Missing in Action (3 page)

Life in the 1950s in Boher was anything but easy. There was no running water and supplies had to be drawn each day from a well some distance from the farmhouse. Similarly, there was no electricity. While the ESB had connected power to Kilbehenny village by the 1950s, Boher – some two miles away – did not get its supply until the early 1960s. Telephones, like televisions, were simply unheard of in most country homes. Even householders who could afford a telephone and were close enough to an existing Post & Telegraph (P&T) line to apply for one had to wait for the privilege. Sometimes the wait for a connection lasted as much as four years.

Pat Mullins’ Confirmation (Photo Mullins Family)

After completing his national school studies, there was little question of Pat attending secondary school. He could have cycled the six miles to Mitchelstown to attend the Christian Brothers secondary school but, such was the economic climate of the time, an immediate job and income appeared far preferable to both him and the Mullins family. A secondary school education meant money for books, pencils and clothes – and that was something that was in short supply in Ireland in the late 1950s.

When his son was old enough to work, Ned Mullins made a few enquiries at the creamery and mart, at local cattle fairs and amongst his neighbours. One local farmer, Jack O’Brien, had a slot open for a general labourer and, such was the Mullins’ reputation for hard work and diligence, Pat was offered the job the minute he expressed an interest in it. Jack O’Brien was a good, kindly employer and he looked after Pat as if he was his own son. The O’Briens were well known in Kilbehenny because Jack’s brother Tim ran the local hostelry, The Three Counties Bar.

Pat’s job was officially that of ‘yardman’. The ploughman – or more senior farm labourer – was Tom Kiely. Pat settled in quickly and was blessed that he had learned so many farming skills from Ned, Dinny and Tom. But it was hard work, because farming in Ireland had yet to become mechanised. Milking was done by hand and ploughing was a backbreaking task that usually started in November and continued until late February. If the weather was good, the ploughman was skilled, the horses willing and everything went well, a man could plough up to one acre a day. ‘But that would be a very good day,’ Dinny recalled.

For two years Pat worked and saved. But at times it was like trying to swim up the River Blackwater against the current in the middle of a winter flood. It just couldn’t be done. No matter how hard he tried to save, there always seemed to be a bill on the horizon that had to be paid. Pat realised that there was very little money to be made from farming – and yet there was very little else available. Jobs in Mitchelstown Co-op did offer better pay, but were as scarce as hen’s teeth, such was the demand for positions. A German pencil firm, Faber-Castell, had opened in Fermoy, but any extra money he would make would be wiped out by the cost of having to either travel to Fermoy on a daily basis or secure lodgings in the town.

Tom had worked for several years for farmers around Kilbehenny and decided he’d had enough. ‘If I couldn’t get a job in the creamery, I decided I’d head off to England,’ he recalled. But one of the farmers that he’d given loyal service to had connections with the creamery board and knew Tom was a dedicated and hard worker. He intervened to ensure Tom got a job with the creamery.

Life was tough for everyone in pre-1960s Ireland. Pat’s sister, Mary, recalled that even attending dances was unheard of. ‘It just wasn’t done. We didn’t have a car in the 1950s let alone a tractor. We walked the two miles to school in Kilbehenny and if it was raining or frosty, our father would take the horse and cart and maybe meet us to bring us home. Sometimes we would catch a spin with him on the horse and cart to school in the morning if he was heading to the creamery.’

Pat, as the youngest in the family, grew up seeing at first hand the limited social and economic options available to his siblings. ‘We had one radio and no one outside Dublin had a television set. We had an old wireless that had the usual wet cell and dry cell batteries. Our father would listen to the news and a match on a Sunday. Once in a while, we could listen to a short music programme, but when the adults came into the room, the wireless was switched off. If you were lucky, you got two weeks out of the battery before it had to be recharged.’

Mary recalled how Pat’s social outlets were almost exclusively focused on sport and music. ‘When you had your jobs done, like drawing water from the well and bringing in turf and timber for the fire, you could go down to the crossroads where there’d usually be someone either playing hurling or football. Sometimes there might be a game of skittles or handball going on in the village where the boys would go.

‘In the summertime, a stage would be set up in Kilbehenny village and there would be traditional dancing and Irish music. We would sit on the grass outside our home at Boher if the weather was fine and hear the music playing in the distance. But if we wanted music ourselves, we had to play it in the house. Pat was a very good singer and he had learned a few Jim Reeves songs from the wireless. Sometimes you’d play the accordion or the tin whistle as an accompaniment.’

Mary Mullins married Tom Kent in October 1959 and the happy couple are serenaded by an accordion player. Pat Mullins is pictured, flower in his lapel, standing third from right. (Photo: Mullins family)

Pat’s other great love – like so many boys of his generation – was the cinema. It was like a window onto an alien, forbidden world. A world of western gunfights, fearless pirates, courageous soldiers and wicked Chicago gangsters that Pat could only marvel at. The problem was that the only local cinema was in Mitchelstown and getting to go there was a rarity. Hence the local saint’s day – St Fanahan’s Day, which fell on 25 November – was a special treat because it meant a trip into Mitchelstown to go to pray at the local holy well dedicated to the long-dead holy man. But it also meant Pat and his friends could check out what shows were playing at the local cinema and marvel at the glitzy posters outside.

‘We were a very close family and Pat, being the youngest, was looked out for by everyone else. But he wasn’t spoiled – he was expected to work as hard as the rest of us. But he somehow had a great confidence about him – and you could see that on the hurling or football field where he was a fine player,’ Mary added.

By April 1960, Pat had finally had enough. He was tired of working as a farm labourer and decided it was time to consider his options. He’d seen how Tom had tired of the backbreaking grind and been fortunate enough to get a creamery job. Maybe he could follow suit. But above all else, Pat was determined not to spend another winter as a farm labourer. Pat realised he had one major alternative – the army.

It was an alternative career path that Pat shared with another young man who, that very same month, a mere thirty miles away, was struggling with the same harsh realities of Irish economic life. John O’Mahony from Tallow in west Waterford was similarly disillusioned with life as a farm labourer and, at seventeen, was also wondering if he had other options available to him. ‘You had three choices at the time if you were a young lad from the country who didn’t want to work as a farm labourer – you could try for a job in a factory, but they were like diamonds in a coal mine. You could emigrate to England or America, but that was seen as a last resort because, like hundreds of other lads, you might never again make it back home. Or you could join the army,’ John explained.

The financial arguments in favour of a life in uniform were very persuasive indeed. Compared to a farm labourer earning just £2 a week for six days of backbreaking labour, a young man in his very first week in uniform could expect to be paid £2 19s 6d. After a six-month training period, that would rise to £3 10s. Recruits had a uniform and boots provided for them – and received three square meals each day.

But it was the social benefits that made the army seem like a godsend. Soldiers were off every weekend unless they were on special duties – and rarely worked beyond 5 p.m. unless they were on guard patrol. And the offer of promotion to corporal, sergeant or even sergeant major offered the tantalising prospect of even better pay.

‘My parents weren’t too keen on the idea of me joining the army,’ John explained. ‘It wasn’t that they had anything against the military, it was just that they thought the best career for me was in farming. But I was seventeen and thought there was more to life than working from dawn to dusk and never really having any money of my own. To us, the army was a different world – going to Collins Barracks in Cork for basic training, maybe being sent to Spike Island on guard duty, or even going to Dublin or the Curragh. In those days they were almost exotic assignments.’

Pat Mullins travelled to Collins Barracks and signed on to become a soldier on 9 May 1960 with the Recruit No. 810552. The trip to Collins Barracks was Pat’s first ever trip on a bus and his first ever trip to Cork city. John O’Mahony made the same journey the week before, signing up on 5 May. The two young men ended up on the same No. 6 training platoon. Given their backgrounds and ages, it was hardly surprising that they quickly became friends.

For Pat, it was a decision that took great courage. He didn’t tell his father that he was going and, eventually, the recruiting staff – realising Pat’s age – made contact with Ned back in Boher and asked what they wanted him to do?

‘My father said: “Look, if you send him home he’ll probably go across the water and join the army for John Bull. He wants to be in the army so it might as well be the Irish army.” My father told them to keep Pat above in Collins Barracks if they could. That’s how it happened,’ Dinny explained.

But if Pat and John thought army life was going to be exotic, they were quickly disabused of the notion. The pay was good but the training regime was tough. Recruits were relentlessly drilled on parade ground procedures, marching orders, kit and uniform discipline. Both Pat and John were assigned to Block 6 at Collins Barracks’ Command Training Depot. The assigned platoon sergeant was Sgt John Cusack who worked alongside Corporals Bill Sisk, Joe Hunt and John St John. They were tough but fair – with Sgt Cusack determined to ensure his recruits, no matter their age or ability, were turned into competent soldiers.

Within a matter of days, Pat Mullins and John O’Mahony had become confidants and spent most of their social time together. ‘Pat was a country lad like myself. We had both worked on farms and I suppose we had a lot in common. Pat was only seventeen but he had a quiet confidence about himself. He always seemed to be smiling and in good humour – and that’s very important when you’re training and the sergeants and corporals spend most of the day roaring at you for getting things wrong,’ John recalled.

After a few weeks, the recruits were deemed to have learned the basics of parade ground discipline and were introduced to the weapon that they would now train on – the venerable Lee-Enfield Mk IV rifle. The Lee-Enfield – itself a development of the earlier Lee-Metford rifle – had equipped the British army in various guises throughout both the First and Second World Wars. The rifle might be more than fifty years old, but it was every bit as deadly now as it had been when British troops opened fire on German infantry in Flanders in 1914, making the German troops think they were under machine gun fire.

The army had huge stocks of the Lee-Enfield rifles – many of which dated back to the 1914–1916 era. Regular units were soon to be equipped with the Belgian-made FN assault rifle, but army recruits still learned their infantryman’s craft on the old .303 calibre Lee-Enfield.

‘Pat was probably the most natural soldier amongst us. He always seemed to be happy, it was impossible to faze him and he took to army life like a duck to water. But it was his quiet confidence that astonished us all. Most of us recruits were fascinated but terrified of women – remember this was Ireland of the late 1950s. But Pat was a smooth operator and, within weeks of basic training starting, he was going out with a gorgeous-looking girl called Esther from Sunday’s Well. I walked out with him one evening when he was meeting her and I watched, from a distance mind you, as he met up with her. I was green with envy because she was a smashing-looking girl,’ John recalled.