Nick Feery 'the Boy from Tore'

Lent

March 29, 2021 Nick Feery 'the Boy from Tore'

The poor auld Bunty Mac was a great friend of mine back in the late 70s and early 80s. We being young men taken to the sup, what you might call drink. Bunty Mac was the Doc Holliday of Longford and well, I was the Wyatt Earp of Westmeath. The Bunty was a poker shark … Read more

Tea for Two

July 20, 2020 Nick Feery 'the Boy from Tore'

Delighted, I hold in my hand, one of only three known photographs of meself as a young man. It was taken on my eighteenth birthday, back when I worked for local builder The Whimpy Dunne. The Whimpy was the finest craftsman I’ve ever been employed by, whether in Ireland, England or Europe, as I worked … Read more

Better Butter

December 9, 2019December 5, 2019 Nick Feery 'the Boy from Tore'

‘God bless all here’ as our ancestors used to say upon arrival at the home of a friend, neighbour, or stranger. Not just a blessing on all within that home, it meant he who entered possessed not the evil eye. In my great-grandparents’ time, curses, spells, and witchcraft were common practise. It was the 1870’s … Read more

Himself and the Little People

November 1, 2019 Nick Feery 'the Boy from Tore'

That summer of 1974 for the first time in my young life I felt proud of myself. For after one very hard week of sweat work, I stood admiring my big bank of black Tore bog turf drying in the hot sun. It was a great feeling and no one was mocking me now. Little … Read more

Himself and the Bicycle

October 3, 2019October 1, 2019 Nick Feery 'the Boy from Tore'

Sure, he was only a little lad of 4ft 10ins. Little Paddy, I called him. He was eighty-two-years-old when I was twelve-years-old, but he was great craic. Little Paddy was a bogman. He lived in the bog of Derrycoffey. Think he was the last to live in that bog. I used to meet him all … Read more