John Arnold: Dave was buried in England... but his home was always Cork

Walking slowly along the path, looking at all the names, all the Irish surnames, was a strange experience. I could have been at home in practically any part of Ireland.

Of course, there were plenty other names too, but Meara, Burke, Cassidy, Beirne, Murphy and so, so many others - amazing.

I was never in the city of Manchester until last week when I attended a funeral there. The burial took place in the Southern Cemetery in the city. Opened in 1879 and extended in 1926, it covers more than 180 acres of land.

I could have been flicking through the old Irish phone directory as I walked by the seemingly endless rows of graves, looking at so many familiar names from all over this island.

You’ll be surmising that I must have been bidding farewell to a close friend or relation when I took three days out to travel over to England. Then how does one define friendship? Is it length of years or just common interests that forge friendships?

A combination of all really, I suppose.

It was on Friday, July 2, 2004, that I first met David O’Mahony. He was 68 that year, a fine cut of a man, well over 6ft tall, broad-shouldered - a colossus of a man.

Along with family members, he was back in Bartlemy that weekend for a reunion of pupils of the local National School that had opened in 1904.

David O’Mahony was enrolled in the school on May 31, 1944. He was eight years of age by then, having started his primary schooling in Carrignavar where his father, also David, was working at the time.

So for a little over 22 years, I know Dave. Not a lifetime, some might say, not a long time at all, but that man taught me one great lesson – ‘Be proud of where you come from’.

His paternal roots were in Bantry and as a farm labourer David O’Mahony Snr went where the work was, eventually coming ‘east’ to Carrignavar in the 1930s. Here he married Teresa O’Keeffe and worked for farmers in the Carrig district.

In the pre-tractor era, the working horse reigned supreme and skilled farm labourers were also good horsemen. They had to be, as much of the farm-work was dependant on horses. Ploughing, sowing, cutting hay, reaping grain crops, taking the churns of milk to the creamery, opening drills, digging out potatoes and other tasks meant horse and man had to work in unison.

In the 1930s and ’40s, farming in Ireland was ‘mixed’ so both farmer and farm workers had to ‘multi-task’ several times over.

For five and a half days from dawn ’til dusk was the ‘terms of employment’ of farm labourers. Sometimes, labourers who were single were ‘fed and found’ - in other words, they ‘lived in’ with the farming family.

If a labourer was married with a family, they might have the use of a labourer’s house which was on many farms. Extra ‘bonuses’ like a daily gallon of milk or a few drills of spuds would augment the wages of maybe 7/6 a week, or as time went on, ten bob a week.

At the time, farming in Ireland was barely subsistence so wages for workers weren’t very flaithiúil. Like other farm labourer families, the O’Mahonys had no ‘contract’ or continuity of employment.

In this area, the ‘Gale Day’ around the end of March was when a farm labourer could be kept on for another year or let go to seek a position elsewhere. So, in 1944, the O’Mahony family moved to Hightown in Bartlemy, and from there the children went to school - just down the road to the School Cross and up the hill.

We often hear the phrase ‘one’s formative years’ - those years in a young person’s life where their character and personality are formed, shaped and moulded.

Dave O’Mahony always regarded Bartlemy as his ‘home’. In 2023, Dave was home after the sudden death of his cousin, the late, great Teddy McCarthy of Glanmire, Sars and Cork fame. In truth, the O’Mahony, McCarthy and O’Keeffe families are like one true Irish clan.

In Ireland, and in England, they stuck together and looked out and after one another.

In that June of just three years ago, Dave spoke at length to me about my father Dan and grandfather Batt - I never knew them and Dave told me so such about them.

He said that, as farm labourers, the O’Mahonys lived a transient life, here and there but finally put down ‘some sort of roots’ in Bartlemy during the school days of the family.

He said they felt welcome here, and on nearly every visit he paid to Ireland over the decades, he’d come back here to travel the roads he knew so well.

In time, as a young man Dave, took the boat to England where he had relations already. Eventually, his parents and the rest of the family made that same journey. There were 11 children, David, Kathleen, Eily, Christine, Michael, Margaret, John, Donal, Bridie, Denis, and Marion

A strong man, Dave worked hard - last week I met many men who soldiered side by side with him on the railways, in construction and tunnel-building.

The three days I spent in Manchester gave me an insight I never had into the Irish abroad. Yes, there were many who struggled and fell by the wayside. But so many thousands of others like the O’Mahonys and their kith and kin prospered.

Though they lived in London and Manchester and other towns and cities, they never lost that sense of pride in being Irish. Who would have blamed them if they were bitter because the’ had to leave to get work, Dave O’Mahony wasn’t.

He was 90 in March and made what he thought might be his last visit ‘home’. His brother Donal (Dan) was back too from Australia. They were coming to Cork the day before the All Ireland Hurling Final.

With family members, Dave planned to come here to Bartlemy on the day after the game. Unfortunately, illness meant he was admitted to CUH.

He was improving, so later that week I called up to see him. In mighty form, we had great banter as he reminisced on the 1940s and ’50s.

Many of those who started school in Bartlemy with him are dead - just a few remain - and he regaled me with stories from 80 years ago.

A few days later, the O’Mahony group returned to Manchester where Dave was admitted to hospital there to continue his treatment. He died in hospital on August 4.

So, three weeks later, I travelled with his Cork cousins to Manchester. Funerals in England take much longer than here for various reasons.

On the Tuesday, we went to see Dave in the funeral home. That evening the hearse came and stopped outside Dave’s home for a while as family and friends stood by. On then to St Anthony’s Church - the cortege was led by a kilted piper playing stirring Irish tunes.

A young priest, Fr Edmond Montgomery (he told us his grandfather was a Presbyterian from Bushmills, Co Antrim!) met the cortege. He led us in the Rosary and said it was Dave’s wish to be in St Anthony’s overnight.

We adjourned then to the Parish Centre in the church grounds - with its own bar. Here I met Ray Lonergan, the piper. A member of the Fianna Padraig Pipe band, he told me his set of pipes were once played in the Terence MacSwiney Band.

Dave’s family members, Matthew and Sandra, delivered a powerful eulogy at the Funeral Mass. As we left the church, Ray piped up with Goodbye Johnny Dear, Faith Of Our Fathers and The Rising of The Moon.

We lay Dave to rest with his wife and daughter in that vast Southern Cemetery. So many of his friends -many in their 80s - shook a handful of earth on the coffin. We spent hours afterwards in the Cringlewood Club celebrating the life of a great Irishman who spent most of his life in England - but knew where home was.