“When the Bough Breaks” and “Shaking the
family Tree”
Margaret McMahon.
Book launch.
Good evening all and thank you Margaret
for asking me to do this important job launching not one but two results of
your hard work and courage.
First a permission. In a town just west
of Burrowa an unprepossessing local was to address the citizens in the School
of Arts about his overseas travel. The mayor gave an overheated introduction
and your man commenced. “G’day everyone.” Mumbled unenthusiastic “G’day.” “Can youse
all hear me?” “Emm” mumbled. “Can you down there hear me?” Pointing. “Yes I can
but I am willing to swap places with someone who can’t”. So feel free to do
such a swap.
“When the Bough Breaks” and “Shaking the
Family Tree” cover similar areas. The genres of autobiography and family history
are vulnerable territory. It is also an impregnable area as no one can deny or
contradict a writer’s reaction to incidents.
Margaret’s territory is also pegged by
her father Barry’s writing, and that of her sister and her brother. So
unsurprisingly there is a tinge of having to justify the writer’s unique
version.
“When the Bough Breaks”
Takes two little children from the care
of their mother, to their maternal grandparents, to their paternal grandparents
and then to a blended stepfamily. That is a lot.
But it is further contaminated by the
grandparent asking a child to promise not to love her new stepmother. That
seems to block the possible nurturing warmth from a new maternal person.
Barry, Margaret’s father, must have been
shattered by the death of his wife while he was a new enlistee in the army posted
to Western Australia. Adding to his pain was the charge that he was just trying
to get out of an army for which he had volunteered. One doubts if Barry ever really
grieved for his wife or instead used denial, workaholism and whisky. Perhaps
too he was terrified of losing a second wife’s affection and so gave priority
to his new family over Margaret and her sister. Work is such a respectable
defence against living a fully human life. Philosopher Joseph Pieper, in
“Leisure the Basis of Culture” talks of work; negotium in Latin as the negation of otium meaning rest which is our default state.
“Strong women” or tough women surrounded Barry.
He physically sparred with his daughters. Margaret laments his underdeveloped
feminine side. Whence though would he have had the models to be more feminine?
Margaret’s ambivalence toward her semi absent father, who was scant protection
against his second wife, is evident. But he was the only parent she had to love
and she did.
Her mother Bunty dying young achieves
canonization along with priest Uncle Robert.
“Shaking the Family Tree”.
The second launch is “Shanking the Family
Tree”. Margaret is still a bit behind
Kim Jong-un but this is her fourth launch in two years.
Convict ancestor James Barry emerges from
the family mist like the convict in the opening scenes of the film of “Great
Expectations”. He looks scary but becomes more human as we get to know him. Margaret
provides details of Irish history and nineteenth century occupied Cork. This is
the landscape from which James Barry moves to primitive Australia. (And there are still Barry families in Cork).
Governor Sir Thomas Makdougall
Brisbane said of people like James, “…every murder or diabolical crime, which
has been committed in the Colony since my arrival has been perpetrated by Roman
Catholics. And this I ascribe entirely to their barbarous ignorance. And total
want of education, the invariable companion of bigotry and cruelty as well as
the parent of crime”. A bit rich coming from a Scot who left his country to
join the British Army and who collected his wife’s name to enhance his status.
Governor Brisbane calls the Irish Roman Catholics ignorant. It was the British
government who forbade them their schools from about 1695 though they conducted
illegal “hedge schools” a risk they took because they valued education. The
British also made it a punishable offence to speak their own language. As in
our days with Aboriginal people? Asylum seekers? Punishment for the effects of what
we have done to people?
James had two children with his wife
Margaret Barry who died aged 24 from tuberculosis in 1853. Margaret McMahon’
sympathy for the two bereaved children Margaret Mary and William patently parallels
her own loss of a mother at as a little child with a younger sister.
Outside the family and intermingled with
family perceptions is the cultural context. That context is as fickle as
fashion. Cultural norms are like good glasses they change focus and are
imperceptible to the wearer. Just think how society’s views on gender have
shifted in the past thirty or so years.
There are also the pervasive social
barbed wires of family/religious judgments based on societal norms. Often the
connections one has with a respectable person can be redemptive. But should not
always be relied on.
My
grandfather, who was asked to change his German name during two world wars, had
a story of a well-known Sydney identity that was chairman of the water board.
The said identity got into an argument with a tram conductor. At full charge he
demanded, “Do you know who I am? I’m so and so. I’m connected with the water
board.” The unphased conductor replied, “So’s my dunny”.
These days you can cut corners for social
renovation. You can be a criminal banker and use your gains to enrol children
at private schools thereby elevating your and their status.
Religious intolerance, which threads
through both books, has declined along with religion itself. However, racial
intolerance in our multicultural society is alive and well. It is a highly
inflammable seam of gas ready for politicians to ignite for their own
benefit.
Reading, “When the Bough Breaks” and
“Shaking the Family Tree” I enjoyed what I learned about nineteenth century
life, rural life in Ireland, in Australia, about the Hunter Valley and its
prominence in the Colony. About Mudgee, and the goldfields their miners and
suppliers as well as learning about moves to the city and back to the bush
again. At times I could smell fresh cow’s milk or leather dressing on harness
or saddles or the smell of a horse. Or I could imagine the view to the side of
a bush track curtained with thick flora now gone.
Margaret’s work is impressive. It is the
grinding, lonely unsure work of writing. Her children and their grandchildren
can be grateful they have so much to go on.
Margaret deserves our attentive reading
and appreciation for sharing her paths, and that is why we are here
Michael
D. Breen,
Newcastle,
May11th
2018
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