Maeve Burke

Interview by Tomas Mac Conmara on August 24, 2010

Gender: Female

Birth date: September, 1926

Area: Ennis - Clarehill

Parish: Clareabbey - Clarehill

Report date: August 26, 2010

Time	Description
0:00:00 - 0:04:15	LIFE STORY - Maeve gives a brief account of her life. Maeve speaks growing up in Corbally House (A gentry house). Speaks about her mother teaching in Quin and then moving to different areas where her mother had to teach. These included Knockjames, Daingean and Maghera. She speaks about going to school at Kinvara, moving to Arklow to do hotel work and her work life after.
0:04:15- 0:05:07	FAMILY - Speaks about her family at Corbally house and her brother Cormac, who immigrated to England.
0:05:07- 0:05:58	GARDENING - Maeve speaks about gardening at home in Corbally house with her mother. They would bring a stone home from school every evening from school for the rockery.
0:05:58- 0:06:50	FARM WORK - Speaks about doing jobs on the farm. Maeve speaks about delivering a calf with her sister when her father was in hospital.
0:06:50- 0:09:18	THE TRAVELLERS - Speaks about buying measures from the Tinkers (Travelling people). Speaks about Martin Faukner, a traveler who regularly came to their house. Maeve's father, Bill McNamara knew Martin Faukner from the army. Martin Faykner was in the army. Speaks generally about travelers who called at different times to the hosue.
0:09:18- 0:11:45	FARM WORK - Speaks about farm activities and described some farm machinery that they had on the farm including the slide rake and the tumbling paddy. Speaks about pulling the buts of trams while making the hay and also about making reeks of hay. Speaks about cutting corn with a scythe. Speaks about binding the corn with a sugán rope. Maeve made the sÃºgan's herself.
0:11:45- 0:13:26	CORBALLY HOUSE - Speaks about Corbally House. Maeve describes the change from a range to an open hearth fire and describes how the open hearth worked.. A range was put back in many years later. They had plenty of timber for the open hearth fire.
0:13:26- 0:16:54	PIGS/KILLING THE PIG - Speaks about rareing pigs. They would buy 'slips' (six to eight weeks old) and then sell them later to Shaws in Limerick. Speaks about killing the pigs. Miko Neylon was the man in her locality who killed the pig. She describes the process like a surgery table. Maeve speaks about the process of killing the pig and the process of who the pig was cured afterwards.
0:16:54- 0:17:50	BILL MCNAMARA - Speaks about her father (Bill McNamara, Former IRA) who moved to the farm in Quin despite being from an urban background.
0:17:50 - 0:22:38	SCHOOL DAYS - Speaks about her mother (McInerney from O'Callaghan's Mills). Her mother was a National school teacher who had to teach in different schools across Mid/East Clare. She taught in Knockjames in Tulla for a time and the children went with her. While her mother taught in Knockjames, they lived locally with a Mrs Hogan, during the week. Speaks generally about her school days including Daingean where the teacher (Stephen Clune from Quin) brought a white shoe to school (An BrÃ³g Bán). He often used this to hit them. Speaks about cycling to Maghera school when her mother moved to teach there. Sometimes they went in a pony and trap to school. Maeve finished national school in Dangean at the age of thirteen. Maeve then went to secondary school in Kinvara for three years until she got pneumonia and came home.
0:22:38- 0:25:05	WORK LIFE - Speaks about her work life which started in a hotel in Arklow. She had wanted to be a nurse but because she got sick while in secondary school in Kinvara this changed for her. Speaks about Mrs Josie Callinan from Lisdoonvarna who managed the hotel in Arklow. Her mother and brother(Jack) owned the Bellview hotel in Lisdoonvarna.
0:25:05- 0:26:32	HONEYMOON - Speaks about her honeymoon with her husband Kevin Burke, which involved two weeks travelling around Ireland.
0:26:32- 0:27:20	WORK IN ARKLOW - Speaks more about moving to Arklow to work in the hotel ran by Mrs Callinan.