When Castlebar met Belgium

When Castlebar met Belgium

County View
John Healy

WHEN the Belgian Ambassador visits Castlebar next month he will be presented with a folder of letters which marked a unique and, at the time, a much talked about episode in the town’s history.
The letters formed a series sent home from Belgium in 1930 and 1940 where a group of Castlebar men and women had been sent to train in the art of hat-making, preparatory to the opening of the Western Hats factory in the county town.
Thirty women and seven men were sent out on a trip which must have been the adventure of a lifetime. Many of them had scarcely been outside the county before. Now, they had to cope with a strange environment, strange food, a foreign language and an unfamiliar climate, all added to their first introduction to the world of the industrial workplace.
One of the most articulate and literary-minded of the group was Kathleen Loftus, a native of Linenhall Street, who, apart from sending regular reports home to her family, also furnished the local Connaught Telegraph with fortnightly accounts of what life was like in this foreign land. Under the title of ‘News from Belgium’, the letters appeared regularly for over a year and became a major talking point in the town. A fluent linguist, Miss Loftus was also gifted with a stylish pen, and her account of life in Belgium, her trips in the countryside, and the curiosity which the Irish contingent aroused in their host country is interesting even today.
Kathleen Loftus’ letters from Belgium are now in the care of Castlebar historian and researcher, Ernie Sweeney, who plans to formally make a presentation of copies to the Belgian Ambassador. He himself has chronicled much of the history of the hat factory, where he worked as a young man, with particular reference to the Czech and East European managers who fled war-torn Europe to find refuge in the west of Ireland as the Hat Factory found its feet.
Interestingly, Kathleen Loftus’ reports show little preoccupation with the carnage which was about to come. The Castlebar workers came home just one week before Belgium fell to the march of the conquering German armies. By then, of course, the sound of the war drums was growing in intensity, and one can imagine the sense of relief when the Western Hats staff realised just how uncertain their situation could have become.
Meanwhile, a German historian is currently preparing a book on the German-speaking emigration to Ireland in the Nazi period, with particular focus on those who came to Castlebar to set up and help run Western Hats. Dr Horst Dickel has enlisted the help of Ernie and Susanna Sweeney in the project, which will involve speaking to as many local people as possible who have memories of the immigrants.
Many of them, it seems, came in the guise of factory floor workers and supervisors in order to escape the torture of the Jewish people, even though their backgrounds were professional and upper class. There is one poignant story of a young merchant banker who fled Germany with his Jewish family to work in the hat factory in Castlebar. In due course, assuming that the torture was coming to an end, he went to Paris to resume his former career in the belief that the danger was over. Such was not to be, however. He was arrested and deported to Belsan concentration camp, where he met his death.
For the record, the women workers who went to be trained in Belgium (and who, incidentally, were given accommodation in the convent) were Nellie Bourke, May Tunney, Eileen Fitzgerald, Mary Hoban, Margaret Lydon, Lily Jennings, Mary Jennings, Annie Murray, Bridie Gibbons, Ethna Langan, Mary Loftus, Peggy Ryan, Bridie Grimes, Ellie Corcoran, Maureen Walsh, Kathleen McAndrew, Kitty Prendergast, Margaret Tuffy, Bridie Hastings, Katie Gilboy, Eileen Coughlan, Mary Hastings, Ellen Scriney, Bridie Gildea, Margaret White, Margaret McHale, Lucy Flaherty (Claremorris), Mary Hoban and Anastasia Donoghue (Balla). The male workers who were sent on the training course were Alfred Carson, Edward Mugan, John Fergus, Chris Lang, Bert Griffin, John McCarthy and Martin Dempsey of Balla.

THE MISSING EINSTEIN
WHETHER it was the hand of history or not, somebody in Fianna Fáil has an eye for science if the current series of newspaper adverts extolling the achievements of the Government is anything to go by.
Fifty-two years to the day since the death of Albert Einstein, Mayo readers of the local papers were treated to a list of Government goodies so benevolent that – according to the script writers – one didn’t need to be a genius to figure out just how much we all benefit from Fianna Fáil largesse.
There was Knock Airport, the supply of gas to seven Mayo towns, and decentralisation to brag about. There was also the Western Rail Corridor. Sceptics were quick to point out that, just as Einstein had a reputation for absent-mindedly forgetting the date or the venue for some appointment he had arranged, a certain government minister seemed to have equally forgotten his commitment to come to Claremorris to deliver some realistic news about the Western Rail Corridor.

POLLS APART
THIS column has long regarded opinion polls, especially those purporting to show voting predictions, with a strong seasoning of scepticism.
But for an aspiring political candidate, it’s quite a different matter, since an opinion poll result may tend to influence how a candidate is perceived and thus how he or she performs on the day when it really counts.
Politicians too take the polls with a pinch of salt, but their worry is that their supporters might start believing what the pollsters tell them. The man who is scoring high on the opinion polls will worry that his supporters will fall into the complacency trap. The candidate at the foot of the poll will worry that his foot soldiers may lose heart completely.
Five years ago, Michael Ring was showing so well in the pre-election polls that it was only a matter of showing up at the count. In the event, his predicted 24 per cent turned out to be a much more realistic 15 per cent. By contrast, Frank Chambers, whom the pollsters had written off, came in with a 9 per cent vote which, in several other constituencies, would have guaranteed his election.
The lesson is that politicians simply don’t like to be too far ahead – or behind – in the polls. Michael Ring is already warning that the ‘home and dry’ prediction is a dangerous one which could easily turn around and bite its owner.
How right he is to counsel caution to his supporters. Even the realistic Ring knows that counting the chickens before they are hatched can leave egg on the face!

MAGGIE FROM MAYO
FIFTY years after her death in Dublin at the early age of 69, Margaret Burke Sheridan is to be honoured and remembered in her native Mayo.
Born at The Mall in Castlebar, where her birth place is marked with a plaque, she went on to capture the acclaim of the opera houses of the world in the 1920s and 1930s.
Orphaned as a young child, her musical talent was recognised by the sisters of the local Convent of Mercy, before leaving to be educated in Dublin and ultimately to find fame in Italy.
Known as ‘Maggie from Mayo’, and fiercely proud of her Irish background, Margaret sang her way to stardom at La Scala in Milan, Covent Garden, the Rome Opera House and Monte Carlo.
The favourite singer of Puccini – who wrote the role of Mimi specifically for her – the Italian public adored her. All the more so because of her decision to continue her career in Italy, rather than move to the US where more lucrative offers awaited her.
The 50th anniversary of her death will be marked next year by special ceremonies organised by Mayo County Council, one of the highlights of which will be a talk given by her biographer Anne Chambers.
The programme of events will be a fitting tribute to a true international celebrity who has not been given the recognition she deserved in her home place.

BALLINA’S HEAVENLY VOICES
STILL on matters musical, Ballina Cathedral Choir did Mayo proud in the televised Easter ceremonies, so devout and touching, which were screened by RTÉ.
The perfect setting of St Muredach’s and the stunning townscape TV shots provided the ideal background to three days of ceremonies which were warmly received by a record number of viewers across the country.
And if music is at the heart of good liturgy, then the cathedral choir excelled itself in its repertoire and delivery of the sacred compositions so appropriate to Holy Week.
Under the conductorship of Regina Deacy, the pitch perfect, superbly balanced choir had obviously spent long hours in honing their talents. It was time well spent, and the Cathedral singers can justly take a bow on a performance which perfectly reflected all that is special about that special week.
The richness of the combined voices was matched by the superb soloist contribution of Debbie McCole, Donna Malone, Caroline Jackson and Jim Walsh. Each piece was sung with a sense of feeling which transmitted itself over the airwaves and which will remain for a long time in the memory of those of us who were privileged to listen.

FINALLY, A SPIRE FOR CASTLEBAR
OVER 100 years since it was blessed and consecrated, it looks that Castlebar Parish Church is about to get the spire which, although included in the original plans, was never built.
The Church of the Holy Rosary was constructed in 1901 for the sum of €18,000; to have added the spire would have cost €3,000 extra. It was a huge amount for a parish then struggling with hard times and poverty; it was decided that the spire would simply have to be excluded from the project.
A hundred years later, in 2001, another attempt was made to raise the funding and finally put the finishing touches to the church. However, not everyone was in agreement. A substantial lobby held the view that parish funds would be better spent elsewhere; that a costly spire would be too extravagant, even allowing for the favourable economic climate. The matter went no further.
Now, however, a group of anonymous benefactors have come forward to offer the sum of €700,000 towards the construction cost of a new spire. Nearly €300,000 of that is already  lodged in the bank in anticipation of the project – estimated to cost €1m – going ahead.
Canon Paddy Curran, PP of Castlebar, explained to parishioners that one of the features of the project is that no money will be taken out of the weekly envelope collection to fund any possible shortfall.
While the Finance Committee is strongly in favour of providing the spire to complete the church, they are adamant that no mainstream parish funds will be used.
The only concession they have made, according to Canon Curran, is that any necessary funding to complete the work will have to come from the income earned by the church car park.
Where the project goes from here is not yet finally clear. But the feeling is that, no matter what happens now, the 106-year-old wait is nearly over.