Pride....

Too Proud for His Own Good……

Old Patsy was 46, having been born in 1880. He lived in the little village in the centre of Ireland all his life. He grew up seeing good times as well as the bad ones. He had married and now had five children.

The winter of 1925/26 had been a hard one with the ground unfit for the early planting of the sugar beet crop right through to almost June. The bad weather continued throughout the so-called summer that year with little or no work for the father of a hungry young family. The harvest that year was, as a result of the bad weather, extremely poor and provided only a few days work at the local Manor House. Things were looking bleaker by the day. Old Patsy could not see what they were going to do as autumn approached.

He had never asked for charity in his life, nor had his parents but something had to be done. He had paid National Insurance during the few weeks’ work that he had managed to get the previous winter. Mr. Doyle his next-door neighbour fought with him hard and long to make a claim.

Old Patsy was a proud man – let us just say, a hungry proud man – as had been his own parents before him. He had learned from them the hunger they felt during the Great Famine a mere thirty years before he was born. Even then they would not accept ‘Charity’ but insisted on doing any type of work to earn a few shillings. They had contemplated joining the exodus to foreign shores with the thousands around them but decided against it.

They had survived with the family intact and so would Old Patsy – at least that was what he kept saying to his family. Unbeknown to him, the children at school were being fed a little warm meal every day by the schoolteacher from funds from her own pocket but ‘God Forbid’ if ever Old Patsy was to find out.

It was the weekends that Maggie hated. Without the warm school meal provided during the week, she felt the hunger and stomach cramps most severely on Sundays. She felt very guilty about receiving Holy Communion on Sunday and imagining that the ‘Host’ was in fact a sandwich. Although she considered it a sin she dare not confess to the Priest lest he refuse to give her the Sacrament in future.

Jack was different. He in fact killed everything in sight from the smallest bird to the largest. He snared rabbits which he brought home but roasted the birds on a small fire and ate them. As I said – things were hard that year.

Eventually Mr. Doyle, his neighbour, literally took Old Patsy by the scruff of the neck and they rode the donkey and cart into the local Market Town where he again had to drag Old Patsy into the Unemployment Office. The next two hours were taken up queuing and filling in about ten different forms. They left the office and were asked to return two hours later when a decision would be made as to whether or not any payment could be awarded. They walked around the town for the two hours, as neither of them had the price of a glass of beer or even a cup of tea.

Upon their return to the Unemployment Office they were met by an overbearing official who merely said, "You get nothing". Old Patsy, having suffered the indignity of asking for ‘Charity’, even though he was in fact due something, felt ashamed of himself and literally ran from the office.

However, his friend Tom Doyle stood his ground and argued Patsy’s corner in his absence. Although it did not have any effect on the decision, he did in fact learn of the Appeals procedure and something about the ‘Court of Referees’. He left the office and joined Patsy. As they rode the donkey and cart out of the town they came to a crowd of people who were being addressed by a man on a platform. There were signs about the place that mentioned an Election for the Dail Eireann – the new-fangled Irish Parliament.

Old Patsy did not want to get involved in the politics that were sweeping Ireland at the time, the Civil War just having been sorted out. He was a pure Nationalist – for a full Ireland and not that which had been ‘granted’ by the British. As they sat and listened, Mr. Doyle suddenly had a ‘thought’. He did nothing less than wait until the man making the speech had finished and the crowd began to break up, then made his way to the main speaker. He was none other than the local Sitting Member of Parliament who was seeking re-election.

To give him his due, he took full notes of Patsy’s case, and assured him that he would hear from him within a fortnight. In fact, Old Patsy did not say a single word to the man with Mr. Doyle giving all the details.

Once again, true to his word, the MP sent Patsy a letter ten days later giving him details of how to make a fresh claim with a guarantee of some payment. Mr. Doyle was delighted and they wasted no time in making their way to the Unemployment Office. Upon producing the letter, a claim was completed in record time and the princely sum of two pounds two shillings and sixpence was paid out.

Mr. Doyle was not satisfied and immediately filled in an appeals form with a copy sent to the Member of Parliament. Nothing more came of the claim.

However, the following is a genuine extract from a Parliamentary Debate held at Dail Eireann on 8th December 1926:

Mr. McGILLIGAN: Patrick Gorman, of Chapel Street, Ballacolla, last claimed unemployment benefit on the 26th August, 1926. This claim was disallowed in the first instance, but was subsequently allowed as a result of appeal to the Court of Referees. As Mr. Gorman had only 5 unexhausted contributions to his credit in the Unemployment Fund, he was only entitled to 5 days' benefit on this claim, and that amount has been paid to him. He has, therefore, exhausted his right to benefit.

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(The extract from the debate can be found of the web where most of Dail Eireann’s debates etc., are now available. The entire story up to that extract is purely fictional and imagined. Knowing Granddad Gorman, I would give it a high chance of being close to the mark and likewise the doggedness of Mr. Doyle. I would just add that the winter of 1926/1927 must surely have been a hard one for my mother’s family).
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