It's Easter week in Dublin and the City is in the throws of remembering The Rising, a rebellion that took place on her streets in 1916. Controversy and conflicting stories fill every shop and bar. The Irish are famed as storytellers and her Dubliners are even more famed. Throughout the years facts can blur into fiction and vice a versa. One thing remains, all those involved in the Irish Uprising against the British Empire took a chance against a great force to have their voice heard. Thanks to their bravery and the risk of so few we now have a land we can call home. However all this Easter remembering reminded me of my own family traditions at this time.
Being from an Italian /Irish background, an Italian mother whose family arrived to an often hostile Ireland in the 1930s. My father an Irish Tenor singing Gas Fitter from the North Strand. Daddy was famed for his beautiful voice, always had a tune or whistle as he went. He was also a formidable ballroom dancer, and hopeless romantic. They meet at school in Marino Tech in the late 40s, he remembered the day and how he saw her on the sweeping terrazzo staircase, a staircase made by her father, my Nono. But that's another story.
Easter was herald by frantic Spring Cleaning. The house, the garden, the car, the family. All washed, polished, tidied, gleaming. The white linen table cloths all ready, I can still smell the sunlight soap from the cloths hung out on a windy day for drying, my twin brother and I running between the giant cloths gliding our grubby hands along the fabric. A sharp bang on the window and brisque Italian shouted at us to get out from under the cloths, soon had us away. We would get bored with all this cleaning and fed up with the frantic pace our mother and Aunt seemed to work at. Our mother didn't really do the religious side of things, she never did, before her time really. 'I don't need a church or any inbetweener to tell me what or how to live my life' - she was wonderful, creative, captivating and clever, also very beautiful.
So Good Friday, early in the morning Dad would drop myself, my brother and Mammy to Aunty Mary's in Marino. Aunty Mary lived with our Italian Grandparents, how she managed to do all she did none of us will ever know, she was always working. She cared twenty four hours a day for her parents, entertained and fed the extended family most Sundays and took care of me and my brother each day after school. I don't think any of us truly appreciated the linchpin Aunty Mary was, the foundation stone and anchor to all our families she was.
Aunty Mary waited for us, The Twins on Good Friday to collect the fresh eggs from her hens in the back yard. Each egg was marked with a cross, some would be kept for Easter Sunday breakfast. The rest we would boil and paint in bright colours to add to the Easter table display. Nona and Nono would be given a fried egg in butter with fresh Vienna bread and sugary coffee. Aunty Mary did believe strongly in the church traditions, she would've already had attended mass, and was usually waiting for the PP (Parish Priest) to come visit the house. I think he came because her baking was legendary and there was always freshly ground percolated coffee on the stove. This simple luxury of coffee that we all expect these days was not so easy to come by in Dublin in the 1970s.
We were given small jobs, like polish the cutlery at the table beneath the canaries. Their cages were hung high on the window frame looking out to a small but beautiful garden, the window sill crammed with terracotta pots with red and scarlet geraniums. Sometimes on a fine day the birds and their cages were hung outside, the wild birds trying to match their song. We would also be put to work, sitting on the back step taking turns grinding the coffee beans.There was always a cat, either belonging to the house or another neighbour, but Aunty Mary was always feeding one. She had a straight forward fairness, she loved animals, but they had a job to do too. Daddy would pick us up in his orange Dublin Gas Co van with his new hair cut. We were laden down with cloth wrapped pots of pasta, lemon drizzle cake, fresh ground coffee. This trusty Ford Escort Betsy van always had the smell of hard work, copper pipes and brass fittings, but on Good Friday it was lemons and home cooking that filled the air. We'd sing, Dad starting us off...' Mares eat oats, and Doe's eat oats and little lambs eat ivy..'it didn't end till we pulled up to the driveway of our home.
Saturday was the new clothes, everything was laid out for the following Sunday. Out to play, or more likely out of the way. That evening washes, and sitting by the fire one of my older sister would 'Rag' my hair. This was socks or stripes of fabrics that your hair was wrapped around to create bouncing ringlets the following day. Daddy would most likely do a trip to the chipper for fish and chips, he always had the smoked cod.
So Easter Sunday, Daddy had made breakfast, opera or the radio would be on and we would all be dressed in our finest. New ribbons in my hair, either white or yellow, white knee socks, polished. My twin brother in a new shirt and pants his blonde hair gleaming. Our two older sisters dressed in the latest style. off to Nona, Nono and Aunty Mary. All the preparations on Good Friday paid off for this day. When we'd get there, we'd sometimes 'have to' go to mass, Aunty Mary would be at the door hat, gloves and coat on, handbag over her arm, we'd be turned on our heels and marched down the hill of Philipsburgh Avenue to Fairview church to the sound of the bells ringing. Everyone in the community knew and respected our Aunt and she was very well liked. I think she must have made over a hundred wedding dresses, First Holy Communion dresses and altered every suit in a fifty mile radius. I also think she took pride in showing off her extended family at Easter Sunday mass and we always behaved ourselves in church or in grown up situations.
By the time we got back to the house on Brian Road, it was packed with cousins, neighbours Aunts, Uncles. The table was filled with Colomba, an Easter Panettone and very Italian, lemon drizzle cake, home made profiteroles, china cups and saucers, side plates, the sideboard was over laden with flowers and gifts from the descended crowd. Numerous conversations in Italian, English on numerous topics flowed, sweet smells of coffee cake, tobacco and pipe hung in the air like clouds. The canaries singing as high as they could, children casing the cat ran in and about the adults. Through it all Aunty Mary ensured everyone had something to drink something to eat, she pacified any childish disagreement she picked up every baby she kissed everyone's cheek at least twice, she never sat down. And the fire in the heath was always burning.
This family celebration would last till the afternoon, then home to our roast dinner that Mammy had put on in the morning by this stage the lamb was well done the roasted potatoes good and crispy. We'd bust through the hall door long to take our new shoes off and re count our Easter eggs we got from our cousins. The family dog delighted we where at last home. Daddy would go to collect his two elderly Aunts in Donnycarney to have dinner with us. The day seemed to go on and on. Daddy's Aunt where Dubliners that lived through unrest and strife, we didn't appreciate the stories they shared about lock outs and a city in flames at an Easter they'll never forget, of things hidden in skirts. But then I just thought it was stories, they told great stories, but I was too young to realise that fact can be stranger than fiction and that older ladies were once young and extremely brave, I wish I had listened more intently. Every family has it's heroes many go unnoticed.
