WRITING lately of my more than half a century as a GAA member, I quoted the first two lines of a famous song, I’ve been to a great many places /And wonderful sights I have seen.
Those are the opening lines written in 1894 by one Percy French.
The Roscommon native was nominally an Engineer for Drains in the Department of Agriculture. He was also an artist and a composer of many, many songs, including The Mountains Of Mourne, Come Back Paddy Rielly To Ballyjamesduff, Eileen Oge, Are Ye Right There Michael, and Gortnamona.
While working in Co. Limerick, French stayed in the boarding house of one Anthony McAuliffe in the town of Dromcollogher.
French wrote all sorts of compositions - happy, sad, tongue in cheek, and hilarious. By his own account, he was treated well in Drom’, and after his sojourn there he penned the song Drumcolliher - using the more Irish anglican spelling - which I quoted at the start.
By another coincidence, the 170th anniversary of French’s birth is in a few days’ time. Little did I think last week as I quoted his famous ‘Limerick song’ that I’d be by a graveside in County Clare on Monday this week, joining in the singing of Drumcolliher - truly ‘is ait an mac an saol’ - life can take strange turns!
It was a funeral with a difference in more ways than one.
Denis (DJ) Broderick was the son of a shopkeeper, Patrick, in the Square in Dromcollogher. He expanded the family business and became a publican, undertaker, draper and farmer.
In the troubled year of 1921, DJ, while on a ‘buying trip’ in London, met, fell in love with, and married Moira O Mahony - all in the space of three days!
Moira was the daughter of a captain in the British Army who had been killed in World War I. She and DJ lived on in Drom’, where they reared their family of nine children.
One of these nine, Denis, was married to my mother’s sister, Auntie Bridie, and that’s how the Brodericks of Drom’ became part and parcel of the Twomey family.
The second youngest of the nine Brodericks was Hilda Nora, who married Galway man Ignatius Raftery. They had four children and five grandchildren.
A beautiful couple, Hilda and Ignatius were great friends of my own mother and when Mam died suddenly in 1996, they came down from Clare to support us in our grief.
Hilda suffered a short illness in recent weeks. She celebrated her 83rd birthday on April 11, just last week, and died on the following day April 12 - the day before her father DJ’s birthday.
So, on Monday last I travelled up to the beautiful Our Lady of The Well Church in Clonmoney, near Bunratty for the Funeral Mass.
Music and song were part and parcel of the rich tapestry that was wrapped around the Broderick family over the years. These blessed gifts were well and truly reflected in the gorgeous and uplifting celebration of Hilda’s farewell.
Then we made the short journey to the cemetery at Bunratty. This, with the solid remains of an ancient church, has been used as a burial place for close on eight centuries. It is very well kept with a smaller new extension being used nowadays for burials.
I was at the cemetery before the funeral cortege arrived and got into conversation with the man in charge. He told me of a unique and ancient tradition which always takes place at funerals there.
Historians say the last wolf was killed in Ireland in the year 1786. Well, in the Bunratty area centuries before that, wolves were to be found on a widespread basis - ’twas the same over most of the country.
In the Middle Ages, wooden coffins were seldom used - shrouds, blankets and wicker/rush baskets, or even sugans of straw, were the norm. Graves were often very shallow, maybe only three or four feet.
Packs of marauding wolves often frequented graveyards and would attack ‘fresh’ graves with terrible results, and that happened regularly in Bunratty cemetery.
In an effort to deter the wolves’ nocturnal activities, the corpse of the deceased person was placed on the ground just outside the cemetery gate. The thinking was that the ‘scent’ would remain on the spot on the ground and confuse the wolves.
So, down the centuries, every coffin that came here for burial was briefly placed on the sod before being lifted up and borne then to its final resting place in the cemetery.
The wolves are long gone from Bunratty and elsewhere on this island, but the old tradition is still observed.
So, last Monday evening, Hilda’s family bore the coffin from the hearse, then put it on the sacred ground for a second, and then continued to the graveside.
In another lovely old custom, we all took turns in filling in the grave -the way ’twas always done in days of yore. When finished, the shovels were put aside and the green sod rolled back on top and the final prayers were said.
As the soil was shovelled in, we sang and - afterwards too. Hilda’s brother John led us with Drumcolliher;
I’ve been to a great many places,
And wonderful sights I’ve seen
From Agernavoe to Ballinasloe
And back to Ballyporeen.
But when they talk of the town that
Over the ocean lie
When they say to me Pat,
what do you think of that.
I up and says, says I... have you ever been to Drumcolliher?
Yes, and we sang Two Little Girls In Blue and Que Sera, Sera.
Of course funerals are, by nature, sad, but there’s truth and common sense in the saying, ‘She got a great send-off’. Yes truly, Hilda a was remarkable daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, teacher and pioneer educator.
Her daughter Marinella said she had a curiosity for learning, life-long learning, and as we have so often heard, ‘the longer we live, the more we learn’ and having a curious mind is one of God’s greatest gifts.
In our house, we never forget the Broderick family and their link to us. In our dining room is a fine solid oak table. It was originally in a premises in Dromcollogher, bought by Uncle Denis and Auntie Bridie for their home in Glanworth and then came to us in Bartlemy.
I wrote a few lines from the song last week, heard John Bowman on the radio on Sunday morning speak of Percy French, and then the wheel of life came the full circle last Monday in a tranquil setting in rural County Clare.
Hilda was a lovely person - truly she ‘brightened our pathway awhile’. She loved her parents, siblings and her family, and we were all privileged to be part of her extensive, extended family.
Her father was a great man for saying and quotations. One of his favourites was by Adam Lindsay Gordon;
Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone.
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own.
In a few weeks’ time, Hilda was to have been at a family wedding with us all - how things change: ‘ whatever will be will be, the future’s not ours to see, what will be, will be’.
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