Through our ‘romantic land of thatched whitewashed cottages’

I met a man in a ready-mix concrete yard in Newry. He told me he had been in the American military police, guarding high ranking army personal as they planned an involvement in Vietnam. He felt they had little idea of where they were going or what they would do when they got there, and the introduction and frequent use of the words logistics, and scenario, prompted him not to re-enlist.

I too had little idea of the where or why, not to mention logistics and scenario, that early morning in 1952 when my mother and I boarded the bus for Knock. We were early, so we could get seats central between the front and back wheels, a position from which she felt I was less likely to feel unwell. Quickly the bus filled up with members of the Confraternity, the Sodality, the Pioneer and Total Absence Society, the Legion of Mary and John James, who was too odd to be a member of any society at all.

We had hardly started, we were just about Moygannon, when the man across the passage from me (without provocation) burst into a decade of the rosary. “ In the name of The Father, and of The Son, and of The Holy Ghost” he roared, inflicting good on others and stamping his authority on the trip. But he was not to have it all his own way. While he was still saying the “ Glory be “ at the end of the first mystery a most senior member of the choir, a revered cousin of my mothers, struck up with ‘Soul of My Saviour’. A spinster and a blessing for the man who never got her, she had a quivery contralto voice and (taken unawares) it was a time before other choir members joined in. Elsewhere forces were regrouping. There was a leader in every seat. Determined voices to give out the next part of the Rosary, and people who knew special long prayers.

The Border was a landmark. An activity of men at the customs posts North and South. No doubt our bus had a triptyque. A green triangle as I recall, displayed on the windscreen showing it registered to cross. With little traffic I found the brief stop, the inspection by a man in a black coat, a drive through ‘no-mans land’ and a further check, added entertainment. Then an avenue of giant conifers at Ravensdale, leading to the vista south. I had a sense of being in the promised land; and looking back I know why. Master Hackett and Miss Ward (Athlone and Dundalk) were my school teachers, and on top of that Miss O’Flaherty (Ballina) taught all belonging to me in Drumreagh school. At Knockbridge we took a short detour for Pat Fitzgerald to deliver a set of delft to his wife’s sister, and it was here that John James also got out. Had he ‘gone’ behind the hedge no one would have batted an eyelid but his scampering over ditches to five fields away had the attention of us all.

Lunch was in a restaurant in Longford. We went up a flight of steep narrow stairs to a sit down meal at trestle tables. The food was laid out, (slices of ham, lettuce, beetroot, buttered brown bread), the waitresses were attired in full silver service, white blouse and black skirt, and brandished great kettles of tea. For the Pioneers, smoking was almost obligatory and they much appreciated the polite touch of a Sweet Afton cigarette placed at every plate.

There followed a drive through an Ireland it is hard to believe ever did exist. A romantic land of thatched whitewashed cottages, with men walking through bog cotton, and women waving over the half door. There were donkeys and carts with creamery churns, and my abiding image is of a boy a little older than me. He was in a field with his arms around his donkey’s neck, both were looking at the bus.

Knock was a few houses and a gravelled area at the approach to the chapel. A very big area for the parking of a couple of busses and a few private cars. Our group joined a procession around the church, a little gathering, that paused to reflect at the south gable wall. Inside we had the chapel more or less to ourselves; we prayed quietly, left petitions and with holy water and a few items bought from the stall set off for home.

The return journey was subdued, murmured conversation and reflective thoughts as technicolour views of Ireland passed. John Daly originally from ‘The Midlands’ was able to tell us where we were. In Longford we had the same meal in the same hotel and I can only think that for the rest of the journey I slept. Finally, it must have been twenty hours later, we arrived back in Rostrevor. No-one had said scenario or logistics, but we all knew it had been much more than a well planned trip; it had been a miracle, and concrete proof of the power of prayer. How had that old bus ever transported forty people across the loanins of Ireland and -- better than that -- got us back.