A Civil War Baby

From her infant days during the Civil War to her 60 years spent in Altown, Kathleen Devery talks to DAVID FLYNN about her memories of Athlone over the past nine decades. Kathleen was born the week the Michael Collins was shot dead, and she was asleep in her cot when Civil War fighters searched around her for her father's gun. She is the oldest resident of Altown, Garrycastle, and has memories of the past nine decades, going back to when she lived in Rath and Kilkenny West as a child. She was born Kathleen Kilduff when the Civil War was at its peak, in Rath on August 13, 1922, nine days before Free State founder, Michael Collins was shot. "I was told that some searched the house because they knew my father had a gun, and they even lifted the mattress that I was lying on as an infant, but he had it hidden away," she laughed. "My mother wouldn't have a gun in the house, so there was no way they were going to find it there." Kathleen is the daughter of John and Mary (nee Coffey) Kilduff, and there were three girls and three boys in the family. Three members of the Kilduff family are still living. Ninety-two year old Mary is living in England, and Kathleen lives in Altown, and Frank lives in the family home. Frank was known as the 'granny' in the Coolvuck pub, 'Granny's Kitchen', several years ago, when he dressed up in the garb which gave the pub its famous name. The Kilduffs had a couple of acres when Kathleen was a child in the late 1920s, in Rath, and while they sowed every inch of that, her father, John was a ganger on the road working with Westmeath County Council. The house in Rath was a small thatched cottage, and the council gave the Kilduffs a fine two-storey stone house in Kilkenny West. In their new three-bedroomed house, which had been built for others who hadn't lived in it, the Kilduff children were pleasantly surprised to live in a two-storey, and were forever running upstairs and downstairs. "I made my first holy communion while I was still in Rath, and it was about six or seven miles from Tubberclair school, but we had to walk to school, because there was no buses or cars that time," she said. "We had different ways of going to school, depending on the weather or the humour we were in. Sometimes we'd go one way, where we could pick up a turnip, or apples on the way. In summertime, we'd walk to school through fields, and I remember we had to cross over a plank which was over a stream, before we got onto the Tubberclair road." Tubberclair had two teachers in Kathleen's time, Mrs Mulcahy, (who was originally Miss Canny), who taught the girls, and Master O'Brien who came to teach the boys. The Kilduffs had their own pony, and Kathleen's father had a cow, which is where she learned to milk, and in later years, she was known for cycling out of Altown on a bicycle with two buckets regularly to milk cows in her husband, Kieran's native home, Bunnahinly. But when she was a child, the Kilduffs sowed potatoes and vegetables on every inch of their land in Rath, which they retained after they went to live in Kilkenny West, and they also sowed a strip of bogland. Kathleen left school at age 14, around 1936, and cycled to work to Nanny Murphy's pub in Glasson for the sum of £1 per month. She worked in the kitchen, the garden and all over the house, and has great praise over 70 years later for her employer, by saying that while she worked the staff hard, Mrs Murphy would also work along with the staff. "I stayed about a year and a half there, but there was no money around anywhere, no dole or anything, so I was delighted to get anything for work," she said. "But we didn't really have to buy anything, because my mother could make clothes on her sowing machine, and she could also sole our shoes. She was a great all-rounder." Kilduffs' house in 1930s Kilkenny West was practically alone on the road, in the remote rural area, and they listened to the news and programmes on a crystal radio set, but they mostly listened to operatic music records on a gramophone. Their nearest neighbours at that time were the Martins and Nallys. "We had a well down in Rath, and used to bring water over to Kilkenny West on the pony and cart, but we also had rainwater from the barrels at the side of the house," said Kathleen. After leaving Murphys of Glasson, Kathleen went working in Young's estate on Retreat Road, and did housework with other staff, and minded the children. She lived in the four storey house, and Peter Young, who was a child then, still visits Kathleen today in Altown, and they reminisce about those days in Retreat. Kathleen met her husband, Kieran while working in Young's house. Kieran had a van and delivered tomatoes and milk for the Young family, and he lived as an only child, with his parents, in Bunnahinly. Kathleen left to work in Athlone hospital, and stayed in living quarters on the hospital grounds. They were strict times and she had just a few hours off work per week, and had to be back in the hospital quarters before dark, or the gates would be closed. "I used to work on the wards, and it was a very busy hospital then, and there was no hot water then, just a big geezer thing in the kitchen but it was a great place," she said. "I knew the late Nurse Jenny Daly very well, and she was very strong, and a marvellous nurse, and as good as any doctor. I knew everyone in town from my work in the hospital, and I went back to work there after I had my children." Kathleen and Kieran got married in 1945 in Tubberclair church, and couldn't get a taxi for the wedding, so the couple cycled bicycles from their respective family homes, as did their bridesmaid and best man. "We then cycled home for the wedding breakfast to Mammy's house in Kilkenny West, but the next day, I had to leave for England to look after my sister, who was expecting twins, and had two children," she said. "At the same time that we got married, Kieran was already on treatment for TB, which he suffered from for many years." When she returned from England, Kathleen took over the running of her husband's family land, in Bunahinney, all while continuing her job in Athlone hospital. "I must have been made of iron," she said laughing. Kieran spent many years in Mullingar and Peamount hospitals fighting TB, and in 1951, Kathleen and Kieran got a house in the new rural estate, Altown. Their first rent was 4 shillings and 6 pence per week. The couple went on to have seven children, Peter, John, Philomena, Kieran, Mary, Bernadette and Joe. "When we moved to Altown, Mrs Nugent had a shop in her house in Garrycastle, and we shopped there, and went to shop in Shane Macken's in Mardyke Street for the rest," said Kathleen. Kieran beat TB, and lived for many years later, until his death in 1996. Kathleen has 33 grandchildren and 31 great grandchildren and still lives happily in Altown after almost 60 years. The now 88 year old Kathleen keeps herself busy looking after her young grandchildren, Kieran, Joseph, Tommy and Danielle, who live with her, along with her son, Joe, and daughter-in-law, Bernie.