A Christmas Visitor, 1940

by PJ Heneghan

In the old days for us kids every Christmas spent in Tralee was wonderful.  I was six years old when our family in 1933 left Tralee to settle in Dublin. After the move we returned to Tralee at least three times every year to visit our grandmother, but the Christmas visit was always the highlight of each year.

The Christmas of 1940 was particularly memorable. The fact that a war was raging in Europe and that supplies for the festive season were becoming scarce had little impact on us. In fact our isolation on the edge of Europe only added to the excitement as we followed developments on the Continent.

That Christmas we arrived at our grandmother’s home several days before the Great Day itself.  Grandmother announced that we had a visitor.  A Dr. Foley had been installed in the lodger’s room upstairs and he expected to be with us for a few days until his car had been repaired.

The story was that Dr. Foley was on a journey from Dublin to visit friends in Dingle when his car developed engine trouble, and he had to leave it in the Kerry Motor Works for repairs.  The company told him that there would be a delay of a day or two as they had to get a new part from Dublin.  Dr. Foley went to one of the local pharmacists to find out where he might get congenial lodgings for what he hoped would be a brief stay in Tralee.  It helped when Paddy Walsh, the pharmacist, told him that he might just find a vacancy at Moyderwell with a Mrs. Martha Foley.

Grandmother usually kept one lodger at her home, and it happened that the incumbent gentleman had left the room vacant while he went home to County Cork on his Christmas vacation.  Pat, as we called him, was an inspector with the Department of Agriculture.  Pat was a very miserly person, and he refused to pay Grandmother rent for the period when he was away.  Grandmother saw no option but to accept this. The poor foolish woman also agreed that Pat, pending his return in January, could leave his clothes and personal effects in the room over the Christmas period.  Pat well knew, of course, that grandmother would find it hard get a lodger just for the Christmas period.

Dr. Foley therefore came like manna from heaven. There was the moot point whether grandmother should clear the room of Pat’s effects during his absence.  She had scruples about the letting to Dr. Foley, although not about the doctor personally.  He was after all a Foley, one of the clan, so to speak.  All grandmother’s scruples were overcome when Aunt Chriss – her daughter, a widow, who also lived in the house with two of her young children – argued that Pat could not expect the room to be left idle when he had paid no rent for the period of the vacancy.

And so, on our arrival from Dublin, we came to sit around the fire in the parlour late on the evening of 22nd December 1940, chatting with Dr. Foley, who had just returned from the cinema.  He had taken to the cinema with him Aunt Chriss’s daughter Eileen, a comely young lady who enjoyed the unexpected treat.  He had also returned with a box of chocolates for grandmother, and she was well pleased.  As we chatted the goodies were being shared around.

My brother Frank, aged nine at the time, had just started to take piano lessons, and he was persuaded to perform a few party pieces.  Dr. Foley was most impressed, and urged my mother to spare no expense in developing this talented child. He discreetly asked whether money would be a problem, and offered to help if necessary.  He promised my mother that he would speak to some officials of the Dublin College of Music, where he had good friends who could help.  (To quick-reel ahead for a moment, Frank was later to become the head of this very college.)

The following day we occupied ourselves helping grandmother in her visits to the market, opening the envelopes with her arriving Christmas cards and affixing stamps to the outgoing mail, and generally at her request doing odd jobs around the house.  Meanwhile, Dr. Foley came and went, but told us that that he hoped to leave on Christmas Eve for Dingle, as he expected the car would be ready by then.

On the 24th of December Dr. Foley left.  My father arrived from Dublin late that evening and my mother filled him in on our impressive visitor and of his extraordinary interest in Frank. They figured that as they spoke the good doctor was with his friends in Dingle.

Christmas came and went.  We attended Midnight Mass, visited the crib, had our usual turkey and plum-pudding Christmas meal, enjoyed our children’s party on St. Stephen’s Day and stayed up in the parlour late each night, while in the kitchen the adults played ferocious rounds of a card game called “31”.  Occasionally we tiptoed into the hall and enjoyed listening to the sounds of slaughter and post-mortems which emerged from the kitchen at the end of each game.

At the beginning of January, life returned to normal.  My father had gone back to Dublin, while my mother, two brothers and myself stayed on as usual until the 6th of January when the school holidays ended.

The drama started on the morning of 2nd January 1941.  Pat returned about 11 am.  I remember, as if it were yesterday, the commotion that broke out on the top floor.  Pat was arguing loudly with Aunt Chriss in his room and then came out onto the landing, roaring that Mrs Foley should attend at once in his room.  Where were all of his shirts?  Where were his stockings?  Where were his jodhpurs?  Pat’s work, I should explain, involved walking about in muddy farmyards and sodden fields which required him to wear knee-length stockings and short britches.  All of the clothing which he had left in his room was missing – except for a pair of old braces, coloured green, white and orange, an army issue from his service in the LDF (our local defence force, established at the start of the war period we called “the emergency”).   Grandmother was not the kind of person to respond to peremptory demands in her own home, but on this occasion she thought it better to go up to the top floor to see what was amiss.

Grandmother told Pat about the nice Dr. Foley, but it began to become clear that the clothes so carefully hoarded by Pat were now “gone west” – possibly to Dingle.  Pat, the miser, had it seems for over a year been hoarding shirts, socks, ties and indeed anything that was likely to become scarce with the war increasingly likely to last for some time.

A formal post-mortem took place in the parlour, the whole family being present. We all contributed.  Some remembered Dr. Foley’s comings and goings during his stay, and how he appeared very slim when returning to his room, but rather well upholstered when going out.  He frequently asked for bowls of hot water in his room.  Why was that?

Grandmother went to see the pharmacist.  Yes, of course, Paddy Walsh remembered Dr. Foley, for he had referred him to my grandmother and later, several times, supplied him with morphine for a patient. This might explain the need for bowls of hot water.  The Kerry Motor Works on the other hand did not remember Dr Foley at all!

There seemed to be no other option at this stage but to go to the civic guards, but Pat refused point blank to consider this.  What would his Department think?  Someone in his room, with access to his clothes and his papers!  Well, to his clothes anyway – the papers had not been touched!  Aunt Chriss later aired her suspicion that Pat had also been using his bedroom as an office, and was likely to have been receiving an allowance for this from the Department.  Did the allowance, she wondered, continue to be paid in his absence?

It was decided not to bring the police into the picture just yet.  What proof positive did we have that Dr. Foley was a thief?  The talk went on, but no action was taken.

About the middle of January when all of the hullabaloo had died down, Aunt Chriss was walking in Strand Road, at the other end of the town, when she noticed a couple walking slowly ahead of her.  They were deep in conversation.  The man looked a little like Dr. Foley, but Aunt Chriss could not be quite sure.   The lady was one of the very respectable local family, a nice girl but not exactly in the first flush of youth.  What should Aunt Chriss do?  What if she were mistaken?

The matter was quickly decided for her when the man paused for a moment, bent over, and adjusted the stocking on his right leg.  It pulled up away above his knee.  Definitely one of Pat’s missing hoard!

Aunt Chriss doubled back and went into the Garda Station, which was at the entrance to Strand Road.  The guards responded immediately and took the good doctor in for questioning.  There was really no contest!  He confessed at once to the theft and was duly detained pending his appearance in the district court.

The full picture emerged at the hearing.  “Dr. Foley” was Peter Wavin (not his real name), released in mid-December from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin.  He had hitch-hiked his way to Tralee.  His was a very sad story.  He belonged to a very respectable family from the midlands and had had a good education.  He had become hooked on heroin following a long and serious illness.  On arrival in Tralee he had called to the County Hospital and conned the Reverend Mother into parting with £5.  He visited the Prior of the Dominican Church with greater success, receiving £10.  He then set up temporary headquarters with grandmother. The remarkable feature of the case was that he had made no attempt to work his charms on the Foley family, except to borrow the name as a platform for his further operations.  His crombie coat was liberally provided with pockets, which enabled him to clean out Pat’s store of clothing.  When arrested he had been (Aunt Chriss’s conjecture) sizing up the single daughter of the Strand Road family as a prospective spouse, but fortunately for her there this did not come out in court.

Dr. Foley was sent off to Limerick Gaol for a period, the length of which escapes my memory.  We never heard of or from him again.

It was a memorable Christmas indeed.  As con-men go, “Dr Foley” was up there with the best!