THE voice of 86-year-old Mary Reidy, nee McMahon, a native of Carrigaholt, was heard by a learned gathering of poets, academics and language enthusiasts last Friday  as part of Cambridge University’s 800th anniversary celebrations.
One of triplets born in Clouncuneen, near Carrigaholt in 1923, Mary recounted the story to her niece, Mary Courtney, who is an awarded-winning poet, based in Coventry.
Pat and Seán McMahon completed the set of triplets, while Motto and Ellen, parents of the triplets, had 11 children in total, including two sets of twins.
It’s something of a miracle that this trio of McMahon children survived as they each weighed barely 1lb.
“I recorded my Aunty Mary telling this tale of her birth in my kitchen in Coventry this summer,” Mary Courtney explained. “She was over on a visit to see me  and she had, in fact, lived in Coventry herself in the 1950s. The recording was done on a whim  on a crackly old tape held in place by a spoon. But still, her words were gotten down,” she explained. 
Mary McMahon worked for a number of years in Birmingham and Coventry before returning to Clare, where she married Micko Reidy and settled “in her own corner”, in Ballinagun West, near Cree. Mary now lives in Caherush, near Quilty, with her niece Helen Talty and family. She loves to travel and meet up with her relatives in England and America.
The other triplets Pat and Seán, emigrated to New York. Pat, who lived well into in his 80s, married Margaret in Long Island and is survived by his wife, two sons, Frank and Micheal and their children. Seán lived into his 60s in the Bronx, New York, latterly with his sister Maggie-Ann and her family.
The children and grandchildren of the McMahon children in the photograph are dispersed throughout England, Scotland, America and Australia. The Clare contingent live in Clouncuneen, near Kilkee and other parts of the Loop Head peninsula, near Doonbeg, Caherush, near Quilty and in Labasheeda.
Mary Courtney, who is developing a fine reputation as a poet, shaped her aunt’s words into a single narrative, entitled I Was Born. It incorporated 11 verses, representing the total number of children her grandmother gave birth to.
I Was Born is the tale of the birth of triplets, a story handed down from my grandmother to her daughter, and from her on to me,” Mary Courtney explained.
“It gave me a great thrill to be reciting my Aunty Mary’s own words, telling her incredible story at Cambridge University,” she added. 
Finishing second in a poetry competition  run by the Haddon Library to celebrate the Cambridge University’s 800th anniversary afforded Ms Courtney the opportunity to present her work at the university, which was established in 1209.
The competition was aimed at poets inspired by the numbers 800, 1209 or 2009. Prizes were presented by Sue Butler, renowned poet and adjudicator, at a reading in the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research.
As well as reciting her winning poem 800, Mary was asked to recite another poem of her choice. She selected I Was Born.
Her narration left the audience spellbound, while the photograph that was displayed of the McMahon triplets, with some of their younger siblings, helped transport the audience to a distant era in rural west Clare.
“To find out that Mary Courtney isn’t widely published came as a surprise,” Sue Butler commented.
“Her poetry shows a real confidence with language and contains some cadences and images I still find myself singing as I cycle to and from work. To hear her reading was also a joy. To be able to write such great poems and then read them so expressively is a winning combination indeed,” she added.
Earlier this year, Mary Courtney was selected as a recommended winner of the National Poetry Society Competition, the UK’s largest.
Daughter of Theresa, sister to the triplets and Nicholas Courtney from Castleisland, Kerry. Mary spent many summers in West Clare with Mary and Micko Reidy.

I Was Born

(as told by Mary Reidy, nee McMahon)

And my mother gave birth to triplets, two boys and a girl.
Me and Pat were born this evening at 4 o’clock
and my other brother was born the following day, at 4 o’ clock.
And Dr Hickey that delivered us at the birth said,
“Well Mrs McMahon”, he said, “I’ll be down tomorrow
at 4 o’clock and the third child will be born”. And my father
was out in the road, and he see’d the car coming down the heighth.
And my mother says to him, “Well doctor, she says. “A miracle,
she says to him, that I should have triplets, three babies”.
“Well, Mrs McMahon, he said, God’s will is no miracle.”
And when we were born, my grandmother was there in the house,
my mother’s mother. And there was two or three women
in the kitchen waiting for the good news, that everything was alright.
And she brought me and Pat out in her two hands – and showed us
to the women in the kitchen and she said, “O’ thiarna trócaire. God keep us”.
And Dr Hickey put the three afterbirths up on the table and they
examined them.
And we were very hard to manage, we were so tiny.
We had to be wrapped in baize, each one of us, for three months.
We couldn’t be dressed. And we had a cradle. And the three of us was
in the one cradle.
And I was in the middle and the two boys were one side of me.
And my mother cut up a sheet, a flannelette sheet, and made squares
of it.
And she’d hem ‘em and put them under our arses.

There was no powder to be got that time, no baby powder.
She’d put a saucer of flour down on the griddle and brown it.
Keep turning it. And she’d take it up, bring it to a box. Leave it cool.
And my mother had a set of triplets
and she had two sets of twins
and she had seven children in four years and a half
and she had four singles after that.