The Source Arts Centre Programme of Events Spring 2020 The Source Arts Centre Programme SPRING 2020 | Page 26

SPRING 2020
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Furey Speaks!
My father once told me that: ‘If you were ever to
marry a woman from Ardcroney, you’d likely end up
living in a bungalow.’ He was fond of making
commentary like this and I originally believed that it
was some socio-economic notion on the merits of
living in houses with or without storeys. I was
surprised a few years later to hear that it was
actually related to people from Ardcroney’s
difficulties in negotiating steps. i.e. they had a
problem climbing stairs. I also heard from a man,
that this difficulty wasn’t actually a physiological
condition but rather one of a lack of rhythm.
Walking up or down steps requires a sense of
rhythm. And despite the many fine musicianers that
came from Ardcroney and its environs, they were
mostly free-form interpreters. What was fine rhythm
in that town wouldn’t be of any use in say, the
Apollo in Harlem, New York when a steady beat was
needed to be kept. And that was why no one from
Ardcroney would lightly choose a house with a
stairs when there one with a flat floor to be had.
The truth of this phrase is hard to identify, but a trip
to an estate agents near the town might bear some
results.
Thinking back on this reminds me of other county-
wide phrases that describe the people of Tipperary.
Some of these might be considered ethnic slurs from
one town on another. Others have the unfortunate
ring of truth. Many relate to our rural heritage.
You’ll have heard of course: ‘The cat from Clonmel
would sooner bark than miaow’. This is easily
explainable as Clonmel people’s tendency to throw
down quickly and start a fight rather than listen to
reason. Especially if a negative
comment is made about their
town. Usually late at night, outside
a chipper in Gladstone Street, after
a feed of cider.
Or you may have heard that ‘A
Cashel bull is quick to give milk’.
This is clever as it suggests that
people from Cashel are quick to
comment on any matter that takes
their fancy and are very free with
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advice, even though they often have no knowledge
of the subject they are talking about. The ‘advice’
casually offered may be erroneous at worst and
dangerous at best.
‘Gortnahoe people are Kilkenny people in disguise.’
This sadly has a ring of truth. There have been so
many border incursions and intermarriages around
those parts that one has to doubt the truth of
people’s loyalties come matchday. The corollary also
stands: ‘Urlingford people are Tipperary people in
disguise.’ Either statement would make one’s gorge
rise and I don’t know which is worse, but both are
ruinous for the people living there.
To be fair, I was relatively sceptical about how such
individual phrases would attempt to capture the
personality of a town. This all came into stark relief
recently when I attended a march to ‘Save Our
Square’ in Thurles - to keep the local post office
from moving from Liberty Square to a shopping
centre. A sizeable crowd had gathered and listened
to the speeches of the great and the good and people
were getting ‘riz’ up, shouting and calling out. As
one of the politicians pronounced that ‘’Thurles
people would not be pushed around by An Post’’, an
elderly man to my left said quietly to me: ‘’Ah, the
Thurlesman won’t be pushed around…but he’s
easily led.’’ I turned around to him surprised and
asked him to repeat his comment. He didn’t. But he
did say it was a phrase his mother said to him once.
And she came from the deep south – near Carrick.
But she had been married to a Thurles man.
I walked away from that gathering somewhat
fortified, thinking that An Post would back down,
the Post Office would be saved and the Square
would remain the thriving Centre of the town.
Three months later, I was standing in line to collect
my weekly allowance in the Post Office in the
Shopping Centre and thinking ruefully of that man’s
comment as I did.
Yours
Michael Furey