by Cha Taylor

Source: Contact Magazine (1981)

Having been requested by the editor of “Contact” magazine to interview Christy Howley, I found him hard at work in his workshop.    Looking out the window into the back garden, I perceived about fifteen goats on about 100 yards of chain.  “What are you doing with all the goats?” I asked.

St. Patrick’s Goats and Monivea Rugby

“If you look out there now”, he says, “you won’t see a weed left in the garden, they’re great lads for doing away with the weeds, you know.   If anyone wants the garden weeded, I’ll hire out the goats to them at £5 a time.   These are no ordinary goats, you know.   They are of a very special breed and have a long pedigree going back over 1500 years and are descended from the goats St. Patrick left in Monivea while he visited in Athenry in the year 435 A.D., (I suppose you know that the Monivea lads milked the goats while he was gone and when he came back from Athenry in the evening he had no milk for the tea) and that’s why there’s great rugby players in Monivea today – the goats milk that does it, d’ya see!   The best part about it is that St. Patrick got the goats in Ballyagran, Co. Limerick, and if the Galway lads had got a sup of my goat’s milk the last day before the match, they’d have beaten Limerick no bother.  I get two quarts of milk a day from each goat and I sell it to the Health Centre.”

Milking Machine from the Himalayan mountains

Feeling that it must be a job to milk 125 goats a day, I asked him if it was difficult and he said it was, but that he was getting a special milking machine for milking goats, designed by a guru from Aling Kangri in the Himalayan mountains.   This will make the job easier especially when it has been installed in the new milking parlour under construction

.‘Community Chair’

While our conversation was taking place, Christy was working away on what appeared to be a very unusual looking chair, so I asked him about it.“This is a very special chair being made for the final of the Community Games (Entertainment Section) at Buntline’s Camp.  The New Inn group is in the final, competing with 31 other groups.  This chair will be used as part of their act, which is a pageant of Irish history.   A girl sitting in this throne will represent “Ireland”.   It is a “Community Chair” in every sense of the word.  The back is a harp, 3’3” high, the centre of which is upholstered in green velvet with the strings embroidered in white and orange by Sean Dolan’s mother from New Inn, who is 84 years of age.   Peter Donohue (a great supporter of the arts) is sponsoring it.The ends of the arm-rests will have two Irish Wolfhounds’ heads carved by Brid Ni Rynne (Mrs. Norbury) from Prosperous, Co. Kildare, who is a famous sculptress and first cousin of Professor Etienne Rynne, Athenry.   So, as I said before, this chair will be the product of the combined effort of a number of people, which is a nice idea.

”Hairdryer for ‘Henkind’

As I sat listening to Christy talking, it suddenly began to rain heavily.   He immediately downed tools and disappeared out into the garden, returning shortly followed by two cocks and a hen, well soaked from the rain, and introduced them to me as Charlie and Garret Cock and Maggie Thatcher Hen.   They immediately jumped up onto the bench from under which Christy hastily produced a hair-dryer and proceeded to dry out their feathers, much to the pleasure of the fowl, as I could plainly see. “Hens hate the rain you know”, says Christy, “It destroys their feathers… these hair-dryers are God’s gift to ‘henkind’. 

From then on I’m afraid he paid no more attention to me so I decided to leave having firmly resolved to return when there was less likelihood of rain.