Memories of bygone days and the Irish Mammy’s golden era

Is there a more emotive word in the Irish vocabulary than Mammy? It’s not a role or a job or a description; no, it’s a picture in your mind’s eye that brings warmth to the heart and soul – safety, home, comfort, unconditional love.

And this isn’t a lament for other times when parental roles were more gender stereotyped, nor is it a romantic notion of some benevolent version of Mrs Brown, ruling the roost in her pinny surrounded by the smell of fresh bread and jam.

It’s more like the same feeling we get when we mistakenly think that all of our childhood summers were long and full of sunshine; that every day was a play day; when our friends had faces rather than Facebook.

And at the heart of all of those memories – real or romantic – is the Irish Mammy.

You’re equally entitled to talk of your mother or mum or mam (or even mam-ah, if you’ve watched too much Downton Abbey), but nothing quite captures the essence of it all like the Mammy.

She is of course best seen through rose-tinted glasses because she may no longer exist – if indeed this utopian version of her ever did – but in truth this is more about memories of innocent days….of dinners and warmth and hugs and baths and stories and a time without a worry in the whole world.

No disrespect to dads – and I write as one of them – but they rarely conjure up the same images. Which is not to suggest that we are, or were, inferior – because we’re not – but, back in the day at least, a hug from your father wouldn’t be any more shocking than shooting the breeze with a talking dog.

Thankfully today’s Ireland is a more equal place than the one which required women to give up their jobs in the Civil Service, just because they’d married – but that doesn’t mean we can’t look back with a nostalgic sigh.

Not that Irish Mammies were overflowing with love all of the time; they were handy with the wooden spoon too – and not just for making cakes.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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