Portal into Bally’s past is a fine place for a pint
LEAFING with Alan Kennelly through his sister Nancy Mcauliffe’s recent work Ballylongford: A Portrait, one cannot help but feel sorry for the effects of time on this place.
There is the ‘straw village’, as the tans called Bally, in black and white and looking like an archetype of old Ireland as Irish America might remember her today.
There’s Ballylongford over the generations, as the houses took on slate and more solid character (a response no doubt to the tans burning almost the entire village). But at the heart of it all are the generations of families, standing in their finery, outside homes and presbyteries and churches and businesses over the years. Ballylongford: A Portraittoss;/ is a treasure trove for this village, but the Ballylongford captured - two creameries, a barracks, O’sullivan’s mill, bakeries, tailors, drapers serving a population of 1,000 for most of the 20th Century — is long gone.
There’s no better man than Alan to leaf through it with and his credentials as a publican, a man of his public, shine through in his vast knowledge of all the families pictured; not least his own. Wife Brenda, however, points to a framed poem by Brendan Kennelly — Alan’s brother — on the wall of the bar first. It is the current plight of rural Ireland made into art: “If life in little places dies/ Greater places share the loss;/ Life, if you wish, may not be worth/ One passing game of pitchand-
If life in little places dies/ Greater places share the loss;/ Life, if you wish, may not be worth/ One passing game of pitch-and-toss;/ And yet a nation’s life is laid/ In places like the Crooked Cross
— Brendan Kennelly poem hanging in Kennelly’s bar in Ballylongford
And yet a nation’s life is laid/ In places like the Crooked Cross.”
“There’s no craic in pubs now, but there was great craic back in the day when the pub would be busy every night of the week.”
Alan’s father Timmy bought the place in 1949 off Joe Boland, a former County Manager of Clare. But the family history in the home goes much further back as his mother, a Boland, had been born there.
“My father was the soberest of men I ever knew. If the place was full it wouldn’t trouble him one bit, he would just go at his own pace and would play darts and rings all day long and telling stories to all the lads. They had great fun and were always trying to get the better of each other in their stories.”
Alan took over in 1970 and had as much fun running the pub as his old man. What can be said of his father can be said of him also: He’s a pretty sober individual and clearly not given to ever losing the run of himself. But his eyes are a dead giveaway, twinkling full of mischief and delight as he relives Ballylongford in its bustling past.
“We had mighty craic – most of my favourite stories aren’t fit for print suffice to say. I didn’t really mind taking over the bar. I had been working here since I was 16 and I always loved meeting the people and talking to the people. That said, Brendan enjoyed it more than I did but he went down the literary road. Mind you, he has credited life in the bar as great inspiration for his work always.”
Few places could supply such wealth of human experience as a rural Irish bar. “Like every pub in Bally, and there were 14 or 15 at the height of it, we had our regulars and our characters. They had great banter. There was a shoemaker by the name of Jack Donovan and some fella he’d done a job for came up to him and asked ‘How much do I owe?’
“‘Seven and six,’ Jack said.
‘What did you say?’ your man asked. ‘Ten bob,’ said Jack. ‘I thought you said seven and six!’
‘I thought you were deaf!’ Jack replied,” Alan recounted, just one bright memory bringing it all back to life for him.
The real glory days for the trade in Ballylongford came with the opening of a famous industry. “With the construction of Tarbert Island was the first time the good money came around Ballylongford. We had Aughinish as well of course. It was a massive boost to us and the bar was busy every night of the week. There was an English crowd around working over there too, a great group of lads, and they didn’t know what to do with their money and were always standing the locals. It was an education for them and an education for all of us, those days.”
Like the Wren in Ballylongford, the hubbub is a thing of the past. “The last five or six years have been the quietest ever and the drink-driving laws have ruined the trade. We used to have a population of 1,000 but it’s only around 400 today, but it’s just a fact of life and you have to get on with things.”