Mrs Bridget Ann Sweeney Midwife - more memories

Poverty

I remember the poverty that existed in some homes. I was young and lived in a town , and the scenes in other homes left a deep impression on me. There were homes with no running water or sanitation, some with just two rooms and only jam jars to drink from, poor clothing and old car seats to sit on. I know my
mother would write to the County Council on behalf of families seeking better housing and it was always successful.

Baptism

The Baptism of new babies was very important especially if they were considered at risk. There is a story of my mother accompanying a mother to hospital by ambulance before bottled water existed. The baby was delivered on the way, near the Yellow Bog on the Galway side of Loughrea and the water to
baptise was scooped from a hollow in a stone on the nearby wall. The baby was baptised.

Deliver the baby and milk the cow

My mother, Nurse Sweeney delivered many babies at Travellers camps, and told of a mother asking her to get a drink from the stream. There was a billycan of Guinness cooling in the stream. The mothers always had clean clothes for the new babies in a cushion or a pillow case under their head warmed and ready for use.  Also occasions where having cycled to a home the mother would not be ready and she would get into bed beside her and they both would sleep until the mother was ready.  On another occasion she was called to a home delivery and while she was with the woman she could hear the cow bellowing to be milked. When she had finished delivering the baby she went out to milk the cow. The mother had been a widow for a number of years and the local men were reluctant to assist her in
case they would be seen to be the father of the child.

People who came back

My mother remained friends with many of the mothers she cared for and she loved to meet them. When my mother was in her nineties one mother Mrs Reilly from Lismacague, Mullagh, came to visit her on the 40th birthday of her youngest child, to thank her for her care.

Another man Eddie McDonagh from Tuam came with his wife and daughter. He wanted my mother to tell him about his mother. He had been born at a campsite in Larch Hill and soon after his birth, when the family were travelling by a horse drawn cart, a dog ran across its path, the horse shyed and the cart over turned, he was thrown into a field and his mother died in the accident.

Bush Telegraph

When my mother was in her late eighties or early nighties we would visit some of the mothers she had been with.  On one occasion when we visited Mrs Prendergast in Kilchreest and my mother told how she remembered delivering a baby further up the hill.  In a time before private phones or mobile phones she told how the man of the house put a sheet on a bush outside the house so that his wife’s mother,  who lived on the other side of the valley would know to come to help as the baby was due to be born

Published by kind permission of Fr Ray Sweeney

 

Another piece of nursing history and family life