Only a Pilgrim, Passing Through- The Memoirs of Oliver Noonan- The Dominican’s gardener.
Only a Pilgrim, Passing Through- The Memoirs of Oliver Noonan- The Dominican’s gardener.
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| Oliver Noonan |
In 1991 Tallaght Historical Society invited the RTE Broadcaster Donncha Ó Dúlaing out to Tallaght to address the society on his life and times. While in Tallaght Donncha got somewhat diverted from the purpose of his visit, when he met ‘a most interesting man’- Mr. Oliver Noonan- the gardener for over forty four years in the Dominican College in Tallaght. Oliver, while being interviewed, took the time to give Donncha Ó Dúlaing a guided tour of the college environs, the ancient grounds he had tended for over 44 years. In the process, Oliver Noonan left not just a record of gardening practices and happenings beyond the priory walls. He also left an endearing record of his own life and times in Tallaght.
Glenasmole
I went to school in Glenasmole
(1930s) where Mr. O’ Reardon was the teacher- a Kerryman. We used to bring sticks to school to keep the
fire going. We would gather them on the
side of the road, on our way to school in the morning. No one would have a watch but there would be a
clock in the school. We would be
sauntering along to school, until we heard the hooter from Inchicore works,
then we would have to run. We knew the time by the sound of the hooter in
Inchicore Works, where the trains were made.
It would go off at twenty-five past nine, and half-nine in the morning
and we could hear that hooter in Glenasmole.
That is how we knew the time.
On the way to school there was an old
man they called The Cuckoo- a huge big man he was. He would come out of his house
at the side of the road and would stop us and say “Fasten that lace!” He couldn’t bend over to tie his own shoelaces,
so he would come out of the house and get the boys going to school, to tie them
for him. Some of the boys were boyohs,
and if they could manage it at all, they would tie the two shoe laces together,
really tight. The Cuckoo would be leaning
over the lad tying the laces, and if he realised what was happening, he would
clatter the lad on the side of the ears.
The lad would have to scramble out from under him, before he realised
the shoes were tied together. I don’t know why he was called the Cuckoo!
In Bohernabreena, My mother would
collect the rain on May day, or a day soon after if there was no rain on May
day. She would put a wooden bowl in the middle of the yard- for to catch the May
rain- to cure stomach trouble. It only
worked if you had belief. I still have
it! My mother used to say “Thread would
tie up a ship if you have enough of it” and “Matches would keep a fire
going”. And faith is the same! We had
the rosary at home every night. You
couldn’t go out without saying the rosary. It would nearly be twenty minutes long
because she would be praying for everyone who had died in the last year or
more.
Where I lived in Bohernabreena, I
could see the road for miles once I crossed the hill. If you saw a car at that time, you would
wonder where it was going and who was in it. I left school at fourteen and went
to work in Templeogue for Mr. Hanlon, who had three butchers shops. I used
to have to wash Mr. Hanlon’s car every Saturday- a big Rolls Royce. It had spokes on the wheels like the spokes on
a bike. The first job I ever did was to
clean the brasses in Mr. Hanlon’s house.
It had a big hallway and in the hallway was blunderbusses and suits of
armour. “Don’t let any of that Brasso
get on the woodwork”, the woman of the house would say, and “Boy! When you
speak to me address me as Madam!” I
worked in Barnes Brothers factory then.
I never liked it, but the money was good- five pound seven and six-pence
a week.
Gardening in the College
I started in the (Dominican) college
on the 15th July 1942. It was a lovely day. We never knew it as The Priory, it was never called
that. It was just The College. When
I started in the College, we would have to walk up to Blessington with nine or
ten cattle at a time, and walk back down then with sheep. Br. Dominic O’Reilly
and Brother Jarleth would sell the cattle and buy the sheep so we would have to
go and drop the cattle to Blessington and collect the sheep.
They (Dominicans) killed five sheep
every week and a beast a month. I don’t
remember them killing pigs, but they kept pigs and sows too. Joe Monaghan had the butchers shop in the
village and he used to come in and do the killing for the Dominicans. They
would kill them on a Monday, and bring them down in a cart to the butchers shop
and chop them up and put them in the fridge.
At that time you would never see a tin-can, because soup and everything
else was made fresh.
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| Joe Monaghan's Butchers Shop |
The Head Gardener was Mr Matt Byrne.
He had started there in 1900 and was still there in 1945. When he started there
was a sunken path leading up to the old Tallaght House, so the Master of the
House didn’t have to look at the staff coming in. They filled it in years
later.
Mr Matt Byrne was one of the
loveliest and grandest men ever! All
the things that he told me! In belief from him and the stories he told me- I
have learnt. In the shed up above (in the college)- there
was always a Wren’s nest over a window. One day myself and Matt came around the
corner, and the mother wren had eight little chicks on the sill of the window. Matt pointed it out to me and explained what
was going on. She was giving them a
lesson for when they go out into the world. She had the eight of them lined up
on the sill and was telling them “Beware of a man that stoops down before you!
Be ready to fly away”. She came to the
last little chick and she said the same- “Beware of a man that stoops down
before you. Be ready to fly away”. The
little wren said back to the mother “And what if he doesn’t stoop down? What if
he has a stone in his pocket already?” And the mother wren replied “That is the
lesson you will have to learn for yourself!”
I started at gardening and I loved it. I loved
the land. We grew all our own stuff up
in the glasshouse. The only thing the Dominicans bought was tea and sugar. They
had everything else here themselves. We had every apple that could be
mentioned. I don’t believe one apple ever came from across the water, better
than the apples we had here- Apples, Pears, Damsons and Plums, Free-range hens-
completely self-sufficient!
Brother Gabriel Lynch was the tailor-
he had a big round room, and he used to make the habits in there; he used to
make the clothes. The material would
come in, in big rolls and he would make all the clothes for the brothers.
During the war we had to mow the
whole place. At that time petrol was
scarce- we had to mow it all with a
hand-mower. There was forty-five flower beds and there was six men employed just
tending the garden.
One day, while cutting the grass I
discovered a tunnel. It was a small hole
in the dyke and I opened it up- It was brick-built. I went down it on my own with a flash lamp.
The further I went down the tunnel, the louder a noise I could hear. I had
heavy boots on at the time and the clay was heavy like putty underneath. I couldn’t
lift my boots they were that heavy, so I came back. Another Brother went down it that night and he
went further than I did. He heard a terrible noise too- a terrible thumping
noise. It took us a few days to figure out
what the noise was. It was an echo- the
thumping of our own heart beating!
I also found an old disused
well. I was cutting the grass one day
and I found a little hole in the ground, I put my hand into it, and then my
arm, and it kept going. So I want around
to the shed and got a big iron bar- about 14 foot long it was. I put the bar into the hole and it just kept
going too. There was no end to the hole.
So I got a spade and dug around the hole, and the next thing I found was an old
well. It was covered over by big flag stones- six foot long and about three
foot wide. One of them had broken and had fallen into it. The water was running
under it, pure as can be. And we found
another well not far from it!
Every morning you would see the pheasant
rising up out of the fields of corn, where the new college is now (1991). There were so many corncrake here you would
nearly fall on top of them! One day I
was walking down the Friar’s Walk, and the sun was just coming up and I looked
down and saw a hedgehog- a mammy hedgehog and six little hedgehog following
behind her, down the Friar’s Walk. I
never forgot it.
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| Friar's Walk, Dominican Collage, Tallaght |
On a summers evening we would watch
the crows, as we would say- “Coming home from school”. They would come from the west toward the
east. There was a big wood and that is
where they used to go to. If they went
home high up with not a sound, they were happy.
But if they went home low down, there was wind and rain coming. That’s
what the old people used to say. I
remember one morning in the month of September- I saw a crow carrying a
stick. In the month of September! I was
telling this man about it, and he said- “She wasn’t carrying it for next year,
and it was too late to be building a nest.
We will have to wait and see!” About
a fortnight after there was a terrible storm!
The crow was carrying the stick to reinforce her nest, in advance of the
coming storm. Birds have great
instinct. They know long before we do. Fr John Heuston here, a brother of Sean
Heuston who was shot in the troubles- He was very interested in the weather. I
was the man for the birds and the moon!
We would always have arguments over it.
There was an old man in the village
who told me about the moon, a man by the name of Mr Mullally. That man studied the moon and he used to tell
me that when the moon was rising, whatever the weather - you would have that
weather until it (the moon) was half full.
If the moon was in the sky half-moon shaped- it was emptying out all the
water- you would have plenty of rain.
And if the moon was like a bowl, it was holding the water. There would be a dry spell. Before the
television and radio- that is all we had to go by.
Gardening the Soul
I have helped to bury the (Dominican)
brethren here. In the last few years I have buried nearly every one of them.
The first (Dominican) brother I buried was in 1951. At that time I had to cover
the grave in while the priests and students said their prayers. You would put a board over the hole and put
flowers on it. I would fill it in
afterwards.
Fr.
Madden had to be reburied when they (Dominicans) built on the new
extension (1969). Another chap by the
name of Johnnie Keegan was here at the time, and Fr. Paul Hynes asked us would
we get a coffin and put the remains of Fr. Madden into the coffin. The workers on the extension, the builders,
had excavated the remains, and we had to put them in a coffin- the bones and
the plates off the old coffin, into the new one. I remember taking the belt of the old coffin,
and we couldn’t get it off. That was
leather in those days! We had a new
grave ready to reinter Fr. Madden. Ah,
no matter who dies, they are only an hour in front of us!
The gardener Matt Byrne left here in
1945 and I was made Head Gardener. The horses were shod by Mr Kelly the
Blacksmith. What you didn’t hear in the
forge, you heard in the harness makers! That’s where you heard the good
stories.
Tallaght Life
Where I am living now, (Newtown Park),
in 1943 the Dominicans had owned all that land.
One day there was a little dog putting sheep out onto the road. On a bend in the road a lorry came around and
killed the dog. The driver was brought
to court, before Justice Reddin, and he was fined. But that night at home, we
heard a strange sound. I went to the
door and called my mother. I said to my
mother “Do you hear that cry” and she said “I do”. I could feel my skin shrivelling when she
said- “That is the banshee”.
I remember Mr. Dennison, who lived in a cottage in Templeogue, he used to drive the tram. There was always sheep being killed on the tram line. Dennison would shout “Sheep coming up. Mutton going back”. Mr. Dennison was brought to court before Justice Redden in Rathfarnham, for killing sheep on the tram line. Redden gave him an awful going over in court and said to him “Well Mr Dennison, have you anything to say for yourself?” And Dennison replied “Your Lordship- if the rim of your hat was big enough, I could drive the tram around it”.
One beautiful summers evening, myself
and a few of the lads were sitting on the wall by the village pump (in the village)
having a chat. The sergeant in the village at the time was on holidays and
there was another guard sent up to cover for him. Word came up to the guard in the village that
there was a row going on down in Kennedy Pub (Old Mill) in Oldbawn,
About half an hour later, this guard
was bringing two girls up the road and over to the barracks. Two fine girls they were. Just coming past us, one of the girls says
“Guard. I can’t go any further. I can’t walk.
I have a stone in my shoe”. So
the guard stops. We were all looking at
them, and he took his hand off her shoulder and she stooped down and she took
off her shoe. The next thing, she takes
the shoe in her hand and- Bang Bang- gives the guard two or three wallops on
the back of the head with the shoe. The
two girls ran off down the road. One of
the lads shouted over at the guard “Ah! Look! The Gilly is after letting them
out!” The guard was mortified and furious. We all nearly got arrested because
he had let the girls get away.
There was nine of us in the family. Seven got married and two are at home. I went from my home in Newtown in Tallaght into the markets in Town, with a dozen scallions on the back of the bike, at six o clock in the morning for five mornings of the week. I would be back in Tallaght for eight o’ clock in the morning. I made my own little truck for the back of the bike. I would often see one of the little Corporation trucks, and I would say “One day I would love one of them”. I never had an alarm clock in my life. My poor mother used to say, “When you go to bed say a Hail Mary to all of the souls for to wake up, and they will waken you up”. I have always done that. I could go into the city and get everything I wanted. Coming up to Christmas I could go in and get toys and everything. One time I brought home a dolls pram in that truck. The kids were very young. You could leave the bike on one street, go around and collect all your things and the bike would still be there when you got back.
I’d go to bed at ten o' clock unless there was
a football match on. I would stay up to
look at that! I played Gaelic and went to nearly every county final. We would
walk to Clondalkin and get the train to whatever county we needed to get to,
for the match.
I used to love Christmas. There was a huge number of brothers in the college. I had to bring in the post and often times I
would have to go four times with a handcar, out to the post office, there would
be that much post for the brothers. The students and the Priests were good to
the locals. It was mostly all farmers' sons that was here. Br. Ciaran Duggen- A
great man, Lord have Mercy on Him- a Mayo man he was! There was only himself and
the sister, his mother and father were dead. He would come down to my house a
day or two before Christmas and all my children were only young and they would
be watching him. He would walk in- a
powerfully built man he was, with the big habit on him. After a while he would take out a box of biscuits
or a box of sweets and my children would be delighted!
I retired in 1986 after 44 years in
the college. I could have stayed on working, but I said “no”. I still do my own
garden at home and am tilling the one ground for fifty two years. I know every stone
in it. I supply scallions to the shops out and around the place. I get up at five-thirty and still go to seven o’ clock mass every morning. Life is whatever you make out of it. If you make life hard for yourself it will be
hard. A lot of my own friends who died,
had never seen retirement. I have always believed in health, happiness and peace
with God and all through my life I have always prayed. I prayed that I might
see retirement age. And retirement has
been lovely.
There was an old man here, Fr.
Kenneth O’Neill. In the month of May or
June or there-a-way, you would see him going off at eight o clock in the
morning with two leaves of cabbage, three or four leaves of lettuce and a big
onion. That was his breakfast!
He always said, ”We are all only
pilgrims, passing through”.
***
After Oliver officially retired as gardener in 1986 he continued to regularly
help out in the gardens of the Dominican Priory for a number of years. Oliver
Noonan died on the 16th February 2003. A memorial plague has been placed in the front of St.
Mary’s Priory celebrating his service. May he rest in peace.
The interview with Oliver Noonan by Donncha Ó Dúlaing, on which the above Memoir is based, was first broadcast by RTE as part of the series “Donncha’s Sunday” on the 24th September 1991.
After being shown around the college by Oliver Noonan, Donncha later addressed the Tallaght Historical Society. The address was recorded and broadcast, as “Donncha’s Sunday”, on the 11th October 1991.
Albert Perris
A Ramble about Tallaght
A lovely man
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