Out of America

When my mother's aunt Minnie came home from America things changed around cregnadovesky. She returned during the summer while I was on my annual vacation to my grandparents home. It was the late fifties. At this time my grandfather had already died and my grandmother was living in her home with my uncle Patrick and his wife and my mothers uncle James. His lot was vastly improved when Minnie arrived. She had money in the bank and everyone knew it. I was despatched frequently into Carrickmore to Campbells pub to fetch his Guiness come rain or shine and it was more often rain.

I would arrive back sometimes on my uncles bike soaking wet with the required tipple.

On Sundays Minnie,James and my grandmother would set of to church in Carrickmore in John Donaghey's taxi. I walked there usually to a later mass taking the short cut around by Begley's.

In earlier years when my grandfather was alive I would sometimes walk to church with my grandmother and when passing an impressive 2 storey house near to the the church my grandmother would say "someday I'll have a house like that". Some coincidence that a few years later her nephew Lee Mallaghan sold his business share and bought an even bigger house in Maynooth Co. Kildare called Carton House (now with 2 top class golf courses)

She nearly got it right. Minnie wanted a 2 storey house built so it was done,but she moved in there with James. My grandmother never really settled in cregnadovesky after this return from America and sometime after I left for England she moved down to live in my mothers house in the Broagh, Castledawson. I'm sure she would not have chosen this course of action but she was probably happier in the end without the 2 storey.