Book celebrates an ordinary life well lived

When farmer Jim Connell of Loraine, near Narraghmore, died a couple of months ago he was in his 93rd year, writes Brian Byrne. On 22 April, next Saturday, a book celebrating ‘a life well lived’ will be launched by Minister of State Martin Heydon in St Laurence’s GAA Club.

A Life's Harvest: Stories from the homeplace Loraine is compiled from a series of recordings made with his father by Tom O’Connell — yes, they spelled their surnames differently — as well as others made by Margaret Scully and Kevin Pim. It was a near-fatal blip in an otherwise exceptionally healthy life that prompted the recording project.

“In 2015 we nearly lost him due to an illness, but he recovered,” says Tom. “I had often thought about doing some recordings with him, but when I got the second chance, I actually set out to try and record his memories.” Tom says the book is ostensibly about his dad, but it could be about anyone else’s parent. “It’s the voice of a generation, the voice of an ordinary man and the community that allowed him to live to his 93rd year with an excellent quality of life until his last six hours.”

Jim Connell left school at 14 and farmed ‘the home place’ for most of his life. If his education had been minimal, his best qualification was ‘a great curiosity’, and one of his key characteristics was a thoughtful and practical attitude to life. “When I asked him about the changes he would have seen in farming, he said the biggest was the arrival of the tractor. I thought he would go on about the great technology, but he gave me a much more pragmatic reason.”

Simply told, the tractor meant that the farmer could stop work at any time and go straight in for his dinner. “With the horse, he had to feed it first, and when it was happy with its break the farmer could look after himself.”

A Life’s Harvest takes the reader through from Jim Connell’s childhood to his latter days in what Tom O’Connell insists was an ‘ordinary’ life. “He was an ordinary man, and society needs people like that. There are always people who get the headlines, but there’s a huge cohort of people behind them who keep things going.” 

As it comes close to the launch, for the moment Tom reckons the book represents his father’s generation, but over coming years the stories will extend that legacy forward. “One of the key things from this is a plea to everyone to record their older generation. In one sense we don’t learn anything new by doing it. But our parents have a wealth of lived experience, and a key thing for all of us is to try and learn from the experiences of other people” — a wry pause — “though, of course, we never do.”

The launch location reflects Jim Connell’s longtime support for the club. The event on 22 April begins at 8pm and noted local historian Frank Taffe will be MC for the evening. €3 from the book’s sale price will go to the Jack and Jill Foundation.

NOTE: This article was first published in The Kildare Nationalist.

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