Once breakfast was over we would race outside to play, giving Bridie a well-earned rest until one of us inevitably came back inside in tears for some reason.
Mammy relied on Bridie totally. She knew that Bridie looked after me, day and night, seven days a week and she couldn’t do without her. Mammy wanted so much for me, and much of the burden for providing everything I needed landed on Bridie’s exhausted shoulders. In order to be able to afford the things she wanted me to have, Mammy had to work every shift in the restaurant that she could get, which meant that she hardly ever got to see me in those early years, except when I was fast asleep in the bed beside her. Bridie would fill her in on whatever I had been up to each day.
My days revolved around play and make-believe. There were no books from which to learn or read, and no writing to practise. Nothing was organised and there was no preparation done for the first day that we would be sent off to school. My best friends were Connor, who was the same age as me, and Bridie’s son, Joseph, who was five years older but seemed more because of his serious nature. Joseph was often designated the task of looking after me and was as much like an older brother as a friend. We saw ourselves as the ‘three amigos’.
Lunch and dinner were very similar. There was no real choice. One meal was pretty much guaranteed to be the same as the next. We always had cheap cuts of meat, things like pigs’ trotters, liver, heart and kidney, all kinds of offal. Then there were potatoes at every meal, presented in every way from boiled to mashed, and, of course, cabbage. Meats like chicken, beef or pork were considered luxury items in those days, and having never had them I didn’t miss them. Since I was always hungry, perhaps because I burned up so much nervous energy, I wasn’t fussy about food and never complained about anything that I was given. I would quite happily chew on a whole pig’s trotter and eat whatever offal was put in front of me. It would be many years before I learned to hate them.
After playing all day I would be tired and hungry again by about four in the afternoon, but Bridie would insist that I wash the mud and filth off me before I sat down to eat.
‘Why are you always so much dirtier than all the others, Francis?’ she would want to know.
‘Because I was looking for leprechauns and their treasure,’ I would inform her, wondering why she found what seemed to me to be perfectly valid excuses so funny.
The sisters and some of the mothers would prepare the early dinner, which was free for all the children in the hostel. We all gathered in the Meeting Room or common area, the only place in the hostel outside the dormitories where all the mothers and children would meet, and we ate whatever was put on our plates. The best part of the meal was the cocoa drink that was served at the end in an enamel cup. Sometimes they had extras left over and Connor and I would go up to ask the sisters for more, saying ‘We’ve been good today.’
Just next door to the Meeting Room were the communal washrooms. Once a week, usually on Sundays, Mammy or Bridie would bathe me in a rough-edged metal bath. I hated the feel of it against my skin when I sat in it, but I never complained when it was Mammy, no matter how hard she scrubbed, because I just wanted to be close to her. She was strict about cleanliness and took no nonsense from me. I could be a little devil at times and would complain a lot given the slightest opportunity, but I looked forward to those bath times because it was a treat to be with her, even if it meant having to endure the uncomfortable metal scourge on my bottom. I didn’t get to see much of her and I missed her.
Mammy worked at least six and a half long days a week in the restaurant in the city centre. Serving customers all day was hard on her feet. She always had a half-day off on Tuesday or Sunday afternoons, when she would visit her mother’s home outside Dublin, although I didn’t know that at the time. As far as the world outside the hostel was concerned she was a normal single lady, friendly and hard-working. No one had a clue that she had a child, not even her own mother. She never mentioned anything about me to anyone. I was her secret child.
Mammy had lots of secrets, but I think I was the biggest one. Her mother and family were completely oblivious to her real life, believing that she lived alone in a rented room somewhere in the city. She told me later that her mother would frequently ask her about her social life.
‘Have you met any nice young men, Cathleen?’ she would enquire.
‘Oh, I will never marry,’ Mammy would insist. ‘I am quite content with my life as it is.’
When I was five years old Mammy said that I had to start going to the local school, which was just a few minutes away from the hostel, but illness interrupted her plans. Living in open dormitories, with a general lack of hygiene, sickness was common among the children. I always seemed to have something wrong with me, even if it was no more than a cough or a cold, but at five I became seriously ill and I was hospitalised for many months. I don’t remember what it was that was wrong with me, but I do remember it was the first time I had been outside the walls of Regina Coeli since my birth.
Talking to Mary that day over a cup of tea was the first time I had ever talked about my mother’s life like this. That, coupled with the familiar surroundings, which were bringing back so many memories, was stirring up emotions that I hadn’t realised were lurking beneath the surface. I stopped talking for a moment and sipped the tea which had now grown cold, avoiding Mary’s eyes as I struggled to regain my composure. I had finally shared the secret with someone. My mother had made me promise that I would never speak to anyone about our time at Regina Coeli. It was the way she wanted things to be, and I felt that I had betrayed her secret. I felt embarrassed but at the same time relieved.
‘My goodness,’ Mary said, kindly. ‘You remember a lot about your childhood here. Let me top up your tea.’
She refilled my cup and I mumbled my thanks, finding it difficult to speak as I tried to stifle the tears.
‘You know,’ she said as she sat down again, ‘I clearly remember the two big wooden gates next to this building that you mentioned. I was sorry to see the old buildings being taken down, or rather, falling down. We still only accommodate women here, but not just single mothers. We now have residents who have problems with drugs and alcohol. These are the new problems. Regina Coeli doesn’t have as many people here as we used to, but it still operates on a charity basis.’
After a pause, which I still didn’t fill, she carried on.
‘Your memory serves you well. We did have caretaker mothers looking after the children. It was the only way the other mothers could go out and earn money to support themselves and their children in those days. All the women had to work. They were all afraid to reveal anything about their illegitimate children to the outside world. It was a complete taboo. The Catholic Church was very against the idea of women having children out of wedlock. Contraception for women and men was banned in Ireland, so naturally when a woman fell pregnant it had to be a secret. I believe this was the only hostel in Ireland where you could keep your baby. Very few people actually knew about it, because none of us wanted to draw attention to its existence, so a lot of the poor girls ended up going to the Magdalene Laundry and losing their children, never knowing that there was another option available to them.’
‘How did mothers like my mammy find work without people knowing about their situations?’ I asked, finding my voice once more.
‘The hostel had a network of business people who helped place the women in work around the city. They were people who believed in and supported the work of the hostel, people who felt that mothers were entitled to a choice and that keeping the children with their mothers was better for them. You are right that a single mother looking for work in any other way would almost certainly have had to lie about her situation. There was a terrible stigma attached to the whole business all through the fifties and sixties.’
‘My mammy worked in a restaurant in the city centre called Burns.