Lower Ballingarry
January 14th 1918

“The Weather here is very cold and as I write we have had snow and very bitter frost. There have been a great many deaths. Provisions have become very scarce and dear, in fact people are very hard set to live now.”
These words were written by my great grand father Garrett O’Sullivan in the winter of 1918 in a letter to his son John who lived in America. These few sentences paint a graphic and bleak picture of the Ballingarry of that time.

To many older residents of the area the crossroads near the convent is still known as Sullivan’s Cross (now Mairead Maher’s). It was here Garrett O’Sullivan raised a family of three boys and three girls. The census of 1901 records that he was then fifty-five years old, a teacher, and married to Brigid McGrath. Four of his children also become national schoolteachers and taught in various schools in the parish of Ballingarry. The family also ran a little shop from the corner of their living room. A curtain divided the grocery from the grate.
For much of his life Garrett taught in Ballincurry and uniquely his son Jim and daughter Margaret later taught in the same school. My grandmother Mary often spoke of her time in Lisnamrock national school before moving to Fethard on her marriage to my grandfather and subsequently to Mullinahone. The remarkable family tradition of following in their father’s footsteps was continued by another daughter Ellie who taught in Ballydonnell. She was gifted pianist and for many years was church organist in Ballingarry. Incidentally several family members from later generations have carried on the teaching baton handed down from Garrett.

Tragedy struck the family when the eldest son William died at a young age. He was studying to be a priest at the time of his death and family tradition tells that he was a fine footballer. The next son John was close to ordination when much to his mother’s disappointment he abandoned the idea and instead of returning to the seminary for his final term, he emigrated to America. He later married a Maggie Kelly from up the road. This alliance doesn’t seem to have pleased his parents as in the aforementioned letter she is never referred to as anything other than ‘your missus’. Garrett must have been a chauvinist of his day as the first line of the letter states “My dear John we were all very glad when we received your letter conveying the good news that Mrs. got over her trouble and gave you a baby”. The amazing twist to this story is the fact that one of Garrett and Brigid O’Sullivans grandsons grew up to be the Reverend John O’Sullivan. The son of the man who wouldn’t be a priest returned to Ballingarry in the nineteen sixties and celebrated mass in the local church much to the pride of his extended Irish family. I stayed with him in Long Island and the first thing he showed me on arrival was a sign post over his garage door which read ‘Ballingarry’. Fr. Jack passed away two years ago, as did his sister Mary. She cherished her Irish cousins and her home was haven for me and my family members who visited New York. Her brother Bill is now my link with the American family rooted in Ballingarry. The letter, which started this ramble, was given to me by Mary and in it I found not only family history but a conveyance of the stark reality of Irish life for the people of Ballingarry and rural Ireland at the end of the First World War.

Garrett O’Sullivan died in 1928 aged 83 years, his wife Brigid died in 1932 aged 76 years
They are buried in the cemetery behind the church in Ballingarry.
Maggie their daughter in law was an aunt of James Kelly who worked for many years in the local creamery.
Margaret O’Sullivan was the first Ballingarry woman to drive a motor car
Jim and Ellie died in the mid nineteen sixties and the place was sold to Mairead Maher. It is still nice to see the shop door open.

John Bermingham
Ballycullen, Mullinahone