The Irish Mail

This month I share with readers an “adventure” from my youth, one which might possibly strike a nostalgic chord with some.
When my grandmother passed away “at a great age” in March 1961 this appeared to signal the last of our visits, in fact, what had become annual pilgrimages with our parents, from Birmingham, “home” to the west of Ireland. My grandfather had passed on some three years previously.
Following my grandmother’s death my father closed up the old family homestead in Killasser, near Swinford, County Mayo, disposing of the contents, bringing finality to the involvement of the Fox family and its lineage with the parish of Killasser. The house, in fact, along with the adjoining few acres of land from which a subsistence living had been eked in earlier times, was sold to the nearest neighbour who, sadly, turned it into an animal byre. This was the house which my father, at the age of 22 years, and almost single-handedly, had built for his parents, the construction cost being funded by necessary periods of working “across the water” in England.
The demise of the Fox family home, “my Irish roots”, sadly, only mirrored similar situations of that era and before, up and down the length of rural Ireland, where the younger family members, reflecting the impoverished times that were in it, had emigrated to make new lives and homes in England, America, Australia or wherever, and with the passing of their parents, longstanding families faded out of a particular area. All that might be left would be a closed up, abandoned and decaying dwelling, still bearing the name of the previous inhabitants, be it “Murphy’s”, “Egan’s”, Walsh’s”, or whoever. At least, for as long as there were still people around the particular village or “townland” whom might remember who had lived in a particular house.
In the event, my grandparent’s departure from this life, happily, did not bring an end of our visits to the west of Ireland. An invitation a couple of year’s later from an aunt and uncle living near Kilkelly, County Mayo to myself and my younger brother to “come on over” for a summer holiday was enthusiastically responded to. I was fortunate, even at my young age, to have a good knowledge of travel, familiarity with train timetables etc, and “a good sense of direction” and, thus, we were to be allowed by our parents to undertake, unaccompanied, the lengthy journey – no low cost, one hour flights to the west of Ireland in those days – from Birmingham to Ballyhaunis, the town nearest to my uncle and aunt’s farm with a station on the Dublin railway line.
The cost of the holiday, I recall, was funded in part by my earnings from a short summer job at “the Austin” at Longbridge, in company with other schoolmates, “stock taking” (essentially, this was the counting of nuts, bolts, washers, springs, and other bits and pieces utilised in the manufacture of cars there, whilst the regular workers were on their two week holiday “shut down”).
We were delivered to New Street Station, Birmingham on a Friday evening, well in time for the 10.10 p.m. train to Stafford where we would change into “The Irish Mail”, on its journey from London Euston to Holyhead via Crewe. At Holyhead we would board the British Railways ship which would take us over the Irish Sea to Dun Laoghaire, south of Dublin.
Having purchased our “through” tickets to Westland Row Station in Dublin, we went to the station buffet for a cup of tea. This stuffy smoke filled “pillar” of the British Railways establishment was crowded with travellers many no doubt returning from their work in the Birmingham area to their homeplaces in Ireland. I can recall the sound of a hissing hot water urn, the clatter of crockery, cutlery and beer glasses and a general hubbub as the buffet staff endeavoured to serve their demanding hungry and thirsty customers.
Almost immediately, the station announcer, in the non-too clear tones characteristic of station public address systems of the times, heralded the imminent departure of our train. We hurried to our train, a steam engine at its head blowing off importantly. We boarded and deposited ourselves in the corner of a smoky soon to be packed “third class” compartment in a “corridor” coach, our tickets not permitting us to enter the “first class” accommodation on the train. For reasons, no doubt quite logical to the railway operators of those times, there was no “second class” accommodation on any of their trains. And no airy open plan carriages in those days either!
The journey to Stafford took an hour where we got out along with a number of our fellow travellers, to await the arrival of the Holyhead train. On the night in question it was more convenient to change trains here and not further down the line at Crewe, the traditional transfer station for Holyhead-bound travellers from, Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester etc.
Looking beyond the end of the station platform we soon perceived the shape of a steam locomotive emerging from the blackness of a moonless night. Almost immediately, and majestically, it thundered into the station, a headboard on its front announcing that this was “The Irish Mail”, drawing its lengthy train of crowded carriages along the length of our platform, quickly coming to a halt, with brakes screeching.
Along with others, and amidst much pushing and shoving, we scrambled aboard clutching our cases tightly for fear that we would lose these in the melee. Once aboard, we quickly discovered that there were no seats to be obtained anywhere in “third class”, and little standing room in the carriage corridors. We resigned ourselves to being squeezed into a small corner of the buffet car, “buffeted” indeed by thirsty customers going to and from the bar, the invasion of cigarette smoke, and the smell of “drink”, in an immediate environment of a wet floor and broken glass, as the carriage swayed from side to side on its journey. Oh the joys of travel in those times!
Crewe Station was soon reached, some got off the train, even more crammed on board, and soon we were speeding for Chester and along the North Wales coast, with the occasional stop, until we at last arrived alongside the ship at Holyhead Port, sometime around the unearthly hour of 3 o’clock in the morning. We had dozed off but were rudely awoken by the noise and clamour of passengers pulling luggage from racks and, as it seemed, with everyone trying to pile off the train at the same time.
We alighted and with our fellow travellers climbed the gangway up the side of the ship, the “Cambria”, into a brightly lit reception area. We found some seats in a “saloon” and settled down for an uneventful sea crossing to Dun Laoghaire which would take some three and a half hours.
On arrival at Dun Laoghaire pier we left the ship and joined the train drawn up alongside which was to take us to Westland Row Station in Dublin. We were again crammed into a crowded smoky compartment, as the train rattled along on its short journey up the coast to Dublin.
At Westland Row we had a few hours to kill whilst we awaited the train that would take us from there to Ballyhaunis via Mullingar, a rail journey not now possible to make with line closures and re-routing of services. The hatch of the ticket office opened up only a short while before the train departure time, and we quickly purchased our tickets. In a moment of aberration (and flush with a bit of cash from my summer job) we decided to buy “first class” tickets for the journey.
Once on the train, we settled down in the comfort of a first class compartment, the only other occupants being an American couple who were touring Ireland by train. Full of our own importance (holding first class tickets, of course!) we endeavoured to give the impression, despite our youthful years, that we too were seasoned travellers (and not short of a bob or two, either)!
At Ballymoe, not far from our destination Ballyhaunis, our train halted for a considerable time. The train guard explained to us that we were waiting for an oncoming train, from Westport to Dublin, to pass us. We were “parked” in a “loop” off the single track upon which both trains hitherto had been travelling at speed towards each other! Well, really! This was quite new to us, our previous rail travel having been on trains which, at least, had their own dedicated tracks!
We duly drew into Ballyhaunis Station, heads out the window, seeking out the form of our uncle who was meeting us. Suddenly, there he was in the crowd, dark suited in keeping with the male fashion of the times. As we alighted, he greeted us warmly and took our cases. He explained that before we travelled out of town to his farm we would “have a drink” at a certain local hostelry. We walked down the hill from the station, into the pub in question, dimly lit and smoky, and were seated at a table already laden with beer glasses and bottles. Clutching our Vimtos we were introduced to those seated at the table and it was soon apparent that an enjoyable social gathering in which our uncle was participating had been momentarily interrupted whilst he had adjourned to the station to collect us!
We subsequently arrived at our aunt and uncle’s farm some five miles out of town where we spent a wonderful and memorable two weeks holiday, free of immediate parental authority. We combed the fields, climbed the hills, chased the hens, scattered hay, and we walked to dances at the local Tooreen Ballroom (said, famously, to have been visited by the Devil!), on one occasion getting soaked by rain on the way there, with a second worse soaking on the way home, and made many friends during our stay.
All too soon our holiday was over and, farewells exchanged, we retraced our steps home to Birmingham, our travelling experiences not being too dissimilar to those encountered on our original journey to the west of Ireland!