By John Fitzgerald
(Part four)
Peter Roughan, the local newspaper columnist, wrote a lot about the Waltons…one of the long-established families in Callan. Larry Walton was in America at the time that Peter wrote his weekly Callan Man looks Back column. But Larry’s name never failed to come up in fireside conversations back in his native Callan whenever his family’s thoughts strayed to past events and sad or happy memories of days gone by.
He was in his late seventies when Peter wrote of “Walton’s Kitchen that had a Welcome for all.” Peter passed on best wishes to Larry’s two sisters in Callan: Margaret Griffin and Mayshe McCormack, wife of the postman John. Their parents, Patsy Walton and his wife had reared a large family “beyond the Big Bridge”: Eight girls and three boys. They occupied one of the liveliest and happiest homes in town.
Patsy was a tailor in the early part of the century. The profession was very different from what it is today. They had to work day and night to produce swallowtail coats, riding breeches, double-breasted waistcoats, bell-bottomed trousers, Norfolk jackets, and velvet-collared overcoats. Patsy could be seen at just about any hour through the big window of his house, with his three or four assistants, at the board where most of the tailoring work was done. And his wife was always busy too, as one of Callan’s shirt-makers; a hand trade now consigned to history.
There was a constant stream of callers to the house, and not just for business purposes. It was a hive of chat and friendly banter, even after all the children had grown up and scattered to the four winds. Patsy Walton made it clear that there was always a welcome at his door for every man and woman. “Come in” he would say “sit down and take the weight off your feet, and what’ll ya have?”
Peter Roughan loved tracing the whereabouts of Callan families and their offspring. He recalled that Patsy Walton’s three sons were Ned, Larry, and Palla. All three emigrated to the USA at a young age. Of the eight girls, five left for America. Lil, Annie, Margaret, Bridget, and Baby-Joe. Margaret married Ned Griffin, a plasterer, while in the USA and the couple returned to Ireland to live in West Street, Callan.
Two other sisters, Nellie and Mollie Walton, stayed in Ireland. Nellie married Joe Dunne and became one of the best dressmakers Callan had ever known. Her shop was in Jimmy Landy’s old house near the Green Street pump. She had the gift of the gab as well as being a dab hand with the sewing needle. According to Peter Roughan, she could polish off even the saddest tale with a funny or humorous ending. She always looked on the bright side of life…even when, as was often the case in those depressed times, there was no apparent bright side to look at!
Her favourite subject of reminiscence was the dancing at the Little Commons. It had involved many a merry tale of love and romance. Mollie Walton married a Mr. Payne and managed a hotel in Clonmel. She never lost touch with Callan, choosing to spend her holidays there, a habit many in the town failed to understand as they longed to leave it and never come back…such were the demands of life in an era when the country was an economic wasteland. Mollie was an accomplished dancer… “As light as a feather in your arms” was an oft-repeated compliment to her.
May- or Mayshe as she was better known- was the youngest of the Walton girls. She never left Ireland and was fond of telling stories of her youth and girlhood into her old age. Always cheerful, she communicated that happy feeling to anyone she had dealings with. In particular, she recalled a time in her childhood when the Walton kitchen was never empty in the evenings. Neighbours young and old were forever in the house for a chat. Boys and girls from the same street and other parts of town called in: the Dunphys, the Kealys, the Mahony’s, the Canavans, the Joyces, the Holdens and the Fogertys…among others.
Mayshe remembered that when the young fellows from Kilbricken couldn’t hang around O’ Regan’s corner on a wet night, they would stand in the hallway of Walton’s house, sometimes shivering with the cold, and make their plans for the following day.
Mayshe’s husband, John McCormack, came from Kilmanagh and served as postman for many years. He always started a good joke; or a story; with “Begob, you Sir I’m going to tell you something” and then had you listening intently to whatever he had to say.
The descendants of the Walton clan are today scattered across Ireland, Britain, and America. But they have never forgotten their proud lineage, and, thanks to Peter Roughan, can imagine the laughter and the happy faces of the children their grandparents and great-grandparents once were. They filled the streets and homes of the town with colour and excitement…in a Callan that has faded from memory.
