‘Regular ladies’ fella is our Ronan,’ said Matty, ‘he was doin’ a bit’a gushin’ himself after his visit to the nurses in the hospital the other day, isn’t that right, Ronan?’
Ronan blew through his lips.
‘Aye,’ continued Matty. ‘On the drive there he has a big smile on his face and afterwards, drivin’ home, he has wee cartoon love birds twitterin’ round his head.’
Ronan made a noise that sounded like ‘oi’.
‘I’m only coddin’ you. Off to the museum then?’
‘Driver, drive on,’ I said.
It was only ten minutes to the museum from my house. Matty helped me with Ronan when we arrived.
‘I’ll be parked just across the road when yous are red up,’ he said.
I pushed Ronan up the sloped concrete path and through the wooden doors of the museum. It was a small building, barely bigger than a detached house, but it stretched quite far back. We walked straight through and into the gift shop that doubled as a reception where an elderly lady was sitting behind a counter doing cross-stitching, which she set down when we approached.
‘Welcome, boys, yous are here for a wee dander round? I think I spoke to one of you on the phone the other day about the wheelchair access and that?’
‘Yes, that was me,’ I said, ‘Brendan. And this is Ronan.’
‘And yous haven’t been here before, wasn’t that right?’
‘No, first time.’
‘Right, well yous have the place to yourselves, there’s been no one in through the doors so far and Sundays are always quiet anyway so you’ll be able to wander round t’your hearts’ content. Do you know what section yous’d like to start with?We’ve exhibits over the two floors; you could easily see everything in a few hours if you’re only skimming but if it’s a particular area you want to learn about then I’ll point you in the right direction.’
‘Not really,’ I said, ‘we’re here to just look around, maybe we’ll come back another time if we see something that we’d like to learn more about.’
‘That’s the best way, the best way indeed.’ She stood up with some difficulty and came round slowly to our side of the counter as she spoke. ‘Ground floor here is all your local history: Irish linen, flax production, the weavers; some lovely examples of embroidery in the display cabinets. Then on past that is the Georgian architectural history of the town. You’ll see each section has a “Then and Now” theme, with photos of how things were “then” and ones of how things are “now”. It’s a wee theme I came up with myself,’ she said with a sense of pride. ‘Then at the very back there’s a great section on the railway disaster. Then upstairs …’ she looked at Ronan and stalled, ‘… there’s a stair lift for your friend, I’ve never worked it myself but I’ll give it a go. The only thing is it’s a Sunday and I’ve no one here to help if there was a malfunction.’
‘We’ll stick to the ground floor maybe,’ I said, choosing to keep our Sunday malfunction-free.
‘Rightio,’ she said, going back to her side of the counter and picking up her cross-stitching. ‘Give me a shout if you need any help or anything. Annie,’ she said, indicating herself.
‘Thanks, Annie,’ I said and pushed Ronan into the musty gloom of the museum’s ground floor.
There was a wooden weaving machine in a glass cabinet directly in front of us and an information board to the left of it with ‘Then’ as a title at the top; it had black-and-white photographs of women working machines like the one in the cabinet with text explaining how it worked. To the right of it was another information board with ‘Now’ titled at the top; it had colour photographs of modern-day clothing factories that didn’t have people operating anything at all. This was clearly the ‘Then and Now’ theme Annie had been talking about.
‘Sound familiar?’ I said to Ronan, since his parents and me had been using the ‘Now and Then’ technique with him when planning out our days.
I hadn’t been to many museums, but there was something about this one that reminded me of being in the forest at Kilmare – the peace. I wasn’t sure if Ronan felt the same but he seemed to be engaging with each display cabinet we came to. I checked if he was ready to move on to the next thing and waited for his nod before I did. At the end of the Irish linen display, there was a ‘Then’ picture of a field with a horse-drawn contraption that was gathering crop. The ‘Now’ picture was of a combine harvester in a field of barley. I can’t explain it any other way, but it felt like Ronan turned to stone when he looked at that picture; I wouldn’t have been able to push his chair because of how heavy he suddenly seemed.
‘I think that’s the end of this display, Ronan,’ I said, ‘will we move on to the next bit?’
‘Yeah-sh,’ he said in a deep tone.
I pulled the chair back, pivoted round and walked on to the next section; hedidfeel heavier.
We walked along a display that had side-by-side comparisons of local streets true to Annie’s theme of ‘Then and Now’.
‘Look, there’s Campbell Street,’ I pointed out. It was a street Ronan would have known from before last summer because it had McCluskey’s sports shop on it, which was featured in the colour picture of ‘Now’, but the black-and-white picture had a greengrocer’s in its place. Both versions looked eerily the same. We continued down the row of similar pictures, like a trip down memory lane, except the memories weren’t ours, which Isuppose is what a museum really is: a house for the memories of others.
At the end of the architecture display was a large pearl clock face with golden Roman numerals and rusty hour hands. The information board told us that it was the original clock face that had been in the tower above the courthouse before it was bombed. The little hand pointed to four and the big hand pointed to ten; stopped at the time the courthouse fell. I saw Ronan’s face reflected in the glass staring up at the clock.
‘Says here it was bombed in 1993, we were only seven,’ I said.
Ronan didn’t respond. Behind the glass there was a picture of how the courthouse looked today after it had been rebuilt alongside blueprints for its reconstruction. The architect had obviously been trying to be as loyal to the original as possible.
