Pic: Getty Images
Dr Garrett FitzGerald pays solemn homage to his most charming late great-aunt Bea and an Ireland of old, both of which were, all to soon, no more.
Due to a grievous, if welcome, error on the part of the celestial department of justice, there is still breath in my body. Longevity, a sweet non-optional extra in one’s family history, works both ways and gives little guarantee; while many of our crowd had to be put down for a finish, there were plenty too who went early. One such was my grandmother’s sister, Bridget ‘Bea’ Higgins.
‘Holy relic’
‘Bea’ was born in 1875 in Ballaghaderreen, then in Co Mayo. According to family tradition, she was somewhat delicate, most charming, and very ‘holy’. Some described her as a ‘saint’. A cousin recalls a story about Bea; a representative of the Sisters of Charity was said to have come to the house soon after Bea’s funeral and asked the family to treasure Bea’s sputum mug as a ‘holy relic’. I await the details of the certificate but assume that it will indicate a respiratory illness, probably the ubiquitous tuberculosis, consistent with the time and place that were in it. The words (The Dying Girl) of Richard d’Alton Williams (1822-1862) — poet, medico and consumptive — strike a note:
‘They brought her to the city
And she faded slowly there
Consumption has no pity
For blue eyes and golden hair.’
Poor Bea had been ‘ailing’ for some months before her passing. The Western People report of her funeral in November 1896 speaks to us 21st Century dwellers of the infamous foreign country — the past — where ‘they do things differently’:
“Deceased, who had been ailing for some months died on Monday last, 2nd inst. at 8 o’clock am, fortified by the rites of holy Catholic Church.
“The clergy were named. The bishop of Achonry, his lordship Most Rev Dr Lyster, officiated.
Children of Mary
“The deceased was a member of the Sodality of the Children of Mary and the ceremonies in the Cathedral, on that account, were most impressive.
“The coffin, which was covered with a blue pall, was borne into the Cathedral and placed on a catafalque before the altar.
“As the ceremonies commenced the young ladies of the Sodality of the Children of Mary, numbering about 100, ranged (sic) themselves around the catafalque, draped in long-flowing white veils and holding lighted candles in their hands. After the close of the solemn function her remains were reverently borne to the family burial place in the old chapel yard, followed by the Children of Mary in procession … and a vast number of mourners and sympathisers from the town and surrounding districts.
“While the funeral was passing through the town all the business places were closed up. It may be remarked that this was the first occasion on which the funeral of a member of the Sodality of the Children of Mary was carried out with such Impressive solemnity.
“Too much praise cannot be given to the good Sisters of Charity, who during her illness, and up to the last moment, were most attentive and paid her frequent visits, which were a great source of consolation to her parents in their trouble. RIP.”
Bea had a great send-off indeed. Nowadays, the antimicrobials would possibly have ensured her place in the upper reaches of the great ages attained by her siblings — her sister, my grandmother, passed on in her 99th year, 79 years later.
Even in the 1950s, the Children of Mary were still going strong and seen in huge religious processions in my home town; light blue veils and a matching uniform, droves of them (some ‘young ladies’ in their 70s) making their way down the main drag in Tipperary, the ‘faithful’’ cast down on their knees on the footpaths at either side, the shops closed for the duration, holy statues in many of the display windows, papal flags hanging from first-floor windows, irreverent traffic diverted by the guards out the back road to ‘the Junction’, and ahead, swarms of surpliced clergymen, the monstrance shielded by its four-poster canopy, which was usually tilted to the Bansha side — because there was always a fella with a bad hip holding one of the four.
And, not least amongst my childhood observations, the censoring righteous ‘tut-tuts’ for the seen-to-be inadequately reverential.
In my teaching hospital in the 1960s, the same Sisters of Charity were still very much in the ascendancy of importance relative to ordinary persons. The populace still generally accepted that religious immortals existed on a higher plane.
Old Mother Ireland
The past has a habit of receding at an imperceptible pace, however. Then, almost suddenly, decades later, you notice that the past is no more. So it has gone; the piety epidemic, the shoals of surplices, the most reverend titles, the deference, the processions, “the impressive solemnity”, the closed shops — have all dwindled and blown away into the great grey yonder of Mother Ireland.
Only the stories and the old newspapers remind us of a time that has very definitely had its day in the sun.
For Bridget ‘Bea’ Higgins 1875-1896, great-aunt, resident of the past. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam dílis.