Even on Days when it Rains Read Online Free PDF Page A

cottage and headed off out into the darkness.
    The men went off to fish at that very early hour of the morning so that they could make two hauls on the same day, the second one taking place in the evening. When they left in the morning, I didn’t hop back into bed to catch a couple more hours of sleep, even though I was quite entitled to do just that. I loved working in the home, so I would find something to occupy myself before the sun came up. Sometimes I’d churn buttermilk, and I’d have the butter ready before my mother got out of bed.
    â€˜God, Julia, you’re a great wee worker,’ my mother would say.
    Those few words of praise from Mammy were worth more to me than all the money in the world.
    Later in the morning I’d strap up the donkey and go away to the mountain to draw a load of turf for the fire. The turf had already been cut, dug out of the ground, dried and stacked. I’d take a couple of loads back to the house to keep the fire burning for cooking.
    The well for drinking water was a long distance from our home, so I’d have to make several trips a day to fetch it in buckets. I’d fill a wooden barrel that sat outside our door. The barrel was never allowed to run dry in the summertime because the heat of the sun would split the wood. So I had to make sure that it was constantly topped up.
    There were two wells, one for drinking water and another that was used for washing tatties and clothes. It was no easy task to retrieve the water from the wells. I had to get down on my knees with a wee saucepan and scoop it up to fill the bucket. It was a chore that seemed to take for ever. Everyone on the island used the same two wells, so you’d always have neighbours waiting their turn. Despite this, there was never any friction. No one was in a hurry. There was no one watching a clock on Owey.
    There was no church on our island, so we had to go to the mainland in a currach to attend Sunday Mass as well as for funerals, weddings and baptisms. We did, however, have a little schoolhouse, which was built in 1911, and two teachers. I was just four years old when I started my education there, but it wasn’t traumatic. The school was close to my home, and I was surrounded by children I knew, because living on an island we were like one big family. There was no such thing as a school uniform. But I did have a good cardigan and skirt and neat, short hair. I probably didn’t look any different from all the other little people in the room that day. No doubt I was aware that I was going into a strange new world. I’d never been in the same room with so many children before. And we all had to listen to and obey the adult standing at the top of the room. He was called Teacher. I have no real memory of those early years in that little schoolhouse, so it can’t have been too bad.
    As I got older and was expected to absorb all the information that the teachers tried their best to get us to learn, I’m sure I let them down many times. I have no doubt that they were frustrated with me. I was bright and should have been a better pupil. It’s just that I didn’t have any enthusiasm for what school had to offer. I have to confess that I didn’t have the same dedication that I applied to my work in the house and on the farm. This, of course, occasionally got me into trouble.
    There were forty of us in the school, and the two teachers ruled with a stick and a strap. I never had a great interest in lessons like history, geography and maths. And I have to admit that I spent my time copying answers to mathematical questions from some of the others. I was never going to be a star student, that was obvious to the teachers. And I did get some beatings. Today I hold no grudges against those teachers. Whatever punishment I received was through my own fault. And corporal punishment was quite acceptable in those times. There was no such thing as running home and complaining to your