Auntie Maura

Auntie Maura

Some weeks ago, while rooting around in the drawers of my desk, I came across an attractive presentation printed in emerald green on gold paper. Thinking at first that it was something that had been given to me, I looked at it closely, only to discover that it was my own handiwork. Described as "A Public Tribute", it was an obituary in respect of "Mary Josephine (Maura) McCloskey", whom we knew as, Auntie Maura. She died on the 3rd of January 1997 in her 96th year. At first it seemed like a good idea to add it to my blog entitled, In Memoriam, but on reflection, I think, if I might use the expression, it deserves, "its own place in the sun".

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"In February last myself and Leo came to Ireland for a winter holiday, (which, when you come to think about it), is the only sort of holiday that you could have at that time of year. We stayed with Deirdre and Jim, whose hospitality, as always, was generous to a fault. In that short break we came to Derry for the day. I hadn't seen Auntie Maura for over a year and I was anxious about how she might have changed. At the door I was greeted by a small, grey-haired, and obviously very frail old lady, who moved stiffly and carefully about the doorstep. Despite her frailty, she still had that characteristic gleam in her eye, that told you, that you were welcome. But what particularly struck me at the time, and has remained with me since, is that she came to the door in what I think she herself would have described as, her "best purple frock". At ninety four, she was making no concessions to her age: she had visitors coming and they were going to get a right royal welcome.

"I have often thought since, that that "best purple frock" spoke volumes about some important aspects of Auntie Maura's character.

"Firstly, as we all know, she didn't grow old and die. In her thirty five years of retirement (and as far as her health and means would allow), she lived life to the full and to the end. Her home "Bartres", furnished in the style to which she was accustomed, reflected both her idealism and sense of thrift. The living-room was expensively and tastefully furnished, while one of the bedrooms had mahogany bed heads that were made from a dining-room table that used to be in "Foyle St". [The former family home] She never threw out anything that might be useful, and the quality of her ingeniousness as an improver, was reflected in the later conversion of the coal-house into a kitchen, and the transporting of a no longer required front door, to the loft, where it bcame the catalyst for a bedroom in the roof-space. Tasteful and expensive as things were, from Auntie Maura's point of view, they were there to be enjoyed by anyone who cared to take advantage of her hospitality.

"In those early years of retirement she had a group of what she called "lady friends", most of whom she had known from girlhood. They had tea together, went on outings together, gossiped together and generally enjoyed each other's company. What was interesting here was that Auntie Maura valued these ladies not just for what they had in common, but for their particular qualities of character and personal talent or experience that she lacked. In other words, she valued these people for themselves.

"Apart from these ladies, Auntie Maura (in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council) made contact with people of other religions, at a spiritual as distinct from a social level. She had known many Protestants down the years, but in opening her door to Moral Rearmament and hosting their meetings when they came to Derry, she was opening herself to new and challenging inter-faith experiences.

"In her seventies, or was it her early eighties? she went to Disney World and came back with cocktail umbrellas and ornamental birds that to this day, we have sitting on a Christmas tree at home.

"What was particularly important to Auntie Maura in her retirement years, was the quality of her mind. She fed it constantly and naturally by activities of high and low culture. She loved quizzes on television and followed keenly current affairs, watching television late into the night until she was ready to fall asleep. She never missed the Derry Journal, even if it was only to see who was dead, which was easier and quicker than working out who was alive. As for the material world and its potential for good or ill, she displayed a definite but discrete interest in Coronation Street.

"On my last visit to her with Leo and in her role as host, she played the piano. Here I have two memories. Firstly how Leo won the argument when she tried to teach hm something of the theory of music and of how much enjoyment you can get from knowing it. Leo's answer was simple, and he has to be forgiven for he was only twelve. He sat down and demonstrated to Auntie Maura how you could play the piano without theory. I have to tell you that Auntie Maura was gracious, and Leo even yet, isn't in to the quality of sound.

"When Auntie Maura played the piano at ninety four, the dexterity of her playing and the richness of the harmonies that were a feature of her playing were still impressive, and I believe, that her love of music gives a further insight into her nature.

"No one hearing Auntie Maura playing from a score would ever have believed that she was self taught. As a young girl she educated herself in music by way of six-penny tutorials, and what she didn't get from that source she got from the Salvation Army. She would go to the top of Bridge Street where they were playing, listen intently and then dash home with the tune in her head and work it out on the piano before she had time to forget.

"Music for Auntie Maura besides being an artistic and cultural experience, was also a therapy. I know, because she told me, that when she was young and depressed she played the piano until her spirit had lifted.

"Now we might wonder at someone as well educated and talented as Auntie Maura being depressed. To me it is no surprise. Sensitive and impressionable, she was fifteen at the time of the Easter Rising, and in her late teens and early twenties at the outbreak of Civil War. As we know Tyrconnell Hotel (the family home) was a significant place at that time. Suffice it to say, that the house was subject to raids by the military and that the city was subject to curfew. On occasion shots were actually fired into the house by a nearby military garrison. In short, Aunty Maura's formation took place in a day to day world that was cruel even brutal, a world in which known acquaintances died in "the troubles". As I see it, these realities were in stark opposition to Auntie Mauara's zest for life and need to be creative. What gave her stability, and preserved her sanity, was undoubtedly the Church: with its emphasis on the dignity of the individual, and music. In growing up, Auntie Maura was made aware, first hand, of some of the worst excesses of the human condition; and I am sure that it was these "worst excesses", that sometimes accounted for the too intense way that she represented her point of view.

"Those of us who knew Auntie Maura particularly well, knew that her car was "an occasion of sin". How do we know? We know because she drove it long after the Book of Wisdom would have suggested otherwise. Rumour had it, that the car knew its own way around Donegal, and that providence kept her, and her old lady friends safe, when not withstanding her glaucoma she drove them to Mass.

"By way of concluding, I have been reflecting on how Auntie Maura might herself wish to be remembered, and I think two things stand out. Firstly, she would like to be remembered for her sense of duty: by herself, by her family, and by the Church. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, for her early years as a teacher at the Long Tower. There, to use her own words, she taught: "the poorest of the poor". Times were very different then. There were no "inset" days for teachers, but good work was being done. As she was teaching, the Parish Priest was buying up houses as they became vacant, until he had bought the whole street and turned it into schoolrooms. Above all else, this is really where Auntie Maura's heart was.

"For my part, and until my own time comes, I will have an abiding memory of a remarkable person, who (not forgetting her "best purple frock") provoked us to the very end by the sheer grace with which she lived to the very end of a very old age. I hope you will too. May God have mercy on her soul."

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© Cormac McCloskey

Deirdre and Jim: A younger sister and her husband
"Bartres": The home town in southern France of St. Bernadette of Lourdes
Second Vatican Council: A Council of Bishops of the Church, called by Pope John XXIII
Coronation Street: A famed TV soap opera, or soap, that has been running since 1960
Easter Rising: A pivital moment in modern Irish history: A rebellion against the British Occupation of Ireland that took place in Dublin in April 1916. Defeated by the British, 15 of its principal participants were executed.
The Irish Civil War 1922-23: A consequence of the establishment of an Irish Free State, when most of Ireland gained independence as an entity separate from the United Kingdom.
Long Tower: The site of the original Oak Grove on which the City of Derry was founded. Auntie Maura spent most of her life teaching at The Long Tower Girls School, ending her career as its Principal.


Auntie Maura didn't learn to drive until she was in her early sixties, after which, there was no keeping her off the road. She is buried beside her father, mother, ("Grandma") and spinster sisters, Bridie and Kathleen at Claudy in Co. Derry.


Note: This blog, "Auntie Maura", was first published on Windows Live Spaces, by me, on 21st April 2009