{"id":990,"date":"2012-11-29T12:44:01","date_gmt":"2012-11-29T12:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/54.229.91.100\/libraryandarts\/library\/ehistory\/?p=990"},"modified":"2026-04-10T11:36:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T10:36:33","slug":"tuesdays-with-mary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/tuesdays-with-mary\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesdays with Mary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesdays with Mary
\nBy Nuala Collins
\nJanuary 2012<\/span><\/p>\n

The Tuesday afternoons I spent in Mary Maguire\u2019s house in Nicholastown listening to her stories were a wonderful way to pass the Winter evenings before Christmas.\u00a0 We always finished with tea, perfect service, tray cloth and all \u2013 a proper afternoon tea.\u00a0 Mary couldn\u2019t have me visit on Monday, she works a full day and other days are busy too with visiting her family and other commitments.\u00a0 She has the energy of one half her age, God Bless her and she\u2019s had her 80th birthday.\u00a0 Everything about Mary gives the impression that she has had an interesting life to date.\u00a0 She walks tall and with an air of confidence.\u00a0\u00a0 Her father who was used to serving the gentry coached her to speak properly.\u00a0 Well, he was in the British Army and served in India.\u00a0 Her mother trained her to behave correctly in any company.\u00a0 Mother was in service with McCalmonts.<\/p>\n

Mary was the only child of Thomas Herbert and Brigid Lally.\u00a0 She was born on September 29th 1931.\u00a0 Their home was in Henry Street Newbridge.\u00a0 Thomas was a Dublin man, born on The Quays and Brigid came from Ahascragh in\u00a0 Co. Galway.\u00a0\u00a0 Thomas\u2019 family were craftsmen and he was a gifted sign-writer.\u00a0\u00a0 Later he became chauffeur for Major Mc Calmont.\u00a0\u00a0 Brigid was a ladies maid for Mrs McCalmont.\u00a0 That was how they met.\u00a0 Shades of \u201cUpstairs Downstairs\u201d!\u00a0 Mrs McCalmont was a cousin of Mrs Blacker, who featured greatly in Mary\u2019s married life.<\/p>\n

School days were spent in Holy Family Newbridge.\u00a0 Mary\u2019s first job was with in Belfast with Mrs Quinn.\u00a0 She loved it and remembers living on Alexander Street.\u00a0\u00a0 It only lasted 9 months due to unrest in the North.\u00a0 Then she took up employment in Eccles Street Convent in Dublin and hated that.\u00a0 She worked in the dining room there.\u00a0 Next she was with an accountant in Terenure for some time.\u00a0 Back to Newbridge she came to work in Newbridge Cutlery.\u00a0\u00a0 In her late teens she met and married Simon Maguire.\u00a0\u00a0 Simon worked in Castlemartin for Mrs Blacker.\u00a0 They lived for a while with Mary\u2019s parents.\u00a0 Simon was on the lookout for a house on the Blacker estate and in the early 50\u2019s they\u00a0 moved\u00a0 to the front gate lodge at Castlemartin.\u00a0 Their first child Judy was 6 weeks old.<\/p>\n

The story of getting the house is interesting.\u00a0 Peggy Morrissey who lived with her parents in Castlemartin yard was engaged to be married to a Dublin man.\u00a0\u00a0 There was also her sister Phoebe and brother Johnny living in the house.\u00a0 Peggy went to Mrs Blacker to tell her the good news of her forthcoming wedding and to ask for the gate lodge in which to set up home.\u00a0 Mrs Blacker said \u201cyou can marry and have the lodge but your family will have to leave Castlemartin yard\u201d.\u00a0 This put Peggy in an awkward position where her family would be out on the road.\u00a0 She broke off the engagement and never married.\u00a0 She went in tears to the men in the yard, Simon, Johnny Cole and John McGrath and told them there would be no wedding.\u00a0 Now the lodge was there for the taking.\u00a0 So Simon went to Mrs Blacker and got the key of their new home.<\/p>\n

The lodge dates from 1820\u2019s and was in poor condition as it was unoccupied for many years.\u00a0\u00a0 It is said that Castlemartin House has 28 rooms, while the gate lodge had a kitchen and one room,\u00a0 no light, no running water, no toilet, no heat, just a small fireplace to cook on and heat the house.\u00a0 Nothing there \u201conly moonshine\u201d says Mary.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t renovated till the 1980\u2019s, long after Mary and Simon had moved to Nicholastown and Castlemartin had changed hands.\u00a0\u00a0 In 1967 the estate was left to The Earl of Gowrie by Mrs Sheelagh Blacker, his great aunt.\u00a0 Four years later Lord Gowrie sold Castlemartin to the O\u2019Reilly family.\u00a0 It is said locally that Castlemartin is the coldest house in Kildare.\u00a0\u00a0 That was the reason Maj Beaumont didn\u2019t buy it, he bought Harristown instead.\u00a0\u00a0 Castlemartin at the time of Maguires living in the gate lodge had a vibrant community all of its own.\u00a0\u00a0 The Morrisseys and Keoghs lived in houses in the yard.\u00a0 Keegan\u2019s home was called \u201cthe blue door\u201d because it\u2019s one and only door was blue.\u00a0 Curley Keegan occupied \u201cthe back lodge\u201d.\u00a0 Snells and Tapley lived across the road.\u00a0 Now Maguires would live in \u201cthe front lodge\u201d.\u00a0 Percy Blacker, one of the two sons of Blackers, and his wife were in the other house at the Kinneagh end of the estate.\u00a0 Mrs Sheelagh Blacker, widow of Lt. Col. Frederick Blacker, or Madame as Mary calls her, resided in Castlemartin House.\u00a0 Blackers bought the estate in 1854.\u00a0 Mary had never lived in the country before her marriage.\u00a0 Now in Castlemartin she felt very isolated and lonely.\u00a0 At that time the front lodge was the only house on that side of the Newbridge road between Kilcullen and the second gates of Castlemartin.\u00a0 No school, sports centre or housing estate across the road.<\/p>\n

Mary lived at Castlemartin\u00a0 lodge for less than twenty years but her memories are vivid of her time there in early marriage and rearing her young children.\u00a0\u00a0 Most are not pleasant memories and now she doesn\u2019t even look at the estate as she passes by on the road.\u00a0 She endured a lot of hardship there.\u00a0\u00a0 Cash, or rather lack of it, was always a problem with the owner of the place.\u00a0 Sheelagh was asset rich and cash poor.\u00a0 Wages weren\u2019t always paid and Mary would go to \u201cthe big house\u201d to collect for Simon who worked on the farm.\u00a0\u00a0 If she saw Percy on his way to visit Mother she says she would run \u201ctill my last breath was gone\u201d to get there ahead of him or he would have the money gone off the mantelpiece and there would be no money for the Maguires.\u00a0 If Percy, who was always in need of cash, was not in sight the ritual was less stressful.\u00a0 Mary would knock on the library door.\u00a0 Madame would say \u201center\u201d and enquire the purpose of the intrusion.\u00a0 Then according to Mary \u201cshe would pay if she had it\u201d.\u00a0 Once Mary remembers being told \u201cstand out on the step – you are only a labouring man\u2019s wife\u201d.\u00a0 Two Christmases she remembers having no wages.\u00a0 But for the generosity of the town business people they would have had a lean time.\u00a0 Byrnes, Nolans and Orfords were always good for credit till New Year and better days.\u00a0 The traders of Kilcullen were good to Mrs Blacker too in her later years when times were lean for her. Jim Byrne Junior would bring her a big box of groceries every Saturday.\u00a0 She\u2019d take the soup and sliced pan for herself and send the rest to Mr Percy.<\/p>\n

Mary and Simon experienced two awful tragedies while living in Castlemartin.\u00a0 They were there only a short time when their second child Mary Carmel died.\u00a0 She three months old.\u00a0 Again the kindness of the town\u2019s people is not forgotten by Mary.\u00a0 She remembers Miss Duffy and Miss Mayne of Byrne\u2019s Drapery lining the little coffin with satin.\u00a0\u00a0 Jim Byrne drove the parents with the remains of Mary Carmel in the white coffin on their knees in the back seat of his car to New Abbey Cemetery.\u00a0 Simon Junior was only fifteen years old when he was knocked down on the road near the house by a motorist.\u00a0 He and his brother Billy were on their way to serve Benediction in the Parish Church.\u00a0 He died later in Naas Hospital.\u00a0 Mary\u2019s big regret is that she was not allowed to see his body before burial.\u00a0 She says that it helps the grieving if parents say a final \u201cgoodbye\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mary was always industrious and even with little money the family was never hungry.\u00a0 Simon sowed the garden patch at the back of the gate lodge with potatoes and vegetables.\u00a0\u00a0 Tom McGrath was in charge of the walled garden on the estate but that produce was for the big house.\u00a0 Mary had a clothes line at the back of the gate lodge but could only have it a certain height because the washing shouldn\u2019t be seen from the road.\u00a0\u00a0 Mary knew the best cheap cuts of meat, with a few bones thrown in free, to be had in local butchers Orfords or Nolans.\u00a0 She even produced her own honey.\u00a0 She would get a hive from the trees near the house and extract the honey from it.\u00a0\u00a0 Fr. Price loved a jar of that.\u00a0 He used to walk the avenue reading his brievery until he was refused permission to do so.\u00a0 The nuns from the Convent were allowed to go down to the river bank via The Laurel Walk and have a picnic.\u00a0 They were never turned back.\u00a0 Mary often saw them as she went for water to the Pinkeen stream.<\/p>\n

Fuel for cooking and heating was a problem too and coal or turf was expensive to buy.\u00a0 There was lots of firewood in the woods of the estate, some scattered after fallen trees.\u00a0 Mrs Blacker was very miserly and would not allow it to be taken.\u00a0 The Maguires would collect some at night and hide it till an opportunity arose to take it home.\u00a0 They had to watch and listen for Mrs Blacker\u2019s car and run for cover.\u00a0 Mary told me a story about the plan that the men, Billy Keegan,\u00a0\u00a0 Johnny Cole, Tom McGrath and her husband Simon had to cut down a tree to be shared out among the families.\u00a0 It was Punchestown week 1951.\u00a0 Lord and Lady Gowrie, relatives of Mrs Blacker were over from Poland for the festival.\u00a0 When the chauffer driven cars pulled out from Castlemartin with all the occupants sitting inside in their finery ready for the races, the lads got to work.\u00a0 Anyone old enough to remember, will recall that snow fell that year in April.\u00a0 Punchestown races were cancelled.\u00a0 So after a short time Mary heard the cars returning.\u00a0 Panic stricken, she ran and she could run fast because she was in her early 20\u2019s.\u00a0 She ran to stop the men.\u00a0 She had to dig her way through the snow in the big lawn at the side of the house.\u00a0 She waved her hands frantically and her warning was received.\u00a0 The sawing stopped.\u00a0 The men buried themselves in the snow.\u00a0\u00a0 As the car doors were slammed shut and the big double door of the mansion opened to let the guests in the boys re-appeared.\u00a0 They covered the tree and arranged to return next day to share the spoils.\u00a0 A sigh of relief was released from the gang.\u00a0 \u201cNothing for us all\u201d says Mary \u201cbut we\u2019d be out on the road if Herself found out\u201d.\u00a0 It would be funny, if it wasn\u2019t so serious.<\/p>\n

I asked Mary about parties and balls in Castlemartin.\u00a0 She told me of one Christmas, Mrs Blacker allowed her to bring the children to see the big Christmas tree in the front hall before the party.\u00a0 All the local gentry were invited.\u00a0 The Dean of Kildare and Mr Ken Urquhart were among the guests.\u00a0 Jack Snell was in charge of the car parking.\u00a0\u00a0 Every year on St. Stephen\u2019s day the Kildare Hunt was invited to the front of the house.\u00a0 She remembers Paddy Powell and the hunting horn, and trays of drinks at the front door.\u00a0 Her kids would hide behind the lime trees to watch.\u00a0 The lime trees are there no more.<\/p>\n

In spite of everything Mary has a certain sympathy for Mrs Blacker.\u00a0 Her description of the woman is that she always looked very old, she was domineering, could be very insulting but Mary adds that that was \u201cpart of her upbringing\u201d.\u00a0 She had no luck with Castlemartin.\u00a0 Her only other child, her son Ian, who was a captain in the British army, was killed at the battle of Monte Cassino in Italy in 1944.\u00a0 \u201cShe was down to her last thread when Ian died,\u201d according to Mary.\u00a0\u00a0 She sold the corner house across the road for \u00a3800 but got nothing out of the sale because she owed it all to Mr Alfie Brennan.\u00a0 No luck either with the horses – the mares and foals died on her.\u00a0 She bought an old black car from Mr Paddy Cox and it was useless, the doors wouldn\u2019t close, she had them tied with twine \u2013 that\u2019s what Mary told me.\u00a0 Mrs Blacker drove a big Vauxhall at one time, and since she was a petite lady and often had to have someone turn the car around for her, no power steering that time and maybe she needed a booster seat!\u00a0 She had a theory that the more petrol one put in the car, the more it consumed.\u00a0\u00a0 So she usually got the petrol pump attendant to put two gallons in the tank and two in a spare can she carried in the boot.\u00a0 Trouble was that after she used the spare petrol she forgot to refill the can, meaning she got stuck on the road again.\u00a0 Sheelagh Blacker tried a little enterprise with pigs!\u00a0 She bought a sort of lorry, well a cab with a small back for carrying things.\u00a0 She reared the pigs in the back yard and when the bonhams were ready for market in Dublin she loaded them and set off at the crack of dawn.\u00a0 At Brownstown, on the Naas Road, the back came off the contraption and the baby pigs escaped, along with the profit that was to be made from their sale.\u00a0 She sat there in the cab, which incidentally had no windows in it, till somebody came along hours later and helped her.\u00a0 She always travelled with a hot water bottle on her knees and a rug round her feet.\u00a0 The yard where the pigs were reared is now the location of a swimming pool.\u00a0 But to Sheela\u2019s credit she reared a special breed of pig and showed them at the R.D.S. show in Ballsbridge, where she won many prizes.\u00a0 Castlemartin pigs were good.<\/p>\n

All that life is in the past now for Mary.\u00a0 She says it was like moving to a palace when she, her husband Simon and children Judy, Billy, Mary and Elizabeth moved to the old Maguire home in Nicholastown.\u00a0 Simon is dead 14 years R.I.P.\u00a0 She enjoys her 14 grandchildren and 7 great-grand-children.\u00a0 Mary never forgets her deceased children.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t like Sundays.\u00a0 Her son Simon was killed on a Sunday evening, the morning of which Percy Blacker was killed at The Red Cow in Dublin.\u00a0 That was September 25th 1967.\u00a0 Mrs Blacker herself had died three weeks earlier.\u00a0 Mary loves all her neighbours in Nicholastown and I\u2019m sure they love her too.\u00a0\u00a0 A few years ago Mary\u2019s granddaughter Leona took her for a drive on the Curragh.\u00a0 It was an automatic car and Mary had a go.\u00a0 She managed very well and fancied the idea of buying herself a car.\u00a0\u00a0 She had a bit of money saved and considered it for a while.\u00a0 Then she decided that it would be a better idea to get heat installed in the house instead.\u00a0 Young at heart…that\u2019s Mary!<\/p>\n

Nuala Collins chats with Mary Maguire, of Nicholastown. Our thanks to Nuala for sending in this engaging piece<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nuala Collins chats with Mary Maguire, of Nicholastown. Our thanks to Nuala for sending in this engaging piece<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-folklore"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kildare Local Studies","author_link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/author\/localstudies\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8657,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions\/8657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}