Hard as Granard

By John Hynes

The poverty of 1930s Ireland, the sheer beauty of Ireland and its people, the consuming drive to learn against all the odds, which enabled me to write same. I am so proud of my heritage and my republican upbringing, which would not change for all the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Sep 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504945349

John Hynes

Born on 1936 in Irish republic and moved to England in 1945 for an apprenticeship as floor molder. He joined the forces of Germany, Cyprus, Egypt, before moving back to England in 1958. He became shop steward in the car industry, rising through ranks to become the national chairman of the complete Toleman group and moving on to become a long-distance HGV driver. He carried on working till age seventy-seven, during which time he wrote his book, Hard as Granard, and was invited guest on the very popular Lesley Dolphin radio program in Ipswich, Suffolk, radio to discuss the book, sign copies in Irish Republic and be inundated with requests for a sequel. He is now working on same and is very pleased on all fronts.

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Hard as Granard

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JOHN (SEAN) HYNES

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AuthorHouse™ UK

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© 2015 John (Sean) Hynes. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/26/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-4532-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-4533-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-4534-9 (e)

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Hard As Granard

One

Three

Four

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty One

Twenty Two

Twenty Three

Twenty Four

Twenty Five

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Where it all began: Mum Dad with yours truly at about 18 months.

HARD AS GRANARD

This is a story of a young boy growing up in 1940s Ireland with all its trials and tribulations, interlaced with some of the history surrounding not only Granard itself, but the whys and wherefores of the part played by England and the Crown in shaping the Ireland of today. Years of repression, torture, and death were visited upon the people of the island of Ireland, in order to bring both it, and its people, under the rule and laws of England and the Crown. This caused years of struggle and division amongst its people, and is a mixture of both success, and failure. People were ejected from their homes, some transported to far off lands, most never to return to the land of their birth, instead dying in foreign lands in the service of their masters; all of these things form a part of Irish history. Its people are now tired of the long struggle, and can only look to a power sharing Northern Ireland Assembly to bring about some sort of a peaceful solution to the divide. However, there is still to this day division over a divided Ireland that festers in the hearts of those who will always reject the crown in pursuit of their dream of a united Ireland, and to know for sure that the old rebel ballad of ‘We’ll be a nation once again’ may one day come true. Like many of the old country today, I think it will only now come about through talks and, not the bomb or the bullet. The past is part of our history, and you cannot change history; there is still in some hard-line areas on both sides of the divide, a great chasm of hatred and bitterness that maybe only time itself will heal, as all else appears to have failed.

My own story starts with something of an explanation of where it all began. No one today is sure how it all came about, but from what I can glean, it seems our very own Grandma Hynes was indeed with child to a Mr Muligan, not knowing his first name, or indeed anything about him, only that he was from out Mullinyoctor way, on the outskirts of Granard, Co, Longford, deep in the midlands of the Republic of Ireland. This was before falling for, and marrying Oul Hynes himself, who was often nicknamed Binsey Hynes- not sure why, or where the name originated from, but he was much better known as indeed our very own granddad. For a woman to be with child outside of wedlock was indeed a hideous crime way back then, and especially for a young Catholic girl, but with no birth control in practice so to speak of in those far off days, and human nature being what it is, I suppose it happened; as they say, the flesh is weak. God only knows what her penance was at confession.

Granny Hynes was pregnant and carrying her first born, Peter Mulligan, when she married Grandad Hynes She then went on to have seven more children with him; namely uncles Willie, Paddy, my own Dad, Joseph, Johnny, Mickey, and also two daughters, Nanny, and Margaret.

So indeed I Grandad Hynes, (or Binsey as he was known), started the whole chain of the Hynes’s in Granard and the surrounding area, as far as I can gather. So my own Dad’s mum, Granny Hynes, was also Uncle Pee’s mum, this making us all first cousins, and apart from living next door to them in Granard itself, explains just why we’re all still so close.

Her first born, Peter, or Uncle Pee as he was lovingly known, was the most genteel, unselfish and generous of men, and was adored by all his brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces alike. It’s a great tribute to his memory that his own children are truly blessed with all the same genes and wonderful attributes that he himself possessed, and are amongst the nicest people you could wish to be associated with – generous, loving, hardworking and honest. It is no surprise, therefore, to find that all their sons are blessed and enriched by the most wonderful of wives, and I make no apologies for mentioning them in my opening profile. Joan and Peter’s marriage, sad to say, split for reasons I won’t go into here; sadly it happens to the best of us. Then there’s, Olive, Josie, our Sheila, and Trish- all so much enhancing the family that it is a great pleasure indeed to be in their company whatever the occasion. I did not really know Peter’s wife Joan very well before the split, but I would imagine she would have been just the same before she had her head turned. It’s just human nature; we all make mistakes in life, or just follow our hearts.

So all of the Hynes children all lived out their young lives, grew up, and got married, in or around the town of Granard, Co Longford.

They themselves went on to have something like thirty two children between them, apart that is from my Auntie Nanny who married Jack Ralston, an Easkey man from county Sligo, for they never themselves had any children of their own, but glorified in the love of all of their nephews and nieces. They themselves moved to England, and with the rest of Mum and Dad’s family, set up home in Manningtree, Essex, where they, worked and lived out their lives.

My other Auntie Margaret, who sadly I personally do not really remember as a child, married a man named Bob Keegan and stayed on in Granard bringing up her family. Their children were, Paddy, Mickey, and Lisa (who sadly did not live beyond her teens). Auntie Margaret sadly died at quite a young age back home in Ireland, of which I have very little recall.

The Hynes’s, Mulligans, Commiskeys, and Keegans were all first cousins growing up together, that is of course not forgetting the Kellys, the Ralstons, and indeed the Finnans, which was of course my own Mother’s maiden name. Mum had two sisters, Lissie and Teresa Auntie Lissie was the mother of my beloved cousin Larry Finnan, again born out of wedlock- today an everyday occurrence, but way back then horror beyond belief, almost excommunication even However, Larry was described by his mother as the most wonderful mistake of her life, her pride and joy. Larry took me under his wing, guiding and watching over me as a young Goson growing up in Granard, and the Terrace.

So I’ll leave it to you to imagine the size of our extended family living today, both throughout England and still in and around Granard in Ireland, and as is a wonderful trait with the Irish throughout the world, that wherever we roam or settle, whatever the distance, we all mostly still keep in touch, and when necessary support each other. Weddings, parties, any get together, are just not to be missed.

I would like to try and establish before writing on, who I am, and, to try and identify the history of my family, and to see what part we played in the scheme of life here in Ireland long before I was born. The name Hynes started way back in the annals of time as first O’hEidhen in Gaelic, to later become O’Heynes. History tells us that they were very powerful Chieftains, and large clans owning vast tracts of land, castles, and land servants. There are still to this day a number of Hynes Castles scattered around Cork and Galway. The modern Castle built by O’Heyne still stands to day. As to whether there is actually any connection to ourselves is a matter of conjecture, but it is interesting to say the least, that upon asking for and getting a copy of my old school report of 1949, it indeed spells my name as, O h-Eiden, Sean. This is Gaelic of course, but is unusual as it was written during the English occupation of Ireland when the Irish were coerced into using English spelling, and so the O and Mac were dropped and sometimes replaced by a final S, so O hEidin became O’hEyne, and later Hynes which is how it is spelled in Ireland to-day. It is most certainly not as uncommon a name as I had first thought as a goson, or child growing up in Granard.

There is in fact a Hynes shield of two lions; a red lion on a yellow background, opposite a yellow on a red background. This was brought back by my son Kevin from America, where he was looking into his ancestry, and discovered the Hynes clans and chiefdoms had formed a very powerful part of Ireland’s history.

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I suppose that whilst none of us to-day would be seeking, any reverence for such an esteemed connection with the distant past, but perhaps just a little bit more respect and recognition now and again from friends and colleagues, such as a doffing of the cap and a shout of: ‘Hold on a minute there, Sean,’ when looking to purchase the odd pint. ‘Sure, I’ll get that, sir,’ Now that wouldn’t go amiss at all. This would be amongst my closest friends, but as they’d soon become even fewer, I’ll add that it’s not compulsory, so as not to frighten them off. Perhaps we’ll stay friends if I say I’m only joking, but it’s always comforting to know that if ever any of us was found wanting, or in trouble, whatever our lineage, our family would be there, no question asked; the bonds of our youth will always remain with us, or maybe more to the point, it is the Terrace that binds us all still.

I am not quite sure where in Ireland the Hynes’s originated from in the first place, or how they came to settle in Granard, but from memory I can only recall Dad and my Aunts and Uncles being the only Hynes’s in or around Granard. However, there would by all accounts appear to be a lot of that name in and around Galway. There was a Frank Hynes, a Captain very heavily involved in the 1916 uprising, (the famous post office siege of Dublin). I am not sure if there is any connection. It would certainly seem that whilst there doesn’t appear to be any long previous history of the Hynes’s in or around Granard, it would seem to differ in that the Mulligan’s, Keegans, Commiskeys, Finnans, Kelly’s, and indeed the rest of our cousins would certainly appear to originate from in and around the area of Granard.

One

It is easy to wonder what might have been, looking back, had I been a rebel and been recruited into the IRA. Would I be long dead perhaps? I might even have been a singer or even a priest, possibly in transport, or like many a poor soul who drank him- or herself into an early grave, faced with nothing but despair as to their goal. Their only solace, and indeed comfort, would come from likeminded individuals propping up the bar, until the money or credit ran out before they fell asleep on their feet. At least no one was alone in misery, and there would always be a comforting shoulder to cry on; it would be, I suppose, a trap just so easy to fall into. It was seen back then as a brief escape, the only way out of the bottomless pits, but it’s not always easy to find either the drive or the initiative to walk away before it becomes too late. All too often, this is the case, not only in Ireland but wherever there is poverty, emptiness, and despair. Or perhaps it is just the simple lack of willpower to look beyond life’s obstacles and to find a way around or over them, in order to move on, and so one finds solace in the bottom of a glass.

It is a path easily followed, sad to say. Looking at some of the unfortunate headstones in the graveyards and their ages, it is easy to see how it all might happen, where there was nothing but despair. Indeed, any of these paths I myself might have taken, but fate – or my mother’s guiding hand – somehow guaranteed the path we were to follow. Perhaps it was just self-determination and strength of thought that guided us away from the worst of the pitfalls.

Who or what decides the route we take on our journey through life? What, I wonder, decides our fate? I can recall seeing the emptiness and despair etched on the faces of relatively young people, totally lost as to a direction to follow, not only in Ireland, but throughout the world. Perhaps it wasn’t just poverty that destroyed them. In some cases, poverty was in fact the spur to reach out for something better – that and the unstinting never-say-die spirit of our beloved parents that we would, and thankfully did, somehow rise above the magnet of drink and the gutter. Not that I’ve taken the pledge or am against drink; far from it. It is just knowing you can both enjoy and control it, without it destroying you. It would be a sad state of affairs if as a Paddy myself, I couldn’t enjoy the odd tipple or three at any old Hooley, whether wake or wedding.

The memories of my childhood are very sketchy and misty, perhaps blocking out the pain, misery, cold, and hunger that was such a part of our lives in 1930s and ’40s Ireland. That we survived at all is down to a mother who would not be defeated, whatever the obstacles, in her efforts to ensure that everything humanly possible that could be done would be done to ensure our survival; from constant begging, borrowing, cleaning, pleading, and every chore she could undertake. She tramped the roads of Ireland, itself downtrodden and poor. On she would go daily, begging from farms and houses, for anything she thought she could get: an egg, a cabbage, a potato or two, or on odd occasions being given a rabbit caught in a snare, with a ‘Here you are, woman, take this home and feed yer childer’.

She also earned a few pennies doing little chores, all in her quest to provide for her husband and children – washing, ironing, tidying up. Whatever it took, Mum would do it, and she wasn’t alone in her quest, that’s for sure. But it is hard to imagine now as to how it was way back then, a completely different era.

Will we ever truly know the full extent of the sacrifices she made in an effort to feed a husband and six children? It is a sad fact of life that in most cases, especially amongst the poorest in society back in those far-off days, most women aged long before their time. It came from the drudgery of slaving day after day, morning till night, in an effort to put a bit of food of some sort on the table for a family of eight, and to keep body and soul together, with no mod cons of any description, that’s for sure, not even running water. It was the same for all of us. Those who survived those harsh days of early childhood put it down to not only our own mum but all the mums of those cruel, barren years, that we’re here to tell the tale. I know that most of our generation are indeed a bit stunted in growth, some of it no doubt as a direct result of the lack of proper nutrition. Indeed, I myself, whilst being perfectly formed from the waist up, am lacking the full hips or waistline to go with my upper body.

My brothers Brian, Mel, and Joey followed me in quick succession. With food in very short supply, no doubt with me being the oldest boy, as another, another, and yet another boy was born, in order to try to keep us all fed to the best of her ability, I drew the short straw in having to go without on occasions. This ensured that my siblings ate, which restricted the natural development of my body. Even to this day, wearing a belt, I have a job keeping trousers from slipping down over my tapered, narrow hips without hoisting them up now and again. It has never held me back in whatever pursuit I chose or ever left me lacking in any physical strength. God bless her, Mum could only do her best for all of us; no doubt more often than not, she herself went without.

Dad would get work wherever he could and was very adept at turning his hand to anything – cutting turf, building walls, herding cows, horses, sheep, or cutting hay or barley with just a scythe – long before the days of combines. He, by all accounts, even took to cutting hair and also laying out the dead; only the wealthy had undertakers. He did whatever it took to get a shilling, even standing on the corner of the market house with a crowd of other men, waiting for whoever to come along and offer them a day, a week, or even a few hours’ work.

Dad was very rarely without work, but I think a lot of it was seasonal, and with no industry as such, it was invariably on the land or in the bog, cutting turf and drying it out. He made it ready for transportation