The 'haunting' sound that 'penetrated' daily lives in Kilkenny

Professor Anne Boran, who recently wrote Challenge to Power, a book which told the story of her father the late Nixie Boran, now recalls her memories of growing up in Massford in North Kilkenny in the 1940s.

The name Massford itself carries historical significance with roots back in Penal Law times when local Catholics, in defiance of their colonial masters, met to celebrate Mass by a ford on the river Deen, not far from today’s Massford Bridge.

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That spirit of resistance carried through to the Massford that I grew up in, although it rested lightly on my shoulders at the time - the late 1940s-early 1960s.

Among my abiding childhood memories was the smell of freshly baked bread that assaulted the senses as one passed the busy hub of the Massford Co-op Stores and the haunting sound of the Deerpark siren that carried across the bowl-shaped plateau and surrounding hills. It penetrated our daily lives and marked the men’s shifts in the coal mine.

As children winding our way back and forth by foot past the quiet Garda Barracks to Moneenroe school (a mile away), or later by bike to the Presentation Convent in Castlecomer (four miles), the miners were familiar figures cycling past us on the way to and from work, often with a quick stop-off at one of the many pubs on the way to wash down the coal dust.

In the early days they were unrecognisable, because of their black faces, later that changed, because that radical local spirit in which my father Nixie Boran played a part succeeded in bringing about changes to their lives, their working conditions, their dignity and wellbeing, both physical and financial.

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To me as a child, I was aware of constant conversations around me of well-known local figures and miners, always planning something, a strike, a campaign, a strategy to make the mine owners and governments listen.

But I was more concerned with play and friendships and that sense of freedom and security that lots of relatives, neighbours and playmates my own age gave – a community with deep roots. I was unaware that that was hard fought for by others.

I saw, however, that at age 14 in national school, childhood ended for many of the boys in my class when they dropped out to work in the mines or when both boys and girls emigrated. We girls were lucky to be able to go to Secondary School in the Presentation Convent, Castlecomer and I loved the four-mile cycle home in the evening (I was always late in the morning!) when we chatted, walked up hills or coasted down, then put our worlds to right in the process.

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I remember how sad I was when many of my friends left after Intercert, leaving just a handful to complete the Leaving Cert. I really missed them, but I too would join the exodus in time.

Times have changed today with more opportunities; no longer dependent on the one big source of employment in my time - the mines. When I grew up in Massford, it was inevitable that most of us left, but not without carrying within us a love for the place that shaped us, that sense of humour, freedom, tenaciousness and even that radicality. It’s in our roots!

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