was in the Irish army and on manoeuvres in Waterford. The couple fell in love and went on to marry and settle in Newbridge.
Tragedy struck when Andy died when Christy was just 11.
He says that after the death of his father, Nancy took over his seat on the Town Commissioners and then the County Council, later becoming Chairwoman of Kildare County Council.
She also ran a small grocery shop in order to put her children through school.
“She was always there for us. She sang songs as well and she instilled the love of music in us all and the sense of fair play.
"She was always available to people in need of a friendly ear or a dig-out, you know. So, that was a great start for us in life to be exposed to that kind of, I suppose, social principle and good deeds.”
He has fond memories of his early days in Kildare and in particular the experience of spending time in the bog and of a simpler life more rooted to community and nature.
“I would have been out in the bog as a small boy. My father's people were the Dowlings and they lived in a place called Barronstown, which is actually right on the Bog of Allen and back in those days anybody who skirted the bog had bog acreage, you know.
"So, every year we'd go to the bog and I can still remember them coming out with the tea and the bread out to the men in the bog. And all beautiful memories of a bygone world.”
“Well, the neighbourliness and the meitheal and how people helped each other at harvest time or saving hay. You know, people worked together and pulled together.
"I really value the memory of when I started going out to my Granny Dowling's in Barronstown, there was no electricity there. They had no running water. They did all the cooking on the fire. There was no toilet. And yet they had this wonderful, rich life, you know, a very rich life. But there was a sense of contentment as well, you know.
"The battery wireless and neighbours coming in to hear horse races or hear matches on Sunday and Michael O'Hehir.
"My grand grand-uncle Frank Dowling over in the corner talking about years gone by. And I know there was a hardship but looking back on it all these years later, it was beautiful.”
“And there was always work to be done - work that had to be done for them to survive, you know.
"And the work depended on the seasons and the months of the year. There were different tasks that had to be done, whether it was cows calving or hens laying or saving the hay or sowing the barley or getting the spuds in or collecting the apples or making the butter in the dairy.
"You know, there was so much to be done. Little chickens coming in. Little day old chicks that'd be kept in the little turf place beside the fire and be looked after and wild cats coming into the yard.
"There was just so much going on all the time and then drawing water from the well, beautiful spring water from the well and still ploughing with horses.
"This man that used to come around a few times a year and take the sick hens away.
"I often wonder what happened to those sick hens. Where did they end up? I think they
used to get a half-crown for a sick hen.
"And the order that came out from Newbridge every week, the little box of groceries was the same every week. This tiny little box would go out. There'd be 80
Gold Flake. There'd be salt and there'd be sugar and a few little knick-knacks. But everything else they provided for themselves, you know. Bread, butter, milk, bacon, potatoes, vegetables, fruit.
"They had it all there but it took a lot of work for that to be there. And then at night sitting in the light of oil lamps just looking in the fire, maybe not saying an awful lot.”
Discussing how folk music often reflects on stories and history not always explored in our education system, Christy says the story of Frank Conroy offers a good case study.
“I grew up in Newbridge in County Kildare and there's a man called Frank Conroy. He's in the song "La Quinta Brigada". He was from Kilcullen, five miles away. I never heard anything about him or the Spanish Civil War in my education.
"Up the town in Newbridge, there was a prison where there was Republicans hanged in the 20's. They told me all about Finn McCool but they didn't tell me anything about the Republicans that were hanged in Newbridge jail thirty years earlier. Thirty years, you know. So, our education was very sketchy.”
In the hour-long podcast interview, he also reflects on his love for Newbridge, and sings a song he wrote as a tribute to the town.
“I still feel very connected with Newbridge, even though I don't go there that often but inside in my mind, in my memory and in my heart, I feel very connected to Newbridge.
"Every time I go to Newbridge now, I always walk around the town and I walk up through the estates. Like the Newbridge that I grew up on only exists in my head now but that's okay once I know that.”
You can listen to Ruairí McKiernan’s full 1-hour interview with Christy Moore for free on the Love and Courage podcast. Find it on Spotify, iTunes, Soundcloud or via www.loveandcourage.org
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