“I was a Dunne before I was married and came from Ballinvalley in Killeigh. Nothing remarkable happened in Killeigh when I was I was growing up. All we had was a ball alley that Fr Prendergast got built. I went to school in the old hall in Killeigh, which wasn’t today or yesterday! Up the road, there was a two-room school for the older ones. There was a quarry nearby, and they used to blast the rocks. They would always warn the teachers when they were going to be blasting, and we would be taken out and stood with our backs to the wall in case any stones came over it.
My father was the postman here for years. He used to walk from Killeigh to Geashill station to collect the post daily. He got a bicycle later. Mammy was a Kildare woman, but I don’t know how they met. Daddy was a great man for keeping the fire on, but you’d only be warm in the kitchen. Once you left the kitchen, that was it!
I met my husband, Fintan, in 1944 when he was working in Killeigh on a job. He was from Rosenallis. Five years later, we got married in the old church in Killeigh at 8 a.m. It was a double wedding, and my sister Sadie and her husband Tommy were the other couple. She only passed away two months ago. We had our breakfast back home in our own house after mass and went off for a drive, then to Roscrea! There were no honeymoons at that time.
I remember the day well we first got electricity. I think we were the last on the road to get it. We couldn’t afford it when it was going first. My husband got a job working with the council, where there was a lot of travel. When I say travel now, I mean by bicycle. He did that up to when he got sick in his 60s, and then he wasn’t well for a long time. He’s five years gone now, but he was 25 years an invalid. Alzheimer’s is a terrible complaint.
Every day he’d say, “I want to go home,” so what we did was bring him out the back door and in the front door, and then he’d be happy!”
Mrs Brigid Hinch was aged 86 when I interviewed her at her home on 6th November 2011, at Lough Close, Killeigh, Co. Offaly. She passed away on 23rd September 2016. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam.