Cork author: ‘After my retirement, I found I could write’

Many of us remember the excitement of owning our first car; the magical milestone, the immense fun, and the memorable adventures of taking to the open road.

And the status!

“For sure!” says Betty O’Mahony.

“When I was 19 years old, I bought my first car. It was a second-hand blue Fiat 500 with a sunroof. What was yours?” she asks me.

Mine was a silver sardine can, a Simca that went around the clock twice courtesy of a handy mechanic in the know.

“Mine was temperamental!” says Betty laughing, as we share our experiences of our first car.

The 72-year-old, who lives in Rochestown and is retired from the Civil Service, has just had her short story published on the subject. My First Car appears in Rewind, a first anthology by Indie Authors Ireland, in aid of the autism charity AsIAM.

How did she get into writing?

“I took early retirement,” says Betty. “And I decided to do a degree in UCC. I never wanted to leave the place. UCC is a wonderful university.

“I got a degree in English (Major), and History of Art (Minor), in 2019. After that, I undertook a master’s in creative writing. I discovered I could write!”

Betty was creative and writing long before she entered the gates of UCC.

“I always kept a diary,” she says. “I wrote a lot of letters that weren’t always answered!

“Writing always seemed to be a topic of conversation.”

Her childhood home, in Jewtown, Cork city, is often a topic of conversation and Betty has written a memoir about her childhood.

“I am just waiting for a publisher to discover it!” says Betty, who has also been published in the Holly Bough and in Cork Words: An Anthology of Contemporary Cork Writing.

“ The Echo have published a number of my poems,” adds Betty.

“My tutor told me to keep writing. I am a member of the group ‘Writing For Fun’ in Douglas.

Betty lost her husband Frank 30 years ago when he suffered a heart attack.

“I didn’t want to waste my time after I retired, which are the best years of my life,” says Betty. “I always wanted to be a writer, and I decided to get out there and do what I can. There is no point wasting time.”

Betty writes in her ‘lady shed’.

“I had the garage converted,” she explains. “It was a big project, but it gave me the energy to keep going. I write a story every week.

“It is beautiful when my writing touches people.”

Nine Cork writers appear in the Rewind anthology, including Betty

“ My First Car is about happy days and my own experiences with Frank and me,” she says.

Betty and Frank spent many happy days together.

“My Fiat that I loved spent a lot of time in the garage!” she says. “The car was perfect in my eyes, and I told myself it was just teething trouble.”

Betty tells me about one of her escapades in the blue Fiat with Frank that she wrote about.

“Frank used to play the guitar, banjo and mandolin,” says Betty. “So we would go on a lot of music sessions all over Cork city and county. One of the favourite destinations was Crookhaven in West Cork, Billy O’Sullivan’s pub, if you are familiar with the area?”

Betty describes that part of the world well.

“A beautiful coastline welcomed you the entire way to Crookhaven from Goleen and the sun always shone,” writes Betty in My First Car .

“The area is so beautiful that everything and everyone shines in the warmth of the welcome that lies waiting for you there.”

Betty explains her memory.

“One time, on the way into Crookhaven, all the cars were stopped by the local sergeant doing a check for tax and insurance. He was taken with my little car, and he had a good look at the tyres, wing-mirrors and so on.”

The sergeant was satisfied.

“He waved us on with a pleasant smile,” says Betty.

Her characters come to life on the page.

“Later that evening in the pub, we had a mighty session with many singers and other musicians. We all had a wonderful time. The tourists were delighted and charmed by it all.”

There was no moving the party on.

“The owner was trying to clear the pub at closing time but to no avail,” recalls Betty. “After a while the sergeant appeared in the doorway. Everyone stopped singing and playing. He stood there for a few minutes.”

The patrons in the pub stayed standing.

“The sergeant spotted me and came over to me and whispered in my ear, ‘Your car is gone’.”

Not Betty’s beloved Fiat 500?

“The very car,” says Betty. “I was galvanised into action, and I shot out the door at a run with my husband holding the musical instruments, at full speed behind me.

“I always had to park the car on a hill to get it started, it was one of its peccadillos,” says Betty. “I ran up the hill at a sprint. Of course, the session was over now, and publican Billy and the sergeant were delighted. My car was parked in the usual spot, to my relief. I ran back downhill and over to the sergeant to tell him.”

What did he say?

“He burst out laughing, saying it was the only way to stop the music. ‘I had to clear the pub’, he said.”

Betty admired the sergeant for thinking outside the box!

“West Cork had its own rules and life ticked by at a slower pace,” she says of that era.

Betty’s story takes us to Bantry, informing us of the generosity of its inhabitants when her clutch cable broke.

“They found someone to replace the cable, saying ‘Sure, it was no trouble at all’.”

Betty writes with humour and wit that touches people. The reader is almost inside the blue Fiat 500 as it meanders through the highways and byways of west Cork and surrounds.

Betty and Frank clocked up memorable miles in her first car.

“Many experiences made me realise the limits of my little car,” she says. “Limits or not, it was a lovely little car, and they were wonderful times. Happy days!”

Betty’s creativity knows no limits. The publisher of her memoir will soon discover that.

You can read My First Car by Betty O’Mahony, and stories by other Cork writers in the Rewind anthology, available to purchase on Amazon (paperback and Kindle editions).