Once Upon a Time

(I love French doors)

About 13 minutes (to be super precise) further south from the supermarket where we had our first French coffee is the village of Saint Mére Eglise. We have been here many times before and ordinarily I would send you to a post from the past but unfortunately my IT guy, Denis (AKA Tin-Bucket-Stomach - thank you Maeve for his new title!) has been doing some decluttering here on the blog and there’s nothing to see from the past… at the moment. Until it all returns, here’s a quick summary of Saint Mére Eglise…

(Saint Mére Eglise, Castel was our favourite cafe)

It’s a bustling tourist town with a very good World War II museum. French and American flags everywhere. Lots of tour guides with small groups surrounding them wander the square around the church. The tours are in French, English, German and sometimes Japanese and they are all about the same thing, the night a US paratrooper got stuck on the church tower. (There’s also a good campsite at the edge of the town so that’s where we stayed for the first week. Catching up on sleep and experiencing French life - all be it in a tourist setting.)

(You can just see the awning of the Boulanger on the left)

On the 6th of June 1944 the first US paratroopers landed in Normandy, this was D-Day and their mission was to liberate France. Private John Steele was one of them. He was 32 years old when he jumped out of a plane over the town and was one of the few who survived the night. His story and many others are told in the museum. His story is also in a movie called The Longest Day and even in the video game, Call of Duty. It’s a compelling story. It’s also full of sadness.

(The French are very serious about their bread and the price of a baguette is regulated)

Story is one of the reasons I love going to museums. They do pull at my emotions but isn’t that why we are alive? To feel? Anyway, modern museums are very good at telling stories and helping us visitors get a sense of what was going on back then. So much better than history lessons at school would, for me anyway. There we were relaxing in Saint Mére Eglise when the Irish Census from 1926 went public last week. Finding the form with my Dad’s name on it was a lovely surprise and even thought I already knew the story, seeing it in black and white (or black and sepia) brought his story to life.

(Peeping in the window at the Charcuterie)

My dad was the youngest of four sons living on a farm in the Wicklow mountains. From the form I learned the farm where he was born was 26 Statute Acres, so not that big and from visiting as a child I can remember it was on the side of a mountain, so probably not that productive. When my Dad was three years old his father died. I don’t know why someone decided to send him and his older brother to a widowed aunt in a different farm - but I guess it was financial. His brother was seven years old and was probably given the responsibility of minding my dad. Thinking about that has me feeling big feelings. Can you imagine?
The two brothers lived with their aunt until they were old enough to work. I visited the area near his aunt’s farm with my Dad the year before he died but I couldn’t remember much about it so I checked on Google Maps. It’s 19 minutes by car between the two farms but they didn’t have a car. To walk would take 3 hours and 19 minutes. They probably didn’t see much of their mother… more big feelings.

(My Granny and my Uncles Mark and Nick (Nicholas) on the Irish census form from 1926)

Reading the census forms gave me a snapshot of a day in his life there. On Sunday 18th April 1926 my Dad was five and his brother was nine. Their aunt was 58 as she sat at the kitchen table to fill in the census form with her details on the first row. There was a 28 year old nephew from Blackrock in Dublin, living there and working on the farm, his details were noted second. Then she added the two boys, my Dad and my uncle making sure to correctly add Father Dead for both. She wrote the size of the farm, 42 Statute Acres. There were 3 rooms in the house - this information was added by the Garda who collected and checked the form, probably a few days later.
Back in his mother’s house, on the same day, I see she is 44. She has beautiful handwriting and takes her time filling in her form. Does she imagine that 100 years from now her grandchildren will be reading her words? She fills in her own name, her age, religion, etc. and the very last thing she adds on her row is the number of living children she has (whether resident or not) and she writes 4, for her 4 boys. She has someone working the farm with her too, a 17 year old nephew from Swords but she adds her two sons before him. She also adds Father Dead for each one. The Garda collecting her form, a different Garda, notes there are 4 rooms in this house.

(My Dad, Peter Brophy and my uncle Jim (James) on the Irish census form from 1926)

One of the happiest things that happened since we were last on the road was the arrival of our first grandchild, Teru, in September 2024. We are smitten and leaving Ireland without him has been difficult. I could talk about him for the entire blog but that might be too much for you… I’ll just say, when he smiles it’s like sunshine and everything he does is a thing to be wondered at.

(Somebody sent this to Denis. It’s a portion of a 1926 census form. It shows the person is a 48 year old single woman… and very happy to be single.)

For instance he loves to play with the lego duplo our grown children used to play with. And a couple of weeks ago he put some in a yoghurt container I had saved for playing shop with him. He’s too young to play shop but I used to love playing shop as a child and couldn’t wait to play it with my own children when they were little but they had zero interest in shop games - they preferred the actual supermarket. I’m determined to try again with Teru, and I’ve been collecting cartons and boxes. Anyways, he had put all the people/animals, Mama, Dada, Nana, Gdada (Grandad), Raar (lion), Anda (Panda), Baba (Boy) in the container.

(Teru and Grandad)

(Side note: I picked well when I chose to be called Nana because he finds it very easy to say and says it every time he sees me! I cannot tell you how happy that makes me.)

Then he put the lid on top of his container of toys and set off down the hall humming. When he got to his play tent, he placed the container inside, turned around on the spot, picked it up again and carried it back to me in the sitting room. The first time we met him all he could do was sleep, eat and poop and now here he is walking around making up games for himself! Is this not miraculous? This little fella had broken my heart open and a lot of my life feels miraculous. Today I feel closer to my grandmother. A woman I was named after (Mairead is the Irish for Margaret) who sat at her kitchen table filling in a census form I get to read 100 years later. Is this not also miraculous?

(Also, there’s a definition of Statute Acres on the census form… 5 Statute Acres = 4 Cunningham Acres = 3 Irish Acres. Both farms just got smaller.)