ITALIAN GIRL LEFT HOME AT 15 TO FIND WORK IN 1950S LEITRIM
BOOK TRACES ITALIAN GIRL’S JOURNEY FROM RURAL ITALY TO MANORHAMILTON
A new book follows the fascinating story of an Italian 15-year-old girl who moved to Manorhamilton without a word of English in the ‘50s to work in a guest house. The journey of Addis Amiceralla, now aged 83 and living in Yorkshire, is one that many people had to do at a tender age in order to find work and more than likely send money home.
Addis’s son, David Quigley, has penned a book about his mother’s life and leaving her loved ones behind in Italy as she set off for Ireland. Titled Beyond the Aterno, the book takes its name from the Aterno River in the small commune of Acciano where Addis came from.
In the book, which also references Sligo many times, David explains that Addis’s journey from Italy to Ireland,
London to Yorkshire, with a few stops along the way.
“My mother, Addis Amicarella, came from a small mountain commune high up in the Apennines, of central Italy when she was a young girl of fifteen to work as a domestic in the Free State in 1951.
“In that time, rural Italy was very poor and a lot of young women left their families to work overseas in light industry or as domestics in hotels and boarding houses.
“My mother came to work in The Manor Hotel and it was on main street, Manorhamilton. The proprietor was only known as Mrs McGee, who lived at the hotel with her husband, who worked as a Stationmaster in the town.
“The hotel building is still there but it’s now a boutique, called the Manor Boutique’ The building next-door to the hotel, was a public house, owned by the Gilbride family, which the hotel used as a drinks supply for their guests, as they didn’t have a licence to sell alcohol themselves.
“Addis worked at The Manor Hotel for three and a half years before she went to Belfast, but her work permit conditions, forced her to return to The Free State where she worked as a children’s nanny for a number of years before moving to London.” Now 83 and living in Yorkshire with her Tipperary-born husband, David says the couple are planning a return to Ireland and insisting on Manorhamilton or Sligo to be the places they would like to spend the rest of their years in.
Setting out and leaving your loved ones behind to find work in a new country would be daunting for anyone, let along a 15-year-old girl who didn’t speak the language.
David recalls: “Addis followed the itinerary she was given by the Town Hall in the small commune of Acciano which is in the Abruzzo region of Italy, leaving her peasant family, without speaking a word of English.
“Her travel costs were met by the employment agency and paid for out of her wages through her employment in the small Manorhamilton guest house as a domestic worker.
“She arrived in the town of Manorhamilton by bus from Sligo late one night and always remembers, a kind lady who was on that same bus, giving her an orange to eat along the way, but she didn’t know how to say thank you to her except in Italian!
“After she had settled in to her duties at the guest house, she remembers going to Sligo on a few occasions and once visiting an Italian ice cream parlour there. She found Irish people so kind and hospitable that she still says if she had found herself anywhere else but Ireland, she might have run home to Italy looking back on how difficult it was for her to assimilate into a foreign culture without the language.” David’s father’s family ran a boot and shoe repairing business in Thurles and he is one of the third generation of the Quigley family who, only recently has put his hand to writing. He said writing the book in his mid-fifties did seem like an unusual thing to do but he has found it a thoroughly rewarding experience. “I thought it was worth writing everything down for the future generations of the family to be able to have something to look back on, and came up with Beyond The Aterno.
“The title of the book is the name of a river in my mother’s region, where she used to wash the family’s clothes, never thinking that one day she would be crossing it to leave Italy ending up in Ireland to do much the same thing, though with a machine and running water, neither of which she had seen before she left home.
“There are a great many references throughout Beyond The Aterno to Ireland, the places Addis visited, and the wonderful Irish people whom she met.
After many years, Addis returned to the Northwest 2 years ago for a visit, where she met the locals.
“Visiting in 2017, when after a lifetime, she briefly returned to Manorhamilton to a very warm welcome from the town and its residents,” he added.
The remarkable story of Addis Amicarella, Beyond The Aterno, was published in London at the end of June this year and has already reached a global audience, both as a paperback and ebook.
It can be ordered from Amazon, or from the publisher’s Olympia Publishers - London, several online book sellers as well as Eason and Waterstones in Ireland.
INSET: Addis, soon after arriving in Manorhamilton with Cassey, one of the shop assistant’s working in Goldens hardware store, whom she befriended.