As Time Goes By Read online

  This happened to me that night when I was putting off climbing the stairs to bed. An old Anglo Irish friend once told me condescendingly, ‘The Irish are too lazy to go to bed.’ Her comment annoyed the hell out of me at the time, but she could be right! I am a night owl who will sit down at midnight to read a book, the newspaper or turn on the TV to see what the rest of the world is up to. Usually not much, I discover, but on that particular night my channel-hopping paid off. I came on something that I absolutely loved: the restoration of a grand old house. The programme had already begun when I tuned into it so it took me a while to figure out which house was being discussed. To me, the restoration of any old building is a miracle in the making. But this one was a major miracle! And then I realised that it was the restoration of Ballyfin. I was reunited with part of my past and with this place, which I long wondered about but had never seen. I watched and listened in awe.

  I learned that this huge old house in the Slieve Bloom Mountains, surrounded by a 600-acre estate, had been designed for the Coote family by architects Richard and William Morrison in 1820. Other great houses had previously stood on the site, including the castle of the O’Mores. In 1820 the great new Ballyfin was regarded as a masterpiece and a wonderful example of the neo-classical style. Here, opulent living was enjoyed for over a century, but then, with the evolution of history, that mode of living declined and the family abandoned the house. The building luckily escaped the Great House torching of the Troubles and survived to tell the tale. It was bought in 1928 for £10,000 by the Patrician Brothers, who ran it as a boarding school until the beginning of this century. It was during this period that I had first heard of it. But despite all the efforts of the Brothers, the maintenance of such an enormous building was far beyond their meagre resources and the structure continued to decline, until eventually part of the roof collapsed and the Brothers were forced to abandon it. At this point there were rumblings that the State might buy it for preservation purposes, but that never happened. Then in 2002 knights in shining armour came over the horizon: a wealthy American couple, Fred and Kay Krehbiel (she is Irish), undertook its restoration. And so the dream began.

  To effect any major restoration requires not only hard cash, but also vision, precision and a dream. Here in Innishannon we had seen such a dream realised, admittedly on a much smaller scale because Cor Castle is far smaller than Ballyfin, but still a major undertaking. Cor Castle was a complete ruin because, unlike Ballyfin, it had not escaped the burnings of the Troubles. Trees were growing up through it and the windows and doors were gaping holes, and it seemed destined to remain just another ruined Irish house. But the grandson of the house had a dream that one day he would restore it and he did just that. It took time and probably a lot of money, but now it is a stunningly restored, comfortable family home. It is wonderful to see the past and present blended together for the enrichment of the future.

  That night on TV I watched the carefully recorded restoration of Ballyfin. It was fantastic that the whole restoration was so well-documented. It began with the rebuilding of the giant conservatory that was linked to the main house. This wrought-iron, curvilinear Victorian conservatory was designed in 1855 by Richard Turner, one of the most important glass-house designers of his day, but in later years had deteriorated into a tangle of sagging iron roof and shattered glass. But all that was about to be transformed. A new creation was about to take place.

  It was spellbinding to observe the huge, domed glass panels of the new conservatory roof being slipped carefully into place. This was an enormous job that had to be undertaken with the delicacy and precision of moving butterfly wings. One slip and all was lost. I sighed with relief when it was achieved and the completed conservatory stood sparkling in the sun. The first phase of the dream had been realised.

  Then the challenging task of the house restoration began and it made for impressive viewing. But in the midst of this gigantic undertaking one happening became imprinted on my mind, one poignant detail that stood out above all others. It was the fact that during the decline of the house, when it was still a boarding school and in the care of the Patrician Brothers, one Brother had lovingly collected some of the beautiful old floor panels that were about to deteriorate beyond redemption. What visionary foresight from a man who obviously loved the place and must have watched in despair as it crumbled, though he was helpless to prevent it. But some instinct must have fanned a belief that one day a restoration would take place. He was preserving the flame and handing on the torch of restoration, enabling those who came after him to do what was beyond his capabilities. Wouldn’t you love to salute this gallant, unsung hero! I hope that his spirit is now enjoying the restored Ballyfin.

  Another scene that stayed with me from that viewing was the blending of the decor of Lady Coote’s boudoir to harmonise with the lake view from the window. Unlike that Patrician Brother, Lady Coote probably took her opulent surroundings for granted, nevertheless she was to become part of the story that is Ballyfin.

  The meticulous detail and precision of planning that went into the entire restoration was impressive. Local craftspeople were brought on board and all their old skills resurrected, and others sourced from around the world. Old paintings and family portraits that were scattered worldwide in various galleries were brought back. It was wonderful to watch it all unfold. On completion, Ballyfin has become a very exclusive top-class hotel, which may never pay for its restoration.

  When the programme was over I decided that one day I would visit Ballyfin. I was not sure how this would happen, but there and then decided that it would. It went on my bucket list. A few months later, the programme was repeated on another channel and I watched it again, and was even more impressed the second time around. Soon after, I was up the country doing a reading and on the way home decided to make a detour and drive by Ballyfin. I stood outside the locked gate and had my photo taken. Next step was to get inside that gate! The dream was still alive.

  On the wall of my attic where I retreat to write I have posted a little message: ‘Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.’ But sometimes you have to put wings under dreams. So I decided to try to put a little flutter beneath the wing of my Ballyfin dream.

  This year, on the last day of February, I had a big birthday, so without breathing a word to anybody I decided that I would write to Ballyfin and request a special favour of a visit by a non-resident – maybe for lunch, dinner or afternoon tea. Back came a courteous reply saying that in order to preserve the privacy of their residents they were not open to non-residents. I had told nobody that I had written that letter, and neither did I tell them about the reply. For some reason that I could not quite explain, I had kept a copy of the letter and now I put the reply into the same envelope and hid it in my desk. It was as if I was slightly embarrassed by my longing to see Ballyfin.

  So, for my birthday I decided that instead of Ballyfin I would settle for a visit to St Mel’s Cathedral in Longford to see their beautiful restoration, as St Mel’s requires no prior arrangements and was open to all comers. But I decided to put that visit on hold for sunnier days when the journey would be more enjoyable.

  And, by a strange coincidence, the day of my birthday, on which I had had my secret grand plan of travelling to Ballyfin, the whole country was on lock-down, holding its breath, waiting for the arrival of Storm Emma and the big freeze-up. So if I had been on the road to Ballyfin I could have been holed up in a giant snowdrift in the Slieve Bloom Mountains for days. It was a case of ‘be careful of what you wish for, you might get it.’

  But on the Saturday before my birthday and the big freeze, my niece Eileen and I went on a shopping spree to our favourite boutique in Bandon. Eileen had rung me during the week to say that the spring range was coming in and that maybe this would be a good time to see what they had. Eileen and I have different approaches to shopping. While I will quickly flick along the rails concentrating on my favourite colours, Eileen will meticulously work her way through every garment and will sometimes come upon something that I might have flicked past. And when she swung a lovely cream dress with a flush of red roses along its skirt off the rail, I immediately declared, ‘That’s my Garden and Galleries outfit!’ Gardens and Galleries is a celebration that we have in Innishannon in summer when several gardens and art galleries open up to the public. It is a big occasion for us when we all put our best foot forward and aim to look good. So now I had an outfit for the occasion.

  Usually when Eileen and I go shopping, we make a day of it, but on this occasion I had to be home to babysit as my daughter, Lena, had told me that she had a meeting and her husband, Vincent, a GAA training session. So Eileen dropped me off outside their door and I headed in to do the needful. But when I opened the front door I was met by an eerie silence, which was unusual as the two small ones were usually making a racket. So, slightly alarmed, I ran down the hall and whipped open their kitchen door. I was absolutely flabbergasted to be faced by the entire extended family singing ‘Happy Birthday’. The whole tribe had gathered while I was out shopping. It was a bolt from the blue. I was stunned. But we had great fun.

  Later that evening a heavy, flat parcel was placed in front of me on a low table. I opened it carefully and was thrilled to discover a large photo album of family pictures from years back, which Lena had gathered from the entire tribe. For months previously, while I was babysitting and she and her husband were supposedly gone to meetings or training sessions, they were actually holed up in my attic scanning old photos. We were always a camera-happy family. My brother, Tim, had a camera when we were all very young, and my twenty-first birthday present from my sister, Phil, was an old Brownie camera. So, apart from my albums, this new album held photos of other family members going
away back to childhood and up to the present day. We had great fun remembering the different events and occasions long gone.

  Then, at the very back of the album, I came on the photo of myself taken the previous year outside the gates of Ballyfin, and beneath it written: ‘Alice outside Ballyfin.’ Beside it was a blank photo space and beneath that was written: ‘Alice enjoying her Birthday Present of a trip to Ballyfin.’

  The dream had come true. Ballyfin – here I come!

  The Year of the Big Snow

  We were well warned. The previous week Met Éireann had told us in no uncertain terms that it was coming. They had been alerted by their outlying weather stations and had relayed the alarming forecast to us. Two serious weather warriors were heading in our direction. The Met service was sending out advance alerts and giving us ample warning to sit up and take notice.

  Then on the Monday they began to issue more dire warnings that these two weather warriors were approaching from two different angles. The Beast from the East was stealthily bearing in upon the south east of the country while Storm Emma was raging up towards the south. The Beast, which would be first to arrive, was going to smother us under mountains of snow, and Storm Emma, coming in on top of her, was hell-bent on taking control and belting her in all directions. They were going to tear into each other and fight it out on top of us. We would be the battlefield.

  Met Éireann made it sound ominous. We wondered if it could possibly be as bad as they were forecasting. Could they be exaggerating? Could it possibly be that brutal? But then we remembered Hurricane Ophelia the previous October and recalled that they had been spot-on about her. They had earned our respect. Dire weather warnings had preceded Ophelia – and then, too, we had wondered were they exaggerating? But, boys oh boys, were they right! Ophelia was short, sharp and deadly. She tore through the country, ripping roofs off buildings, tearing ancient trees from their deep roots, plunging the country into darkness and leaving three people dead. She left behind a trail of destruction and devastation.

  While she raged, I had watched from inside my front window as she ripped sheets of galvanised roofing off a shed across the road and swirled them into the air. I then retreated and looked out the back window into the garden, where, to my consternation, the trees were bent to the ground before her brutal force. It was scary stuff!

  Met Éireann could be right this time as well, so it was better to take no chances. If we were caught unprepared we would only have ourselves to blame. So we got ready. The Met office told us to batten down the hatches and we did just that, having first gathered in our nuts like squirrels preparing for winter. But instead of nuts, it was bread that we gathered to our bosoms. The shops were emptied of bread and milk. Schools closed, public transport was cancelled and the country waited with bated breath.

  Ahead of the battle the temperature dropped. Then on Wednesday, 28 February, which was my birthday, the Beast from the East nosed in stealthily, sending cold shivers down our spines, and quietly began to take over. The Beast took a new avenue of approach into Ireland, and because she came in from the east the high hills of Kerry and the west coast were at first unaware of her presence – normally they would be the first to come under snow cover – so down here we began to wonder what all the fuss was about. But it was only a temporary respite. The Beast would get around to them once she had dealt with the south east and the midlands.

  Met Éireann warned that 4pm on Thursday, 1 March, was the deadline when the Beast would really begin to assert her authority over us, then Storm Emma would rage in and batter us into subjection. During this battle it would be best to withdraw indoors and stay put until Met Éireann told us it was safe to emerge. Evelyn Cusack and Gerry Murphy, with their band of wise weather women, became our foster parents. In different circumstances they could have been directing elections – not alone were they issuing weather warnings, but forecasts dominated every main news bulletin and we had all-day weather updates, with experts and government ministers keeping us informed. So we did as we were told. Well … most of us did. But there will always be a few to challenge the warnings and drag out the emergency services to rescue them. But they were very few. The country on the whole had enough cop-on to stay home and enough food stashed to sustain us through a famine.

  And then the weather unfolded exactly as predicted. There is an old adage that if March comes in like a lion, she will go out like a lamb. This year she certainly came in like a lion, a white lion. She prowled around the south east and south and smothered us in deep snowdrifts, but later got around to all the other areas of the country, where she also left her mark. And then Storm Emma raged in and took her on. The two of them brought down electric wires and froze water pipes, plunging many regions into chaos and crippling medical help. Hospital personnel made Trojan efforts to maintain emergency services, and many in the public service worked far above and beyond the call of duty to rescue and care for vulnerable people. With runways buried in snow and ice, flights were grounded. The weather brought mayhem to the farming world where tormented cows bellowed for water and demanded to be milked. But the milking machines would not work and the water taps were frozen solid. Neighbours came to each other’s rescue and heroic people worked wonders in the prevailing conditions. When challenged by the two weather warriors, Ireland showed backbone and stamina, and we once again discovered the value of good neighbours and decent, dependable people.

  Here in Innishannon, as all over Ireland, we awoke on that Friday morning to a quiet, white, silent world. As the road through Innishannon is the main artery into West Cork, on any normal day 30,000 vehicles pass through. We live with the constant sound of non-stop traffic. Every morning when I wake up, before opening my eyes I can gauge the time by the sound of the traffic. But on that morning not a purr of an engine was to be heard. There was absolute silence. When I opened my front door, which is on the village corner, I walked out into a deserted world. Standing in the middle of the village crossroads and looking west to Bandon, east to Cork and north to Macroom, not a car or human being was in sight. It was a deserted village, a rare moment when, like Alexander Selkirk, I was ‘monarch of all I surveyed’. The trees along the street were transformed into giant Christmas trees and above the snow-laden roofs our two elegant church steeples were etched against the skyline. On the hill above the village, Dromkeen Wood was covered in soft, white duvets of snow. The village looked picture-postcard beautiful. It was a rare and truly amazing sight.

  Then I trudged through the snow down towards the eastern end of the village to take a photograph of our ‘Horse and Rider’ sculpture at the Cork entrance. Progress was slow as the snow was soft and fluffy, which meant that you sank well down into it as you moved along. From sheer force of habit, I was walking on the footpath, and then Tadhg, our local guard, came out of the barracks and advised, ‘Walk in the middle of the road, Alice, as that snow could come off the roof in big sheets and cover you.’ It seemed strange to be walking out in the middle of the main road where normally without the permission of the green man you would not dare place a foot. The snow had certainly changed our perspective. Storm Emma had skirted by the village, though on the higher areas around us it had crippled the farming world.

  Later in the day people began to emerge from their houses onto the street and come down from the estates up the hill to survey the now deserted village, many taking photograph of this rare sight. People were delighted to meet and greet after the lockdown. Children brought out makeshift sleighs and slid down the hills. Snowmen began to appear in the most unlikely places. The village took on a carnival atmosphere. We were all delighted to link up again and enjoy our empty village, which we knew would not last too long. By evening, the cars were beginning to crawl in and normality was returning.