The Hogans of Glenart

I was eating a meringue the other day, and licked the whipped jersey cream from my finger. Suddenly 35 years disappeared and I was back in Glenart. It is amazing how often it happens. It can be something as simple as the smell of logs on an open fire, the sight of red hot pokers in a garden, the rich taste of sherry trifle, or the sound of the theme music of the Archers on the radio. (The only rule I remember in Glenart was that we had to be quiet for the Archers.)

How can a place have left so many deeply embedded sensory triggers, just waiting to bring back memories? Perhaps it is because it is so closely associated with all that was best in childhood, and in particular the celebration of Christmas.

Christmas in Glenart was probably even more special for us, the country cousins. The adventure started long before we arrived at the house. On the train, we played games and anticipated what would happen when we arrived. Would Una be there to meet us? Would the Ford Anglia, UZE 885 be waiting for us? Not even Harry Potter has come up with a more magical car -- the car that brought Una to Athlone for weekends, the car that groaned as it climbed its way deep into the Dublin mountains, the car that took us on expeditions to Nan North's cottage, to Baltray or even to Ardnacrusha (we never got there - we got lost on the way- but the name Ardnacrusha sounded exciting and for many years remained a mystery destination). The car was also the subject of the first Glenart miscellany piece when Una's story, about the cat who climbed in under the bonnet and gave birth to kittens on a journey to Waterford, was broadcast.

Arriving in Glenart was always a time of great excitement. "Welcome", Una said as she opened the door, and we ran up the granite steps, through the doorway, past the hall stand and down to the kitchen. The adults brought in the bags from the car and sat down for a cup of tea -- we had more important business to deal with.

Had anything changed? Run through the house and check the important things, the piano with its polished wood. Lift the heavy lid and play the black notes and the low, low notes, (one of them was dead), and remember Ruairi Roberts with his deep voice, reciting "Mumbo Jumbo, King of the Congo" as he played the lowest notes -- would he be around for the Christmas party?

Was there still jam in the little room under the stairs, in behind the coats and the curtain where you could hide for hide-and-go-seek? Boxes of jam waiting for the Oblates' sale of work and some really old jars, they must have been there for centuries, the wax covering shattered and wonderful moulds growing through the cracks, blue and green -and a great winey smell (maybe these were the ones we opened last summer just to see what they tasted like, you could lift the wax with a knife and taste the jam below, bursting with the flavour of purple blackcurrants or sweet strawberries).

Upstairs to the little landing to check the grandfather clock (another good hiding place- probably not good for the pendulum), and the bathroom with the enormous bath where Sheila would wash us two at a time. Slide down the banisters and land on the Tintawn carpet, it made a hard landing and left a definite pattern on your legs (I remember when that carpet was put down, we weren't at all sure about that change, "hardwearing and practical", my mother said.)

Check the kitchen, sneak into the pantry and see what Una had ready for Christmas. Cakes and puddings and jars of mincemeat, boxes of meringues waiting for the cream as eagerly as we awaited Christmas. Peep into the back pantry (always a place that was out of bounds). We would have to wait until tomorrow to check outside in the back garden. The outside toilet with its great willow pattern lavatory bowl and wooden seat and pull chain. The shed with its smell of cats and the skeleton of a rusted penny-farthing bicycle that Brendan had brought home to renovate.

Una always had some special treats organised - an evening visit to the moving crib: we were more interested in the animals than in the Holy Family. One Christmas we even had the thrill of going to the Pantomime to see Jimmy O'Dea.

The Christmas parties were a highlight for everyone. We managed to get to both parties; the children's party and the much more exciting and sophisticated adults' party. Because we were staying in Glenart, we enjoyed the lead up as much as the party itself. Mrs Finlay came to help clean the house, she was so tiny that she made my mother look tall. And I was even allowed to go with Una, in the pitch dark, to Cabra when she dropped Mrs Finlay home.

Putting up the decorations, paper concertinas in bright colours, unfolded and hung in great sweeping arcs. Holly cut into prickly berried sprigs and stuck behind the pictures. Christmas cards pegged onto a string and hung over the mantelpiece. All the tasks were exciting; polishing the silver, shelling the prawns, making up rhyming couplets for songs to be sung at the party, featuring all the guests. I'm still trying to remember the rhyming couplet for Bella and Mary Cooke.

Preparing the fire, rolling the old newspapers with Sheila and folding them into tight knots and then placing the sticks on top and building up the fire; the anthracite, the coke and the slack -- are those words lost to a younger generation? Logs beside the fire that would be put on once the fire had taken. We even enjoyed cleaning out the fire in the morning, stirring it with the poker and finding it still warm in the centre.

The Christmas tree reached right up to the high ceiling, it dwarfed any other Christmas trees we had seen in other houses. Brendan fiddling with the lights, checking loose connections so that the whole string would light up. The old lights were the best, especially the ones in frosted glass in the shape of snowmen. And added to all the old decorations were some new ones that we had made ourselves: angels with colourful wings and Santa Clauses with cotton wool beards.

Christmas Eve was when everything reached a real climax, the adults went off to Midnight Mass at Linden. We were sent to bed but we crept down to check that the glass of cold milk and the slice of Christmas cake were still there for Santa Clause (Daddy had insisted that we should also leave a glass of whiskey for Santa to warm him up). We took a thin sliver off the side of the slice of Christmas cake, surreptitiously -- Santa would never know -and savoured the rich taste of fruit and rolled the almond icing into a pellet before swallowing it and then the powdery white icing melting into sugar and the little silver ball on top that could be sucked for ages to prolong the experience. How many taste experiences can there be in one sliver of cake?

Christmas morning was total magic, wakening up to the excitement of presents at the end of the bed, a stocking with lots of bits and pieces and an orange and maybe chocolate coins and then a big present that wouldn't fit into the stocking. I remember the Christmas that I got a wigwam, bright red and yellow with wooden dowels, within minutes it was assembled and the floor of the bedroom was transformed into the wild west; a blanket pulled off the bed became a river. And we still had Christmas dinner to look forward to: the turkey that had been prepared the night before on the table in the kitchen (the bird was enormous but we still exaggerated the weight by at least ten pounds when we told the story at school), it would be cooked in the huge oven and would be accompanied by a massive ham; the fat caramelised with sugar and studded with cloves. There would be buckets of potatoes, both mashed and roasted (we had helped peel them) and the Hogan special - bread gravy.

Christmas was also a time for visiting. A visit to the Browners (they were still in their old house then) and maybe Kathleen and Mick Molloy would be in residence and I remember the little man down stairs who took us to see his crib and special decorations. The most important visit of all was to Firhouse (we had to tell them everything that had happened at Christmas, all the presents we had received, and don't forget to mention that we went to two masses). Everything was exciting in Firhouse; the door opening of its own accord, the big turn in the hallway- we could even fit inside, the huge frightening picture of the bloody martyrdom of Carmelite sisters on the wall of the parlour. We poked our fingers into the holes in the double wooden grille and waited for Sister Mary Patrick to draw back the dark curtain. The other sisters would come to see us, Sister Gabriel and Sister Raphael would bring the tea and biscuits and pass them through the small turn, and before we left, Mother Cecilia, would appear -- her sight was fading but she still painted the most delicate religious scenes.

There were so many visitors to Glenart over the Christmas, every relation ended up there and Una had an incredible collection of friends, from old school friends to Soroptomists . And once Sheila went to London, Christmas was a time for her to meet up with her friends again. We were fascinated by some of the names; Gwyneth Williams sounded straight out of a Just William book.

Our last Christmas in Glenart was different. We made our own way up from the station and carried our bags past the Smoothing Iron. The house was silent when we entered. There was no Christmas tree, no decorations. "We'll light a fire and the place will be warm in no time" my mother said. But the place was never the same again, Una had died in November and Glenart had lost its warmth.

But when I remember it now, it is the good days that I remember, maybe even before Sheila left for London and when Brendan was still living in Glenart; we would play in the garden and wait for them as they came home from work. Una is always there in a special place in my memory; the great hostess, the aunt who brought magic to our childhood, "Welcome to Glenart".