In spite of these three surnames I am contending that this girl was in fact a Mallon, for then, children always bore the name of their natural father. I appreciate that this may be difficult for the reader to accept and I feel that I must continue my explanations in support of my theory.
By now the reader is aware that my grandparents Bridget and Patrick lived together for many years without marriage. Indeed I am convinced they never married. We know that they had at least three children together who were not baptised in Patrick's lifetime and whose births were not officially registered on time or without external pressure being applied. In these circumstances it is not difficult to accept the possibility of the birth of another unregistered child before Frank came along. It was just this possibility that set me searching.
I searched for the birth or baptism in Newry 1902-1909 of any child named Garvey. I knew then that Frank was given this surname when his birth was registered in 1911. The only three births to Garvey in these years have already been alluded to. Bridget and Roger Garvey's child Elizabeth - of 23 Pound Street - must be discounted, as she grew up the second of six children in this united family. The second child Lizzie was born out of wedlock to Bridget Garvey of Lindsay Hill in May 1908. However this girl was a domestic servant, which our Bridget clearly had not been for eight years past. She ran her own boarding/eating house in Monaghan Street. There were no other Garveys born in Newry at this time.
I was already fairly convinced. When I discovered - as a result of the Catholic Church's policy of recording births, marriages and deaths on consecutive pages - that this girl at the tender age of sixteen in 1924 married one Francis Larkin in Cloughogue Church I had a strong lead to follow. Her “parents' then were named as Thomas and Eliza Rice of Ballymacdermott. From this information I searched until I found out all I could about this couple (which I have already recorded).
I was then most fortunate to meet with and befriend another informant of the calibre of my cousin Bridget - one Mamie Downey (née Larkin) whose uncle was Francis Larkin whom Elizabeth married in 1924. When first I arrived on her doorstep enquiring about Larkins she thought I was one of the Liverpool branch. She was astonished at the close physical resemblance. I knew I was on the right track. From her, in addition to valuable information, I received the photographs of Elizabeth and her children that are included herein. I have shown these photographs to my wife and family and some of my siblings. Everyone who has seen them agrees that there is a good-to-remarkable family resemblance between these Larkins and us. Let the reader judge for himself/herself.
Elizabeth never knew her real parents and indeed never lived in Newry. Immediately on adoption she was taken off to Ballymacdermott, there to live in a tiny cottage on a small, barren farm, the only child of parents of an advanced age. Her home was just a few hundred yards from the famous court cairn on the town side of the Bernish Mountain. From there she could look down on the valley of the Gap of the North, of lasting fame in Irish myths and legends. If she had little else she surely had a most picturesque rural environment to enjoy.
Known affectionately as Lily the young girl attended the nearby Cloughogue Primary School. Neighbours Felix and Patrick Loughran - two old bachelors whom I interviewed - remember well (from more than seventy years ago) the spirited young girl who lived on a neighbouring farm. She would have been their senior by approximately five years.
Pat remembers standing watching Lily milk the family cows and her squirting the warm milk from the teats into his face if he got too close. The young girl's life was centred on the farm and the nearby school. Occasionally she would get a trip into town driving animals to the market or on her “father's” cart, on their way to sell a churn of milk or buttermilk. It is unknown if she ever came across her natural father or mother. She would not have known them or of them in any case. It appears unlikely that Bridget ever again saw or contacted her.
Pat told me of Lily's fun-loving and boisterous nature. She was full of devilment. He recalls her perched on the family cart and singing risqué songs - a line from one of which included the words.. ”. and the best digs in Dublin is the Mountjoy Hotel..” - a reference to the famous jail of that name.
It would be easy to romanticise this period in Elizabeth's life - living a frugal, rural existence in seemingly idyllic surroundings. Although it may indeed have been the only carefree life she was to know, it was far from easy. Her adoptive parents were very poor and considerably older than her. She would have had to carry on most of the farm work alone. Indeed it is unlikely she attended school much at all for I have been unable to find her name on the school rolls of the time. It was all to end far too soon.
Tamnabane (or Tavanabane as I found the name written on the marriage record) is just round the breast of the Bernish no more than a mile from the Rice's farm. When she was just sixteen years old Lily found herself pregnant by Francis Larkin from this place. They got married on 16 July 1924, a month before her seventeenth birthday. The absence of Larkins or Rices - not to mention Garveys/McCullaghs - from the witness names at the wedding probably indicates parental disapproval. Witnesses were Peter Fearon and Mary Rose Smith.
The neighbours I referred to tell the story that Frank, determined to emigrate to Liverpool and short of money, went to the nearby farm of Lily's aunt, one Maggie Short and stole her livestock. The animals were driven into Newry and sold for cash. Immediately the newly-weds set out on foot for Belfast and the emigrant ship to Liverpool. It is not known why they did not sail from Newry or Warrenpoint. Perhaps there was no ship sailing then or maybe it was more expensive. In any case the walk to Belfast must have been horrendous for the pregnant girl. By the journey's end she had lost the child she was carrying in her womb. The lost child was named for Stephen, Frank's father.
Life in England was to be even harder for Elizabeth.
For all his problems – he was addicted both to gambling and to alcohol – Elizabeth was in love with her husband and stood by him through thick and thin. It is likely that she was glad to escape from Rice's farm. She was to find little relief or joy.
In England the young couple were unable to find a permanent residence. When Frank could find paid employment he soon frittered away his earnings through his addictions. Larry (their eldest surviving son) remembers that the gambling was if anything even worse than the alcoholism. Everything was sacrificed to his addictions.
In the mid- 1920's two more sons were born to Elizabeth. They were named Francis and Patrick. Neither survived their early years. They died of malnutrition. They are buried in a local cemetery in Liverpool.
Their fourth son Larry was born at 40 Regent Road Liverpool on 19 September 1929. The twins Michael and Peter were born three years later. Just two years after that – in 1934 – Frank walked out on his wife and three sons. They were not to see him again for sixteen years.
Concerning my mother, I'm sad now that I didn't ask her things. Mum had her own health problems too. She suffered from angina and was on tablets most of her adult life. She just lived for her children. She worried constantly that anything should happen to her and we would be left alone. So I'd say, There's nothing going to happen to you, mum. You'll always be here with us. But this prevented her from opening up to me. I do regret that now.
My earliest recollection is of sleeping in a field. There was just mum and dad and me. This means that I must have been three years old at most because the twins weren't there. There was a great slope on the field. In the middle was a large bush and we slept under that. In the morning I remember going with mum to a house on top of a hill further up the road. Mum had a can and asked for some hot water to make tea. I don't know whether she was given some food also. We went back to that field afterwards. And you know, John, I have a rough idea where that field is, even today. It's just the other side of Bootle.
I have memories from the age of five and younger, of several places where we lived. All of them were pretty miserable. Once we lived in a cellar. We could look up through the grating to people walking along the street. The glass wasn't frosted so we could see right through. There were lots of cockroaches on the walls. Mum and dad would pull the bed back from the walls because of them. I had no shoes. I can remember drinking out of tins. A condensed milk can opened with a tin opener would have jagged edges. Dad tapped these inwards until it was smooth all around. This was my cup.
I think we lived in Bevington Bush, which was off Scotland Road. It was while we lived there that I got run over by a wagon. We kids used to cling to the back doors of wagons as they drove along the street. I fell off once and the wagon, which was following, ran over me, breaking both my ankles. I can remember the building where we lived then. It was derelict and ramshackle – a boarded-up former shop. We had one room at the back, down a long corridor. Everything we owned was in there. This was one rickety old bed and a table. I don't remember any chairs. Funny thing is, I don't remember the twins there. Isn't that strange? They must have been two or three years old then.
It was about then that dad walked out. He just left. It was 1934 or 1935. The twins and I were sent to Fazakerley Cottage Homes. Mum went into the workhouse at Belmont Road. We were separated for about two years. She could not take us out of the Cottage Homes because she had no place of her own.
By the time we were reunited it was 1937. Our flat was in Kensington, Liverpool – above a butcher's shop. We three boys attended the local Sacred Heart School for two years until war broke out. Just before then we moved to Brunswick Road. Again we lived above a shop.
Shortly after the outbreak of war all the schools were evacuated. Cities were considered too dangerous for children – with the fear that the Germans would bomb them. Evacuation brought great inconvenience and indeed hardship to millions of people. It was the best thing that could have happened to us because it brought our family together and gave us relief from destitution.
For the full duration of the war (and indeed for some years after) we were a united and happy family (but without dad, of course). We were sent to Llay in north Wales. Ernie and Sally Griffiths had no family of their own. They were very good to us. But best of all, they let mum live with them and us too. They didn't have to do that. They were beautiful people! Mum got a job in a munitions factory near Wrexham, just a few miles away. Sometimes also she worked for a farmer named Arthur Owens. She delivered milk from door to door using his horse and cart (and with her sons' help!). There were two containers on board, the second one containing water (for cleansing purposes). Sometimes when we'd run short of milk, it would be topped up from the other container. We boys would get occasional tips from the customers. When farmer Owen learned of this, he wouldn't pay us the few coppers that were our due. We'd got enough, he'd say! Mum was delighted to have full-time paid work in the factory. It wasn't widely known then how dangerous to health it was to work with cordite all the time. Mum had a minor stroke when she was thirty-four years of age. She had circulatory trouble the rest of her life that was put down to angina. She lived in fear of her children's survival and safety should she die prematurely.
We didn't have a proper school in Wales, just a room inside a Church Hall. We didn't get much of an education there. I remember this bloke who sat beside me. His name was John Cotterel and he couldn't read or write. The teacher asked him one time to read a passage from the bible. It began with the Lord's Prayer. John couldn't read but he could recite and he knew his prayers. I leaned forward and whispered the first words for him…
Our Father…
He had no difficulty reciting the rest and he escaped punishment. I felt so sorry for him. Nobody bothered to help him with his problems. I often wondered about him since, whatever became of him.
We finished school at the age of twelve. I remember that people then were always convinced that the Germans were about to invade. When I left school my mother arranged an interview for a job for me in Simpson's Shoe Shop in Wrexham. I didn't want this. All young men that I knew worked down the pits and I wanted to, also. But mum dressed me up one Monday morning and took me to an interview. The manageress kept reassuring both of us that everything would be all right. Since I'd be learning a trade my wages would be very low. I think now it was about 10/- a week.
I'd be helped along, she said. I noticed that there were four or five girls working in the shop and no men. There was no way I was going to stand for this. I told mum this when I got home. In the end I got my own way and went down the pit.
But coal mining was a reserved occupation. If I had been kept on after the age of eighteen, I'd have had to stay – to be accepted into the union. To allow just anyone to become a miner would have undermined their bargaining position for better wages and conditions. They didn't want me. By then I'd had enough anyway of being a miner. I wanted to move on too.
Conscription was still in force after the war. In 1947 I was called up for two years of national service. I joined the RAF police. This was a ground job. I never got to fly. My younger brothers joined the army. They were identical twins. Only mum and I could tell them apart. As a result of this they had many adventures and strange experiences. These continued in the army because they were in the same regiment. Our Peter was always too fond of a few pints and not always fit as a result to turn up for his duty next morning. If Michael was free he'd turn up in his place and nobody was the wiser. Often at the mess hall the close physical resemblance worked against them. Peter recalls lining up with an empty plate in his outstretched hand…
Get out of it, you! No second helpings here mate!” “But I haven't had any grub yet!” he'd protest. “You think I'm blind, Taffy? Now, clear off!
Because of the years they'd spent in Wales the three boys had acquired Welsh accents – and a nickname. This one stuck with Larry for life.
Larry and I had spent a few hours in his home just talking. Then we went into Liverpool to meet Peter. We all three shared a few pints in the Goat Inn (formerly the Goat Hotel) on Regent Street where Larry was born. He showed me the spot. Until very recently there stood – just a hundred metres away – St Augustine's Church where they were all baptised. Both brothers – my first cousins related the following recollections to me.
We were de-mobbed in 1949. The family still lived in Wales but now mum had a little place of her own. We moved back in with her. In the latter years when we lived in Wales we used to cross the border into England on Sunday evenings for a few pints. Sunday was strictly observed in Wales (all pubs remained closed on the Lord's Day. Club members – miners, union men etc – could drink in their clubs but the rest of us had to go dry!). Our favourite watering hole was in the city of Chester.
Mum had put her name down for a house in Liverpool back in 1932 when the twins were born. She was finally allocated one in 1951 and we moved back there. Mum had often tried to seek out dad. She wrote to relatives in Ireland and through them learned that dad was in Diva Mental Hospital in Chester. We had been spending Sunday evenings less than a mile from dad without ever being aware of it. Mum started visiting him. We went to visit dad too. By then he was a quiet and easy-going man. This place was his home. He could come and go as he liked, but he liked to stay. I'd take him out for a walk or a few drinks. But I remember the shock I felt on my first visit. They all lived in little cells off a long corridor. I asked for Francis Larkin and this bloke said
Come on, then. I'll show you.
He took me down this passageway and there was my dad. I could see the resemblance right away. It was all there. But it was sad seeing him after all those years. He accepted I was his son all right when I told him – but he often got me mixed up with Peter. His was a wasted life. But it so affected my mother. She was left destitute and alone - to fend for herself and us. She didn't ever have an easy life. But she was a brilliant mother.
I married Hilda in 1952 and we had three children. I continued visiting dad all those years – right up to his death in 1970. I was then a travelling salesman and would often be in Chester. I'd spend a few hours with him. One time mum tried to get him to come out of the mental hospital. He almost did – but he couldn't go through with it. She never thought of divorce or legal separation. She stood by him.
I enjoyed talking to dad and I didn't feel any resentment towards him. I'd always been laid back about life. I put my arms around him and hugged him. But it was a strange father/son relationship. He seemed happy and content then. I didn't want to upset him by asking him to explain his treatment of mother and us. Maybe I should have.
I spent most of my time in Liverpool with Larry and we became friends. He promised to visit me in Ireland along with Peter ( [later note] they have twice been to my home in 1998). Larry's son Tony was at home. He works for an audio-visual consultancy company and in his spare time is a successful rally driver. Larry's youngest daughter Tricia also lives at Prescott Avenue with him. She works in the accounts department of a mail order company. Pat – Larry's second wife – was very friendly and made me feel welcome. I would like to return.
Larry's brother Peter met us as he was coming off work. He drives a dumper truck for a construction company. He had not expected to see his brother – much less me. He is a small, stout jovial man with merry twinkling eyes. He had no difficulty accepting me and we struck up an accord. He reminded me of Jamesy McKeown (an uncle with a later chapter all to himself!). Peter told me about his work and his boss Danny O'Brien whose people hailed from South Armagh too. I told Peter of the possibility of a link with his great grandmother whose maiden name had been O'Brien from the same area). Peter talked too about his wife and family. He had a daughter Christine who died shortly after birth in February 1964. He repeated her name several times as though to emphasise that she was a real person and not just a child who died at birth. His mother died in November of that same year. His twin brother, Michael, also died in the month of November, just eleven years ago. He died of lung cancer though he never smoked in his life. It was a very short time between first diagnosis and his death. He stressed how difficult it was to lose an identical twin who had shared so much of his life). He told me too of an accidental meeting some years ago in Liverpool with a first cousin named Francis Larkin. When he heard his name he asked where the other was from. Newry, Co Down. That was when they learned they were first cousins. Peter could accept that we were first cousins too. He was confident of the physical resemblance. He wanted me to tell him what I knew of his mother. I told him I was only learning of her from Larry.
All too soon I had to leave and return to Ireland, much chastened but with a greater sense of belonging. This lady was certainly a daughter of Bridget – my granny – and resembled her in so many ways. She outlived Sonny by more than two years. In different circumstances I could have gotten to know her.
A note on Elizabeth's three surviving children and their families …
Larry Larkin Married
Michael Larkin married ? and is survived by her and their children Janet, Julie and Diane (all married with children) and Paula (single, no children).
Peter Larkin married Doreen : their children are Susan, Pauline and Stephen who are all married: Peter has one grandchild.