Kathleen Nolan R.I.P.
Friday, April 16th, 2010Today I want to tell you a story about a remarkable Roscommon woman from the town of Lanesborough. Now I know Lanesborough is in Longford, so she must have been from the west bank of the Shannon, she was very proud of her Roscommon roots. She was born Kathleen Gill in 1928, I think, which would have made her 82 if she had lived today. Kathleen came to Manchester in the early 1950s along with thousands of her countrymen and women and met and married a man from Bellavary in Mayo, James Nolan or The Bundle of Rags as he was nicknamed. The cabs of construction plant were notoriously cold and Jimmy used several layers of old clothing to keep himself warm. By 1970 the pair had been married about 17 years and between them had five children. A boy first, two girls and then a set of twins of either sex, who were three years old when she was found to have breast cancer at the age of 42.
My story really starts in the Christmas of 1969 when a friend of mine, Jim McHale from outside of Castlebar, invited me to spend Christmas at his mother in law’s house in Rooskey, about six miles north of Charlestown, on the Sligo/Mayo border. Once at Mrs Henry’s house, where we feasted on the finest potatoe cakes I had ever eaten, we called to a neighbours house, who Jim said had relatives in Manchester. The lady of the house welcomed us as she has done many times since and started telling me of her husband’s three brothers, Jim, Matt and Malachy, in Manchester. Within seconds I had them pinned and that was the start of a 41 year friendship with that woman, Aggie Towey. In fact Jim Towey had a son who was at school with my brother in Grange over Sands and what was more important, he had two long haired blonde daughters, Ann and Helen, who I had met up with at a garden party some years before and had slotted into my memory for future research.
On my return I determined to look them up and did but it was not for a few months afterwards that I ran into Helen again who had originally took my fancy. She was a lovely blond haired, round faced girl who at 5 foot nothing and seven stone weight, was perfectly formed, going in and out in all the right places. She had a mind as sharp as a razor and a tongue of equal quality. Her temper had been moulded by her father; the type who hit first and ask questions later. I thought the plusses far outweighed the minuses and I would soon have her under my spell. In retrospect, with our two years courtship and 37 years of marriage I have not managed to tame that wildness yet but I am hoping.
At that time Helen spent most of her time at Nolan’s house looking after Jimmy Nolan’s five kids. Kathleen, who I had not yet met had been taken into hospital for a mastectomy and Helen’s every waking hour was spent in this house doing the cooking and cleaning. I thought what a hero and made my clumsy play that was instantly rebuffed. I could see Helen’s attachment to the family and a short while later after Kathleen returned from hospital and we had been introduced, I started turning up at the house more and more frequently trying to impress Kathleen as much as Helen, that my suit was in earnest and that I was worth considering. Kathleen, a lovely woman, could see my providence before Helen. Realising this I pressed on knowing that Kathleen would also impress on my intended all the wonderful characteristics I then posessed. I had plenty of money; I could drink like a fish; I could handle myself in a scrap; I was of Irish Catholic stock and many and much more
In some things I had a certain clumsiness like not being able to say the things that girls liked to hear. I had lived and worked all my mature life with a bunch of savages, so I knew it would take time for the edges to be smoothed out. The problem was did I have that time? I asked Helen out again and with Kathleen’s urgings from her sick-bed, she agreed to go for a drink. Down to the Old House at Home on Burton Road we went and I was just into my first game of Don, a local card game, and my first pint, when these two lads, who were full of booze, started making a nuisance of themselves. I said something to them and immediately we were rolling round the floor in a kind of horizontal quickstep. We were eventually pulled apart and I was able to continue my game of cards. Helen was goggle-eyed and we soon left and I took her home to Kathleen who revelled in the story. Not only did I tick all the right boxes, I was a hero as well. This was the Roscommon spirit coming out in her.
Helen came out of shock a few days later and on Kathleen’s exhortation, consented to another night of pleasure in the pub. I am certain that if it was not for Kathleen, we would never have got together and I think that for the last 38 years, (she died in !972 just a few months before our wedding) she has been looking down on us and laughing at the correctness of her hunches. Certainly if it was not for Kathleen I would not be sitting here now. Her hand has pushed me along the road.