October 1, 1998

My mother Ellen Ward, nee Gilmartin, was born in the Lower Rosses, and my cousin Betty Devaney still stays there. Before the war, when my brother William and I were about ten years old my mother used to take us to Rosses Point on holiday. My brother and I used to caddy on the golf course for two shillings or two and six which gave us money to spend on sweets. We also searched for lost golf balls in the bent beside the sea, and sell them on to the golfers for about a shilling. Then the war came and we could not go to Ireland, as travel was banned from this country. The ban was lifted around 1946 and we started to go back again to Rosses Point on our holidays. I remember one dreadful year in the 1950s when Martin McGowan took a few young men from Rosses Point over to Ward's Bar on Coney Island. There was about seven of them in a rowing boat, and on the way home the boat capsized in the strong current. Only one man survived. I forget his name, but he was engaged to Paddy Bruen's sister.

We were on holiday at the Point that year but the whole village was in mourning. There was a body washed up by the tide nearly every day. Redmond John's Dance Hall, the Elsinore, was used as a mortuary, so all dancing was banned. My brother and I knew everybody on that boat. We were staying at Ethel Ormsby's Hotel at the time, and there was one night the whole family got a terrible fright. I've heard about Banshees and did not believe anybody about them, but on that terrible night I changed my mind.

Around midnight there came this awful wailing. It started in the distance and increased in sound right up to the door of the Hotel. I felt the blood draining from my face and the hair standing up on my neck. I'll never forget that night, not as long as I live. We were actually glad to get home that year.

I am now 74 years of age, and many a time I think back on my holidays at Rosses Point. I remember Jontie Boyers' Shop, Mrs. Ewing's shop, Redmond John Bruen's bar and dance hall.