Taking it all in stride

To look at Paddy Gleeson, one has to wonder how, at 106, he is still the picture of a man 20 years his junior.
“I’m a bit sick today,” he says, but still encourages questions.
“He loves to regale tales of his youth,” the nurses at Raheen Hospital advise. Although the hearing is fading slightly, his memory remains sharp, particularly of the harsher period of his life, growing up when the Black and Tans were in town.
At 13 years of age, Paddy attended a court sitting in early 1917 when a number of prisoners got up and ran out of the court after the Commandant of the East Clare Brigade, IRA Michael Brennan shouted ‘case dismissed’. 
It is understood these prisoners had been jailed in Limerick for refusing to allow timber to be cut in Derrymore, O’Callaghan’s Mills to help with the British War effort.
Paddy was sitting in the gallery watching the proceedings take place.   
“I was in the court in Ennis when the prisoners broke out of it. ‘Twas a thing that you never saw in all your life. The prisoners kept moving away all the time. The courthouse was full. I was there because there was a cousin of mine who was one of the prisoners who escaped. I never saw him being caught. It was marvellous to see the prisoners breaking out of the court. Mick Brennan, General Brennan, he was the main one,” he explained.
Each year, Paddy lays a wreath on the graves of the Scariff Martyrs, who fell victim to the Black and Tans. He recalls the day the four men lost their lives on November 16, 1920.
“I remember the Black and Tans. They were cruel. I remember they had no scruples in doing damage, burning houses and shooting people. They shot people. They shot the four in Scariff, Alfie Rogers, Michael McMahon, Martin Kildea and Michael Egan. They took them down to the bridge in Killaloe and shot them there and left them on the side of the road,” he recalled. 
Shortly before the deaths of the martyrs, the Black and Tans were on the lookout for Michael Brennan, the Commandant of the East Clare Brigade IRA, around September 1920. Brennan had been shot during action in O’Briensbridge and was hiding in safe houses in the area. Paddy described his scary close shave with the ’Tans when they burned safe houses in Tuamgraney looking for Brennan.
Passing through the village at the time, Paddy recalled seeing the Black and Tans approaching the village at a distance and his first instinct was to hide. 
“I had nowhere to go and I saw this tree and I said that’s great, I’ll get up on that. I saw them away in the distance from me and I knew well they would be passing where I was and I couldn’t hide from them.  I got up into the tree and hid in the branches. They didn’t dream of looking up. I knew well they would never look up. I was up in the tree from 7 in the evening until later that night. I couldn’t go because they were around. They were looking for the owner of the house that they burned,” he said.
Similarly, Paddy remembers Alfie Roger’s house being burnt and at 16 years of age, taking a chance to rescue a slaughtered pig that the family had after the Black and Tans had set everything aflame. 
“They burned Alfie Rodgers house, there was nothing left only stones. I saved a barrel of meat that they had. The farmer at the time had killed a pig. I kept throwing water over the barrel and it quenched it. They were looking for the owner of the house. They searched everywhere. They brought his wife and his daughter out of the bed and we had to take them in.
“They did everything they could the wrong way. It was hard, we had to put up with all that and we took them in and looked after them,” he said.
With the signing of the Anglo Irish Treaty in 1921, Paddy’s everyday life changed for the better.
“It [the treaty] had an impact; they had to agree to it if they wanted agreement. They had to, there was going to be war and people were going to be killed. The neighbours and the people in East Clare were all upset. They were all afraid for their health and for their lives. They were upset because it might be you today and them tomorrow. They were dangerous times, they were real dangerous times,” Paddy continued.
Although he never married, the bachelor admits it wasn’t for the lack of interest. “I’d several girls but I couldn’t choose between them. I had no great riches and I had no money but it worked out right in the end,” he said.
After the war, Paddy went into farming. “I had cattle with my aunt. I helped them in every way I could. I was very interested in the farming business. There was, of course, changes in farming. I remember a time there was no way of working other than with a spade and a shovel. There were no motor cars.
“It was a nice little farm, about 25 acres. I had cows, a horse and sheep. We’d sow potatoes, vegetables and turnips. It was hard work but it had to be done, you had to go out and work, you had to keep things going,” Paddy added.
Having survived many trials and tribulations throughout his life, Paddy has some words of wisdom for those interested in looking for the secret to longevity.
“I worked away according to what I was able to do and that’s all I was into. I don’t think I did anything special. I do have to give advice to people – it depends on your attitude to yourself and to everybody else. You have to go the right road and if you keep on the right road then you’re right. If you go on the wrong road then nothing is even and things won’t go the way you want them to go.
“You never know when a thing is going wrong until you’re plunged into it. I wasn’t plunged into anything. I never drank in my life. There are certain people in life that took drink and it gave them a bit of a nerve and gave them a bit of courage to fight their way through and then they had to work their way to be nice and gentle.
“I kept the straight road going and when it was kept straight all the way along, it meant everything in the end,” he concluded.