RTÉ RADIO 1’s CURIOUS EAR FEATURES CLARE WOMAN

RTÉ Radio

RTÉ RADIO 1’s CURIOUS EAR FEATURES CLARE WOMAN

On Sunday 27 January at 7.45pm The Curious Ear features Clare woman Peggy Moloney as she begins her first holiday in 39 years, her retirement.  

Since the mid-1800s there’s been a Post Office in O’Callaghan’s Mills, Co. Clare.  Since the late 1960s Peggy Moloney has been the postmistress.
In all that time she has never had a holiday; she’s only been to Dublin once in her life.  Why would she? There’s plenty going on in O’Callaghan’s Mills.

The Curious Ear’s Ronan Kelly speaks to Peggy about her career and the changes she has seen in her town through the years.  

“I’ll never win Housewife of the Year!” Peggy Moloney laughs at her office which, she says, is in a mess (but it isn’t- it’s just homely.) The words and phrases Peggy uses are unique to her, she doesn’t use the word ‘mess’ or her office is full of her ‘things’ – she says it’s full of her ‘thrumperies’ and is in a ‘conjaffrey’, neither word can she explain the origin of.  

Peggy’s conversation is rich; when speaking about old age she says “sure the child that’s born today is getting old.” or, if someone is asking a lot of questions, “There’s Dublin Castle for you!”

There is no doubt that she has had plenty of opportunity for conversation – for 39 years she’s run the Post Office in a village in East Clare.  She says handing a mixture of coins and notes over the counter “there’s a mixed grill for you now.”   

What is really interesting is that in all of those 39 years, Peggy Moloney has never had a holiday.  She takes day trips to West Clare; she was in Derry once but she “hated it”; there were too many people. She visited Spiddal once which she described as “lovely”.  She has never been to Cork and was in Dublin just once, in 1969, for an Oireachtas Final in Croke Park; “The pace was very fast with all the cars.  You wouldn’t want to be stiff crossing the road – you’d be a stiff before the night.”

The fast cars came to Clare too. When Peggy was a girl they hurled on the road with ‘crooks’ and stones; ‘crooks’ are sticks with knobs on the end. 
“I don’t know who had hurleys, but we didn’t.”  Of course, that was long before the cars took over the road “Now by jingos you wouldn’t stay abroad in it long”.

The car has also changed the commercial life of O’Callaghan’s Mills.  On one of her last days in the office the customers, who call “going up to Peggy’s counter, going to Confession’”, listed all the businesses that were in the village although it was only 14 miles from Limerick:  cobblers, tailors, doctors, and blacksmiths.   One customer recalls a canny local dressmaker saying, “my business went down when women started to drive.”

Now, the latest business to go is Peggy’s own Post Office. It has just closed after 159 years.  But Peggy is not despondent, the car that killed the business gives her a good life, “I have my small Merc (it’s a Seat) and it can take myself and three friends all over Clare.”

The Post Office was closed for good on the last day of December 2007 and Peggy retired.  The Curious Ear was there for one of the last pension days and to talk to Peggy about her new life.

Will she go farther a field?  Why would she? There’s plenty of “buzz” in O’Callaghan’s Mills, according to Peggy.  Anyway, she wants to do a bit of work on the house and tidy up her ‘thrumperies’. 

The Curious Ear will be broadcast at 7.45pm on Sunday 27 January on RTÉ Radio 1.

Ronan Kelly is the presenter and producer of The Curious Ear.

For further information please contact:
Denise Sammon, RTÉ Radio Press Office (01) 208 2215 denise.sammon@rte.ie

Date: 16 January 2008

—Ends—