The Ó Gormghaile saga

There was the old joke which used to go round about the woman who told her neighbour that her unemployed husband had just been given a job as a temporary postman for Christmas. 'Ah well' aid the neighbour, 'sure it'll keep him off the streets'.

I thought of the 'off the streets' part of it this week when canvassing in Tuam, County Galway with Joe Desmond and Mitchel McLaughlin, when who should approach us but Matt Ó Gormghaile, an old friend who I first came into contact with in the H-Blocks when he posted in a copy of a book on the Tuam Martyrs. He gave Mitchel a warm welcome and I congratulated him on his retirement as a postman, since I had seen his photo in the local paper last week.

By coincidence, I found other pictures of the Ó Gormghaile clann this week in the bundle of old papers recently loaned to me. Back in July 1957, Matt's brother Bart, a postman, was literally 'off the streets' when he was interned in the Curragh Camp.

So what was it like to have a prisoner in the family in those darker days? His father, Seán, also worked for the Dept of Posts and Telegraphs as it then was, as a telephone operator in Tuam. When Bart was interned Seán resigned from Fianna Fáil, joined Sinn Féin and began speaking at public meetings to highlight the plight of the prisoners. The matter was brought to the attention of the Rúnaí of the Department and after a short series of letters in which Seán refused to give an undertaking not to speak publicly about prisoners, he was forced to resign from his job.

Bart, meanwhile, remained interned and when he was eventually released he found that he had been suspended as a postman for 25 years. No, it isn't a misprint, he was suspended since he couldn't be fired, and banned from his job for the next quarter of a century.

Time moved on, Sean's wife died in a tragic accident, and he eventually joined the priesthood as a late vocation. Bart worked abroad and eventually returned home, and after 25 years returned to his old job. Now that must have been the height of job satisfaction, and a real proof of the Irish proverb 'níl rud is buaine ná an duine'. He finally reached retirement a couple of years ago and is now joined by the brother, Matt.

It's a shocking story really, of a vindictive state, interning, removing decent people's livelihoods, and prolonging the punishment long after any 'justification' had passed. But the other side of the coin is in the family's response. They stood their ground.

It has been a pleasure meeting up with some of these old republicans from half a century ago during the past weeks of canvassing. In that different world we call the '50s they are the giants at our shoulder. To them all I wish a long and healthy retirement. After some of what they had to put up with, they deserve it.