My parents often argued over heritage. Not in a nasty vindictive fashion more in a jokey jesting way. For example, my mother came from a region in rural Northern Ireland called Ballymacaramery (which loosely translated means the land of the pigs). My mother’s family were all farmers with a few acres, some cows, pigs, a vegetable garden, chickens and a greenhouse of fragrant tomatoes whose familiar smell is a potent part of my childhood memories. They lived along a muddy country lane and the further you went down it the poorer the people you seemed to find.
The last tenant, Bessie, on the lane lived in a ramshackle caravan and had five children whose noses always ran and who often took to riding the backs of pigs. I was terrified of my grandfather’s pigs. They were huge dinosaur-like monsters who routinely killed their own offspring by squashing them. Sometimes they would get free of the field and chase me down the lane. A trauma I have only excised after a 40-year period. Betty's children were fearless of the beasts and used to use them like miniature headstrong horses. Whenever Bessie stole vegetables or eggs or (more commonly) tomatoes from my grandparent’s farm she would hide them behind her back. I remember long conversations with my grandmother catching Bessie in the greenhouse, her hands full of tomatoes carefully concealed behind her. My grandmother would have long polite conversations about Bessie's well-being, her children, the weather. All the while, the thief stood answering reluctantly, head nodding guiltily while she spoke. My grandmother never called Bessie out on the goods she stole. I suspect anyone desperate enough to steal from poor crop farmers were more in need of sympathy than judgement.
Looking back, I can understand that, but in the colour blindness of childhood, I saw only black-and-white. I wanted to point out the stolen goods held hidden in the sweaty hands of the wrongdoer. In those days, children took direction from the adults around them and did not speak out of turn. I knew better than to point out the tomatoes and shame Bessie. I resented it but I followed my grandmother's lead. If she choose to deliberately overlook the theft, I was duty-bound to do the same despite my own misgivings.
Now, I can understand that, in those days of no Social Security, poverty was a life-and-death affair. If you had nothing the benevolence of a neighbour could keep the wolves from your door. All Betty's five sons grew up healthy, tall competent men. I'd like to think my grandparent’s tomatoes, vegetables and eggs played a small role.
So, when my father teased my mother he’d say, "You come from the land of the pigs, what more needs to be said!" To this day, when people tell me about their ancestry/landed/wealthy I retort by saying I come from a long line of poor pig farmers. It has come to be my totem and one to which I cling in the face of the elite.
I remember an ancestor of mine being horsewhipped for allowing a stag to get past him during a hunt. The landed gentry on their horses with hounds yelping excitedly had cornered a huge stag in a small lake. Locals were called in to guard one side of the lake while the hunters and hounds waited restlessly on the other. Three times the stag swam to and fro, from one side to another, terrified to leave the lake but unable to escape. My great-grandfather could feel the animal’s despair and exhaustion as it floundered briefly under the surface of the water. He ran from his post allowing the magnificent animal to escape the trap. One of the hunting party lashed him from the back of his horse with his whip for allowing the quarry to escape. I remember being outraged by the injustice when told the story, but my grandfather pointed out, “Many a one takes a whipping for what they feel is right!” So, when I think of my mum's family all these memories flood back. Of suffering and struggles mixed in with nobility and conviction.
This then was “The land of the pigs!” My father would then grandly explain “My people came from a castle!" To which my mother would snort in amusement. Years later, my brother did some research and he found the aforementioned castle! He even travelled down and explored the ruins of this edifice.
By this stage, he had completed an extensive family tree and discovered the family connections leading back to Magheramena castle in Fermanagh. These relatives dated from Walter Roe Johnstone (1679) (High Sheriff of County Fermanagh) to the more recent Captain James Johnston (born in 1880). This last owner of the castle, Captain James Johnston was killed in Gallipoli on the 9th of August in 1915 on the battlefields of World War I. It's strange to discover your family history the good, the bad, the poor and the rich.
It seems a universal truth that all of these material things pass into dust eventually. What remains are the deeds of heroism big and small that tell of all those who have passed before. If there is anything to learn from our past, it is that destiny lies in our own hands. We must grab the opportunity to do some good in this world before we too are effaced.
“Thou art even as a finely tempered sword concealed in the darkness of its sheath and its value hidden from the artificer’s knowledge. Wherefore come forth from the sheath of self and desire that thy worth may be made resplendent and manifest unto all the world.”
