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7 2 24 20110510 24 ~ SEANCHAS ~ THE FARM BY LOUGH GUR MARY CARBERRY The Farm by Lough Gur The Story of Mary Fogarty (Sissie O’Brien) Mary Carbery (Cork 1937) T hree times a year came Kennedy, the piper, or, as my mother called him, Kennedy the musician, for he was no mere noise-maker, but an artist to the tips of his delicate expressive hands. He was lank and lean, clean-shaven, and wore the cast-off clothes of a priest. He came in at the door with a gentle greeting, ‘God save all here,’ bowing low to my mother and going over to his place, the piper’s corner, beside the hearth, where with hot ember he lighted his clay pipe and with another bow went out to smoke in the yard, for in those days of courtesy and refine- ment no one would smoke indoors, whether in cabin or castle, without the invitation of the master of the house and the approval of the mistress. The coming of Mick Kennedy gave untold joy. At the end of the day’s work, the farmboy washed at the pump in the yard, put on their Sunday clothes and their well-polished shoes, while the maids discarded their aprons, re- plaited their shining hair, tied fresh collars and ribbons round their necks and came happily into the kitchen to meet the shy, self-conscious young men. Then the piper came forth from the chimney corner to the two chairs set ready for him, and sitting carefully down he arranged the bundle containing the pipes on his knee while he tied a leather strap to the second chair on which to rest them, perhaps also to save his threadbare trousers. He then very deliberately removed several wrappings, stopping to look up with a smile when an impatient boy or girl tapped heel and toe on the stone floor to hasten him, or when we children in the doorway of the little room wriggled and squeaked with excite- ment. The last wrapping was a red silk hand- kerchief from which the bright pipes emerged; they were adjusted and after a few preliminary wails a stately quadrille started the dance, to be followed by reels, jigs, sometimes a hornpipe, and winding up with Sir Roger de Coverley. Round dances were never seen at that time. Kennedy would play any tune called for except one, the Fox-Chase, and when in the middle of the evening we children were put up by the maids to ask him for it, he would turn a deaf ear, the reason being that this tune needed re- adjustment of the pipes. Nor would he listen until after my mother had gone to a cupboard for a glass of J.J. which she then gave him with a smile, bidding him rest a while. Then the panting dancers seized piggins of milk, stand- ing at the open door to drink as they cooled in the evening air, giggling and joking but ever mindful of the near presence of ‘the masther’ and ‘the misthress’, those watchful guardians of their manners and morals.

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