Can My Pony Come Too? Read online

  For centuries folk have walked what we all call the ‘river walk’. Without doubt one of the loveliest walks of the world, it meanders up the eastern side of the Glendasin River where rabbits scuttle, hedgehogs ferret and wild deer graze in the thick woods. On the western side is the Wicklow Gap Road where a cluster of whitewashed cottages nestle into the hillside with thick smoke billowing from tall chimneys. Whenever I looked across at those chimneys, I just knew that a warm loaf of Irish Soda bread was about to be taken off the huge stone hearth in the kitchen down below and slathered in thick butter and jam.

  Autumn twilights, now indelibly etched in my mind, are when I enjoyed the river walk most, with the amber trees seeming to bounce back as if reflected and the leaves chasing each other along the gravel path.

  There’s even a sandy beach where the local children come and swim in the summer, lazing in the fleeting rays of sunshine. Outcrops of speckled rocks jut high into the air, as if meticulously carved by a gifted hand centuries ago. One of these, St Kevin’s Rock, is supposed to heal all illnesses when you sit upon its surface.

  A local fellow, Sean McGuire, with a twinkle in his eye, arrived on my parents’ doorstep one evening as we sat around the dining room table, to tell us with great glee: ‘Come lay down your knives and forks. Bring your drinks I’ve found the rock’.

  I wondered if I brought my father home from the hospital in Dublin and sat him on that rock if his cancer would go away; however, the doctor looking after him didn’t appear to be the type of man to be taken in by such fanciful ideas.

  At Cloneen, we would be informed that meals were ready by the battered brass gong which had once summoned my father and the workers from the fields of Drominagh. On formal occasions, the richly polished cedar dining room table would be laid with the remaining cherished china (which had survived after our arduous Australian trip forty years before), our Waterford crystal glassware and the family silver.

  Father Doyle was not your typical priest. One day, when I was visiting Cloneen, we invited him for dinner. Around the table sat my parents, Pat and Una from The Cottage over the field (in reality The Mansion), the wonderful Imelda, who looked after my parents for many years, and Imelda’s husband, Kevin. We had a grand night; much was imbibed by all, except my father, who stuck to his enforced no-drinking pledge, having partaken of one tipple too many in his younger days. There was much merriment and, on leaving, Father Doyle said cheerily: ‘Well now…will you be my guests at the Presbytery one night next week? I’ll be ringing to let you know what night that might be.’

  As he’d partaken of the odd drop of whisky and his memory was not the greatest at the best of times, we felt it was highly unlikely he would remember this kind invitation.

  We thought no more about it until we were at the end of a fine meal at the kitchen table at Cloneen on Tuesday of the following week when the phone rang and Father Doyle’s housekeeper, Eileen, inquired politely of my father as to where we might be?

  When he informed her that we were sitting around the dinner table, she promptly replied: ‘Well now, the good Father is doing the very same thing – waiting for you to join him.’

  As my mother and I’d consumed a glass of her favourite cream sherry at the cocktail hour and a glass of good riesling with our meal we were feeling rather merry, not to mention adequately fed.

  ‘Don’t be so silly, Owen. There’s no way we can go,’ my mother exclaimed, seeing the determined look on my father’s face – a look that told us in no uncertain terms we should immediately up stakes and hastily drive to the presbytery. ‘How could we possibly eat another thing?’ she bemoaned.

  ‘We must,’ my father stated firmly. ‘It was obviously a misunderstanding. Father Doyle is expecting us.’

  A Catholic priest in Ireland, unless he’s blotted his copybook like many around the world have, is even today treated with the greatest of respect, particularly by the elderly. And so it was that my mother and I packed up the table, hurriedly dabbed on some lipstick, grabbed our handbags and overcoats from the stone vestibule by the front door and piled into the small Fiat where my father was anxiously waiting. Ten minutes later we joined Father Doyle at the presbytery. Needless to say he was delighted to see us, with not a mention as to why we were late. Shortly we were sat down to not one, but five beautifully prepared courses, cooked, and served by Eileen.

  Gazing around between courses, I noticed the dining room was furnished to the hilt with Father Doyle’s family heirlooms; the table was also brimming with polished silver and fine china. It seemed to me at the time, that this home of the parish priest was somewhat grander than one would have imagined. Yet, in true tradition, it was as cold as ice. For, although it was in the middle of a freezing Irish winter, it would not seem to be in good form for the priest to be enjoying too many comforts of this world. Maybe he didn’t notice the cold. Or perhaps the whisky kept him warm.

  Chapter 3

  An Irish Family

  Even though my father, Owen James Esmonde, born May 15, 1905, left school at fourteen, he was a self-taught, well-read learned man.

  Three months after I deserted him there in Ireland to return to Tasmania he sadly did pass away. Fortunately, Viv had organised for him to leave the institution-like hospital in Dublin to be admitted to Clonmanan, a stately Georgian mansion recently turned into a nursing home in County Wicklow, and set in acres of picturesque gardens, dotted with tall fir trees, a favourite of his since his days in Drominagh.

  ‘Yet,’ my mother lamented, ‘he always sat with his back to the fir trees. For ages I couldn’t work out why – until I realised they reminded him too much of Drominagh.’

  I faxed him every day from Tasmania and sent him a Koala bear for his bedside. It had a Vegemite jumper and he loved it.

  It was August 23rd when he left us – the day after my brother, Eugene’s birthday.

  My mother, now alone, had carried out his wishes, burying him in Terryglass by the River Shannon in County Tipperary near Drominagh. They had returned to Ireland from Australia in 1969 to run the gift shop managed for many years by my father’s recently deceased brother, Jimmy. This was fortunate (if not for poor Uncle Jimmy) as my father believed that to attain Heaven he needed to die in the Land of Saints and Scholars, in sight of his ‘Lordly Shannon’. He was grateful for the opportunities Australia had given his family; however, Ireland was his home.

  My grandfather, Dr John Esmonde, a flamboyant well-known Irish doctor (a Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons and of the Apothecaries Hall) and Nationalist Parliamentary Member for North Tipperary, died suddenly in 1915 when my father was just nine years old; the cause of his death appearing to be controversial at the time.

  In all the cuttings I have in my possession, and there are hundreds from both Irish and English newspapers proclaiming his sad demise, they all said he died of pneumonia.

  Not so, my father’s half-brother wrote furiously to the Editor, in answer to the newspaper reports: He died of a heart attack brought on by the hard work he had to carry out as the Royal Army Medical Corps Officer in Tipperary and its surrounds during the Great War. He was overworked so much that this caused his heart attack and subsequent death.

  I gather they were understaffed in the RAMC at this time and a great deal of Tipperary’s medical needs fell to my grandfather, with little help.

  One of the cuttings at the time of his death describe him: After the outbreak of the great European war, Dr Esmonde took a leading part in urging that Nationalist Ireland should do her share in curb-ing the ambition and frustrating the designs of Prussian militarism, and he gave practical proof of the faith that was in him by joining the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was gazetted a Captain and was stationed with the Irish Brigade in County Tipperary, where Lt. William Redmond, MP, son of the Irish leader was also in training. The deceased gentleman was of a kindly and amiable disposition, he was a staunch friend and in social life was a delightful acquaintance.’

  It goes on to say: He was an
earnest Home Ruler and a loyal and popular member of the Irish Party and did yeoman service for the Nationalist cause, particularly in England where he was in frequent request as a speaker held to urge Ireland’s claim to National Self Government.’

  How I wish I had met him.

  I remember my father drawing heavily on his pipe and telling me that our family had its recorded origins in the 9th Century in one Eric Osmond, a page to Duke William 1 of Normandy. This connection with the rulers of Normandy continued with the marriage of a later member of the family to Isabella, daughter of Duke Robert, father of William the Conqueror in 1016. Over time the family acquired the surname de Estmonde and later de Esmonde through journeys to the Middle East in the early crusades for the recovery of the Holy places. From the crusades sprang the family crest, Malo, Mori Quam Foedare, meaning ‘Had rather die than be dishonoured’.

  Sir Geoffrey de Estmonte, knight, was one of a party of 30 Norman knights who came to Ireland. They and their followers were less than happy with their expectations of the successors to William the Conqueror and hence took up the challenge to come to the aid of Dermot McMurrogh (King of Leinster) in his fight against the Ard Ri (High King of Ireland), Rory O’Connor. Unbeknown to Dermott and Henry 11 of England, these trusty and gallant Norman knights felt that they could found an independent Norman Kingdom of Ireland.

  This plot was abruptly put to an end when the Earl of Pembroke (Strongbow), dispatched his army, asserting Henry’s overlordship. Sir Geoffrey, however, settled at Lymbrick in Co Wexford, where Sir James de Estmonte, Knight, built a Norman Keep on the site of the Moat and Bailey in 1235. Henry Esmonde (present form of our name) was Seneschal of Wexford 1249-1270. He died without having any children and the castle, Lymbrick, fell into disuse and later ruins.

  The Esmondes also built castles at Johnstown, County Wexford, Huntington, Co Carlow and Ballynastragh, Co Wexford. However, Ballynastragh, sitting on a plot of land granted to the family in the eleventh century, is sadly the only original property still remaining in the Esmonde family. And, needless to say, the money and other grandeurs have long since dissipated, so that sadly by the time we left for Australia in 1954, for our branch of the family anyway, there was little to show for what my forebears had gallantly fought for and gained through grants for services rendered.

  In 1625, Lawrence, Lord Esmonde, built Huntington Castle on lands granted in the reign of Charles 1, lands that were in dispute between the local O’Kavanagh and O’Neill clans. Over the centuries the original tower house has been added to. But the most amazing addition is relatively recent. A fully fledged Egyptian temple in what would have been the dungeon.

  Huntington Castle was supposedly the first private building in the twenty-six counties of Ireland to be wired for electricity. It has a history, as my Aer Lingus, Cara magazine, told me on my last visit to my mother at Cloneen, ‘to which the word chequered barely does justice’. This was enough for me to pick up the phone and make an appointment with the Durdin-Robertson family, descendants of Lord Esmonde, like myself, who now reside there. Today parts of the castle are open to the public. It is also the foundation centre of an international pagan movement with almost 24,000 members.

  Was it not enough that ‘Bad Lord Esmonde’, as he was known, denounced the Catholic faith in order to be made a Lord? Now paganism! What next! I was beyond curiosity as to what I would find.

  As I drove one sunny August morning through the emerald countryside into the picturesque town of Clonegal and over the River Slaney, the river of healing, I turned left into the magnificent avenue of yews. When I caught a glimpse of Huntington Castle through the sun-streaked leaves on the giant trees, I could see that it is one of the finest examples of Jacobean architecture remaining in Ireland today. As I moved slowly down the avenue, I thought that the old saying that the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy was known as the Raj in the Rain became almost a lie, as the warm rays of sunshine shone on this ancient bastion standing sentinel in the midst of manicured lawns surrounded by 180 acres of the richest land in Ireland.

  David, the present owner and my distant cousin by marriage, met me in the walled garden to the rear of the castle where chickens foraged beneath heavily laden fruit trees and a few pieces of rickety farm machinery were pushed against the dry-stone walls. He ushered me inside to the sunny kitchen with the delicious aroma of baking coming from the fuel stove in the corner. Soon I was sitting around the scrubbed pine table in the centre of the room sipping from a steaming cup of tea, nibbling a piece of thick soda bread slathered in butter and homemade jam. It was then that his aunt, the wonderful and exotic Olivia, flounced into the room.

  Eighty-six-year-old Olivia Robertson, the matriarch of Huntington at that time, is one of the few people in the world to have been on speaking terms with WB Yeats and Mick Jagger – both visitors to Huntington Castle over the years. She reminded me of Gypsy Rose…long flowing hair draping over upright shoulders as if it was a netted black mantilla, flouncing dress, dark flashing eyes and expressive hands.

  ‘You’re an Esmonde,’ she said with aplomb, in her fine upper-crust accent.

  ‘Yes. I am. From Australia…Tasmania actually…’

  A robin redbreast landed stealthily on the stone windowsill, pecked at the shining glass, and stared hopefully inside.

  ‘Oh! I’ve read about Tasmania – such a fascinating island,’

  Olivia said, looking me up and down as if I was a horse she was about to add to her stables. ‘I’ve always loved the Esmonde women. So much more interesting than the men.’

  Somewhat taken aback, I thought of all the Esmonde men who had died in the wars; the doctors come politicians, like my grandfather; those who were hanged on O’Connell’s Bridge for their faith; those who had won Victoria Crosses fighting for Britain; my great uncle who’d travelled the world writing his hunting memoirs; those who were missionaries in Africa, including one who’d bravely given up the priesthood to marry a dark foreigner (causing such a furore that one would have assumed he’d murdered the Pope or at the very least an archbishop); my father; my brother.

  Had she not met them? Not heard of them? Somehow I couldn’t help feeling slightly chuffed.

  ‘Not that I don’t find some men enthralling,’ she chuckled, moving to the stove to fiddle with the copper kettle. ‘Now Stanley, what a divine man he was.’

  It took me a moment to realise she was referring to Stanley Kubrick, the director of the movie, ‘Barry Lyndon’, partly filmed at Huntington Castle. A contradictory vision of dapperly clad gentlemen, ornately dressed ladies, shining black horses and grand rooms, together with the dreadful soul-destroying poverty of those less fortunate, flitted through my mind as I recalled the film I’d watched over and over again. And as she sat down, both Olivia and I agreed that a young Ryan O’Neill, who played the film’s hero, was at that time one of the sexiest stars of the big screen.

  ‘David, you must show Rosemary the hole in the wall where her ancestor was shot. And don’t forget to tell her about the ghosts,’ Olivia gushed, pushing her chair back from the ancient table and scraping the heavy wooden legs on the stone floor.

  ‘Ghosts?’ I queried.

  ‘Oh yes! Bishop Leslie, Bishop of Limerick who was here in the 18th Century still comes to visit. And of course, Ailish O’Flaherty, the first wife of Lord Esmonde and granddaughter of Grace O’Malley, visits often, wailing and combing her long hair. She usually comes at night with a white cat.’

  ‘Oh!’

  I looked at the sprightly Olivia and wondered if in a hundred years’ time there may not be another Esmonde being entertained in this very same kitchen and being told: ‘Ah! Yes! Ghosts. Olivia, now she calls in frequently. Long dark hair, darting eyes. She lived here in the twenty and twenty-first centuries. Ran the Temple of Isis.’

  I took another sip of tea and placed my cup back on the saucer.

  ‘How did the Fellowship of Isis start?’ I asked Olivia.

  ‘My brother, Derry, Baron Strathloch, an Anglican c
lergyman,’ she pronounced with fervour, ‘was on a train journey to Bolton when he was suddenly hit with a message: God was a woman!’

  ‘Wow?’ I exclaimed.

  Having been brought up to believe God was definitely a man, yet having read the novel, the Da Vinci Code, assuring me Mary Magdalene had married Jesus and produced a son, I decided anything could be possible.

  ‘Yes,’ Olivia went on, with the assured knowledge her brother was definitely right. ‘That’s when he came back to Ireland and set up a shrine to Isis.’

  ‘May I have a look?’ I asked tentatively.

  ‘Not today,’ she said, shaking her head with vigour. ‘It’s all closed up. Perhaps sometime in the future.’

  I didn’t like to take it any further. As it was, I was grateful enough that I was here. Perhaps I’d get a peep at the shrine another day. With that, Olivia tossed her mane over her shoulder and flouncing out of the room she left David to show me around the castle and grounds.

  The doors were studded; hand-carved-ceilinged rooms contained leather-bound books, paintings, Victorian memorabilia, family silver and furniture. Sure enough, a hole in the wall in the front room caused by a Muscat ball verified the felling of an Esmonde several centuries earlier.

  In the dining room, a huge stained-glass window depicted the family tree. I photographed it twice, wondering as I did what my ancestors would have thought of modern day technology! It was beyond wonder.

  In the next room buffalo heads and tiger skins hung from the stone walls. On from that was a magnificent conservatory with succulent green grapes, almost ripe for the picking, hanging low over deep wickerwork chairs with plush feathered cushions. The bedrooms we wandered through had some of the grandest four-poster beds I’d ever seen.