'And we'd drive in silence, and the world seemed perfect'

MEATHMAN'S DIARY: Christy Moore's memories of his mother's native Boyne Valley

Last week, we carried a piece in this newspaper on four new stamps being issued by An Post to celebrate Irish singer songwriters.

Featured on the stamps are Lisa Hannigan from Kilcloon, Sinead O’Connor, who has recently penned her autobiography, Hozier of ‘Take Me to the Church’ fame and more, and the legendary Christy Moore, who needs no introduction. While he grew up in Newbridge in Kildare, where his father was an Army man (who sadly died young), Christy had close connections to the Navan area too – and in particular Ardmulchan and Yellow Furze.

“The ways my mother could sing,” Christy wrote on his memoir, 'One Voice’ some 21 years ago.

“As a small boy, I listened to her play the piano and sing old songs and new songs.”

Nancy Power grew up on the banks of the Boyne. Her father, Jack Power, worked at Ardmulchan, a large Georgian estate near Navan, in the parish of Seneschalstown or Yellow Furze. Her mother was Eily Sheeran from the cotton mills.

“Mammy had one brother, Jimmy, who died in hard circumstances in Birmingham,” Christy wrote. “Nancy had an idyllic childhood, and from what I can gather was a very happy and much-loved young girl. The older people of the parish still remember her from 70 years ago and tell me of her beautiful voice and her zest for living. The estate which Jack worked on was owned by Sir Alexander Maguire, an absentee landlord whose fortune was made from boxes of matchsticks. She sang in the church and school choirs, and also became a renowned soloist as her fine soprano voice developed. She knew about lyrics and melody and voice projection and communication.”

This writer recalls the late parish priest of Dunsany and Kilmessan, and Rathkenny Revels founder, Fr Michael Murchan, remembering that it was his aunt, Julia Elmes (nee Sheridan from Johnstown, Navan), a teacher in Yellow Furze National School along with her husband Frank, who inspired this love of song and music into the young Nancy Power, and who recognised her talents.

Christy writes: “All of my early memories of mammy are musical. I can imagine myself as a baby sitting at her feet by the piano as she played and sang. Old Irish songs, hymns in Latin, bits of opera, light and classical, pop songs and lullabies. She loved to play and sing. She instilled music in all of us.”

Both Christy and his mother, widowed at 37, experienced difficulties with alcohol and were estranged for a while. But he wrote:

“Much later on, when we both had our drinking behind us, we grew very close again. We would drive out again across the Curragh, down by the Liffey, up the Hill of Allen, over by Father Moore’s Well, below the Red Hills through the Sandy Hills, once or twice heading off to the Boyne Valley to see the Boyne meander past Ardmulchan, and she would sing gently again, and we’d drive in silence and the world seemed perfect.”