Hollyfort is where the heart is
IN THE FINAL PART OF OUR SERIES ON THE LATE PHILIP CASEY, WE FEATURE EXCERPTS FROM HIS BROTHER JOHN’S CHILDHOOD MEMOIRS
TURN to any page in any one of the books which make up the Bann River Trilogy and you will understand what Wexford, and in particular Gorey, meant to Philip Casey. He may have chased dreams in other lands and ultimately found home in the capital, but it was the Model County which formed and then moulded the young writer. The farm in Hollyfort, the train along the East coast, the fields of Monaseed, Tara Hill, Croghan Kinsella and, of course, the River Bann all colour his writing, with the memories of his youth recreated, reimagined in the fictional worlds of his novels.
But no matter how vivid the memories, these stories were fictional. Yes, they borrowed heavily from his own experiences, his life growing up in Grove Mill, the treasured return visits in later years, but the characters in The Fabulists, The Water Star and The Fisher Child were figments of Philip’s imagination.
While he clearly wanted to share his love of Wexford and was content to take his readers by the hand and show them the local sights, he didn’t recount his own life, not in so many words.
For that task we must turn to Philip’s brother, to John Casey. Typically modest, John says he is ‘far from a writer’, yet in spite of these supposed shortcomings, John has written his own account of life growing up in Gorey with Philip, his other brother Peter, and their parents Pat and Ann. It is called Hollyfort, is where the heart is: A collection of memories from the 1960s. The following are some excerpts from the chapter ‘Keeping the Faith’. much easier to confess your sins to a stranger. Even though we were obliged to go to confession I don’t remember mam or dad ever going. Making us go was their way of passing on the faith or the tradition. I remember once asking mam why she didn’t go, to which she answered, ‘of course I go - whenever I can’. But I knew she didn’t.
Dad’s answer was ‘I do enough penance here’.
Mam would usually leave us off outside the church with the words ‘don’t forget to pray for the holy souls’.
Even though there would be three priests hearing confession in three different confessional boxes we had to wait a long time for our turn - sometimes for up to two hours. There could be three of four full pews of people in front of you and some penitents could be in there for ages, particularly old people.
The seriousness of your sins were always reflected in the severity of the penance you were given after you were given absolution. Three Hail Marys meant your sins weren’t too bad at all. Five Hail Marys, five Our Fathers and the Hail Holy Queen meant they were quite serious. If you were given a whole rosary to say or the ‘Stations of the Cross’ that meant you had done something really bad.
After coming out of the confessional we exchanged information regarding what we got for penance. Sins were never revealed. Sure we kind of knew what they were already.
I always did what mam asked us to do while in the church, which was to pray for the holy souls. This must have been an important part of our faith as a I remember us being told to do the same at school.
It was all very vague though, especially all the stuff about ‘purgatory’ and ‘limbo’ and ‘original sin’ and ‘venial sin’ and ‘ mortal sin’ and ‘indulgences’. Original sin was a stain on your soul that could never be erased and everyone was born with it. I could never figure that one out at all.
Purgatory was a kind of ‘ no man’s land’ between heaven and hell, a kind of holding station or direction provisiion centre where you had to wait hundreds and hundreds of years, perhaps thousands of years before you were properly cleansed of your sins and allowed into heaven.
As for limbo. This was a terribly sad place altogether. It was full of tiny, unbaptised babies who never had any hope of entering heaven.
But what had they done wrong? Surely they were totally innocent as they couldn’t have committed any sins at all.
Yes, but they were born with original sin on their souls and anyway you had to baptised before entering the Kingdom of Heaven.
One Sunday morning dad and mam needed to go to Oulart for something or other and because we were late for 10 a.m. mass in Gorey it was decided we’d get mass somewhere on the way. Somewhere beyond Ballycanew we saw a sign for a place called Monamolin so we decided to try our luck there.
To our surprise the church was full to capacity with 15 minutes to go. Not only that, there was a dead silence. We squeezed into two pews towards the back while dad went up into the gallery. Then something dawned on us.
The priest, a scary lookng man with a scowl on his face, was pacing up and down the aisle with something in his hand. It was a key.
Then, with two minutes to go before mass was due to start he locked the door at the back of the church and then hurried into the sacristy. There was no messing with this man. He was the boss in this church.
Any latecomers would find themselves locked out. Good enough for them. If they were going to be disrespectful to the Lord by being late for holy mass then they deserved to be locked out.
We had never experienced anything like this before. Then a child started to cry. The priest, indignant at being interrupted, stopped and glared down at the parents for a whole minute. This was scary stuff.
Then it was time for the collection. We fumbled in our pockets as the plate was passed around. We hadn’t a red penny. God help us. Would this scary priest notice that we weren’t putting anything on the plate? Then God intervened - pennies from heaven.
Pennies came dropping down from the gallery, right on top of us. Ding - ding - ding they went as they hit the tiled floor. Without doubt they were meant for us.
It was dad coming to our rescue and saving the day. In the circumstances we were quite embarrassed. I looked up nervously and saw dad. There he was, bursting his sides laughing. He