201505 CM May

THE farm where I spent the lion’s
share of the summer of 1966 nestles
at the top of a densely overgrown
lane on the outskirts of the tiny
hamlet, Bohola.
Steeped in ancient Gaelic history,
Bohola, located in the far west of County
Mayo, Eire, with a population of a little
over 200 mostly agrarian workers, survived
plague, famine and long centuries of
indifference to its fate.
It has changed little since my mother
was born on that same farm in 1918, just as
the First World War was coming to a close. I
don’t know exactly which day or month she
was born, for accurate local parish records
did not exist back then.
When I travelled with my mother via
an early Aer Lingus flight to Bohola as a
child the farm was running a modest dairy
operation, overseen by Uncle Bernie, one of
my mother’s eight brothers. Like my mother,
they are now all long gone, but with the
recent passing of a family member on the
Irish side of my family, I was reminded of an
event which took place on the farm all those
decades ago.
You could say it was my first insight
into the machinations of capitalism – or
perhaps more accurately, how the long
reach of capitalism serves even the tiniest
of outposts.
As a commercial centre, Bohola has
little going for it. A solitary public house
serving cold Guinness to farm workers at
the end of a long day in the fields. And a
village shop, administering the basic needs
of the community. There is a Catholic
church of course, and many a stern sermon
has been addressed to the tiny Bohola
populace from its pulpit over the centuries.
In order to secure anything more than
the everyday bits and pieces, you’ll need
to travel the seven miles or so to the small
town of Kiltimagh, a beautiful spot, terribly
ravaged by the Great Potato Famine of the
1840s.
Which is what I ambitiously decided to
do back in that long, drowsy summer of
1966.
England had just won the World Cup
– not that the news travelled particularly
quickly to the farm on which I found
myself that year, for there was no means of
receiving news from the outside world.
I was baffled by the fact that there
was no radio, and further mystified by the
worrying absence of a television. Nothing.
There was not even a toilet. I remember
when I first enquired as to the whereabouts
of the loo in the rambling old farmhouse,
only to be met with lots of chuckling and
rolling eyes and thumb pointing outside
gestures.
So outside in the fields was where you
had to go to relieve yourself. Maybe find a
spot in one of the outhouses if the weather
was inclement.
You get used to it, cackled my Aunty
Bea, toothlessly beaming through a fog of
Sweet Afton cigarette smoke.
I doubted I would ever get used to
crouching down in a field under the
mournful, watching eye of the dairy herd,
but as the days passed and the summer
ebbed and flowed, sure enough I began to
adjust to the rural ways of this mythical part
of Ireland, where leprechauns were said to
congress with fairies, and heroic knights
once fought against invaders from many
foreign lands.
And where many children and their
parents starved to death in their thousands
in the pitiless famine that decimated the
local population between 1845 and 1852.
On the day I set out to Kiltimagh, on a
bicycle so ancient and rusted I had little
faith it could support the 14 mile round
trip, the children in the farmhouse were in a
state of heightened excitement.
Cousin Bernard is coming down from
Dublin and he’s bringing a picture box
with him. A picture box! Who would have
thought such a thing, they sang and
chattered all around the farm.
I had no idea what a picture box was –
what on earth could they be referring to, I
wondered. But, as the miles crawled past
on my epic trip to the town of Kiltimagh, I
thought less of the mysterious picture box
and more of the Victor comic I hoped to
pick up that morning – assuming I made it
there and back, of course.
As luck would have it, the comic was in
stock, and the old bone shaker held up for
the long cycle ride back to the farm.
When I finally arrived, exhausted, back
at the ranch, the yard – normally alive with
the sound of many young children yelling
and shouting – was oddly quiet.
Where, I wondered, was everyone? Not
even a chicken pecking at my feet. How
strange.
On entering the farmhouse, it all became
clear. Sitting proudly on the kitchen table,
a somewhat fuzzy black and white picture
weakly penetrating the gloomy stone floor
and walls, was a television, a huge aerial
protuding ostentatiously from
its rear.
A television, transported all
the way from a tiny warehouse
in Dublin, to a farmhouse in the
back of beyond which did not
even have an outdoor toilet, let
alone an indoor one.
Sat spellbound in front of the
box were assembled children,
quiet for once, looking as if they
had been visited by a magician.
Which in a way they had, in the
form of my cousin Bernard, who
had come down on a surprise visit
with his miracle gift.
Bernard, who was eventually
to become one of the UK’s
most successful businessmen, building
up and selling the construction company
he inherited from his father – my uncle –
had lavished what was then an unearthly
amount of money in Ireland, a country
where television sets were, in the mid-60s,
as rare as hen’s teeth.
And this is where capitalism will always
win, reaching out, feeling and probing for
demand for its goods and services in the
most unlikely of places.
You can call the story of my cousin
Bernard and the television a parable of
sorts. We had both made journeys that day.
Me to the paper shop in Kiltimagh, and
Bernard from Dublin to the miniscule hamlet
of Bohola. But I will remember cousin
Bernard’s visit for another reason.
Unbeknown to me, when I was glued to
that television set along with all the other
kids, Bernard had felt the irresistible call
of nature, and had crept out to one of the
barns to relieve himself.
Like televisions, toilet paper was scarce
in that part of Ireland in 1966: well, there
were hardly any toilets, were there?
I later found my unread Victor comic in
the barn. Well someone has found a use for
it, I thought grimly as it was buzzed by flies.
But no-one would admit to purloining it,
leaving me with one of my earliest lessons,
that investments, no matter how small and
desirable, are never guaranteed to bring any
dividends whatsoever.
I recall my howls of anguish at finding
the comic in that barn. A comic I had
sweated for – exchanged my labour for, in
a way – on a windy day long ago in the far
west of Ireland.
Bernard was well on his way back to
Dublin by the time I had made him for the
culprit. Probably never gave it another
thought.
And just as it was an early lesson for
me, it was also an example of one of the
primary edicts of success in business. Seize
the opportunity when it arises. Because you
may not get another chance.
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