THE KILKENNY OBSERVER CHRISTMAS SHORT STORY SERIES
CELEBRATING WRITERS IN OUR COMMUNITY ’23
The Kilkenny Observer Newspaper is delighted to present our ‘2023 Christmas short story series’. We have invited four writers from Kilkenny to submit a short story during the Christmas season, which we hope you will enjoy. For this, our third week, we welcome Willie Joe Meally from Clogh writers group. Willie Joe presents two short stories- ‘Christmas in a thatched house’ and ‘A Gaping wound in the ground filled after with water
By Willie-Joe Meally
All of us eight children cleaned and polished our shoes and boots and arranged them neatly on the rack near the fire. We washed ourselves from head to toe in a large galvanised bath and prepared our clean clothes for the following Christmas morning Mass. At six o’clock, I, the youngest, lit the red Christmas candle and placed it in the front window. The light from the paraffin lamp shone on the berried holly, tucked behind the pictures hanging on the wallpapered walls.
Mammy was the last to go to bed on Christmas Eve. I sat on the form for a while, keeping her company. I watched her pottering about the kitchen, usually the fire was let down for the night, but not tonight. Mammy kept it in, adding more coal to it. The big black metal pots were placed on both hobs. A goose we were fattening since October, now lay on a big enamel plate on the marble topped table near the kitchen window.
Mammy slid the goose into the boiling water, pressing down the lid with a Durrow red brick. She left it there simmering for the night. She stuffed a pig’s head into the other big metal pot on the hob, a turnip and parsnip were added to give flavour to the meat. She pressed down the lid. They simmered also for the night. Six large heads of cabbage were cut and cleaned, a bucket of Kerr’s Pink, carrots, and onions were prepared for the next day. All vegetables were from the kitchen garden. The kettle sang on the crook. Mammy made herself a cup of tea and ate a slice of barmbrack. It was time for bed, well past midnight and sleep came quickly.
On Christmas morning, the fire burned brightly in the grate. Mammy lifted the goose from the pot and placed it on a willow pattern dish on the dresser. She placed the cooked pig’s head on a large white plate, it was staring out through the back kitchen window, on a snow-covered garden. The frying pan was sending smoke signals across Mrs. Tierney’s Field, with the smell of rashers, pudding and sausages. We dipped our bread in the melted suet and drank mugs of steaming hot tea.
We took the shortcut up The Night Field to 10 0’clock Mass in Moneenroe, meeting our neighbours on the way, all walking up The Old Road and greeting each other with, ‘Happy Christmas.’ When Mass was over, we hurried home. Mammy was there ahead of us, making the gravy. There was little talk about Santa Claus, although we had heard from some children in the Timberow that he had called to them and left a sack of toys. Not only that, but one lad said he saw Rudolf heading towards Sawney’s Hollow.
When we had finished eating the dinner, we sat on forms around the fire, all agreeing that it was Mammy’s best ever Christmas pudding. Suddenly, Daddy appeared from the upper room, carrying a brown potato sack. He placed it on the middle of the flag floor. Silence. We all paused and looked at each other.
Slowly, he emptied the contents onto the floor. We went wild glimpsing, the dolls, rubber horses, rubber elephants, a red penknife, a bag of coloured beanies, crayons, colouring books, snakes and ladders, The Beano, The Dandy, boxes of chalk, doll’s house, nurse’s outfit and a rubber ball. I was very happy with a blue spinning top which lasted long after the snow had melted. Buds appeared in the hedges, when I lost it near The Yellow Loch, looking for a blackbird’s nest.
A gaping wound in the ground that filled with water
By Willie-Joe Meally
When smoke rose from every chimney in Moneenroe, when streams closed in to become one sheet of ice and icicles hung from thatched roofs, we knew it was time to venture to The Upperhills, to Bob Boyle’s Field. There lay a huge opencast lake, where a crane and jib had extracted the anthracite, leaving a gaping wound in the ground,that filled with over fifty foot of water.
Christmas over and a week off school stretched before us, a week of freedom. The older boys tested the ice, walking carefully on the edges, they rolled a large stone from the high banks of clay. It hopped down on the iced covered lake. When there was no sound of a crack in the ice, they knew it was safe to walk on it. After an hour, we got the signal, it was safe. Without any fear, we invaded the lake. Days and nights were spent sliding there. School children and young people from near and far came to the ice rink, from Moneenroe, Coolbawn, Yellow Road, Comer and surrounding areas.. We became experts at sliding.
Night after night, a bonfire lit on the clay bank shone a great light across the lake. Our parents thought we were playing hide and seek pitch and toss, tig, Cowboys and Indians or such like games, never thinking we were near the lake, near such danger. The secrecy added to the fun.
Then someone shouted, ‘Get off the ice, I hear a creak.’
A signal telling us there was a thaw coming and that the ice was melting. Word went around,
‘No one is to slide on the lake!’
We all gathered on the heaps. The older boys rolled a huge stone down the clay bank. It hopped and slid across the lake. There was a great silence. Suddenly, a wide crack appeared in the ice, and more cracks followed. Then the stone slowly submerged down through the ice and was seen no more. We realised then it was time to go home, our fun over for another year. One week of unimaginable joy melted away with the ice.
‘Where were you every night?’ mother asked when we arrived home.
‘We were playing Cowboys and Indians in the Well Field.’
‘Don’t you know that there is danger in those fields, with swamps and old shallow pits? What happened your new wellingtons that you got for Christmas? Are they torn already?’
If only she knew where we had spent every evening for the past week, playing and sliding on the frozen lake. When the stone sank through the ice, we learned a great lesson and witnessed the true meaning of loyal friends and neighbours.
About the author: Willie Joe Meally is from Moneenroe, and now living in Kilpatrick, Willie Joe is a founder member od Clogh writers group . He likes reading and writing poems and short stories . He enjoys meeting people and sharing his creative experiences.
Willie Joe is a member of the Clogh writers group and contributed to their recent anthology, which is on sale now
