Suzanne's Mom's Blog

James J. Hackett, storyteller and harness maker, Moate, Ireland, 1937-2017. Seen here visiting his Kelly cousins in Rhode Island.

The late James J. Hackett, quintessential Irish raconteur, did not have an easy life. But the joy he brought to people through his storytelling and kindness leads me to say he led the best kind of life.

I met James through his visits to his Kelly cousins in New Shoreham and wrote about him on the blog.

Turtle Bunbury, co-author with James Fennell of the Vanishing Ireland book series, interviewed James for volume 3, Recollections of Our Changing Times. He put these words on Facebook yesterday.

“Farewell, JJ Hackett (1937-2017), Harness Maker & Poet — Ballinakill, Moate, Co. Westmeath

“James Fennell and I are very sad to learn of the passing of James J Hackett last night, 14 September 2017. He was an absolute gentleman and an inspirational man who, perhaps more than anyone we encountered during the Vanishing Ireland project, personified the resilience and generosity of his generation. Here is his story from the third volume of the series, which we post as a tribute to JJ and as a salutation to his brother Michael.

‘There is no doubting that JJ Hackett is one of the more unusual farmers in the parish. He quotes Wordsworth while stoking the Stanley stove.[i] He has a pet crow who can recognise strangers. He is a fan of the philosopher Edmund Burke and he knows plenty about the Abbé Edgeworth from Longford who blessed King Louis XVI as he awaited his execution.[ii] He’s also written his own memoirs, ‘Days Gone By’, for which he is justly acclaimed across the county. His tales are thoughtful but upbeat and give considerable insight into the rough ride he’s had along the way.

‘ “I was born with a deformity,” he says. “My right hip was out and it’s still out. Nurse Brophy, the midwife, didn’t realise. There’s a poem about her. ‘Here comes Nurse Brophy on her new Raleigh bike, out by Mount Temple and home by the Pike’. I didn’t walk until I was seven years of age simply for the reason that I couldn’t walk.[iii] And to this day I do tire easily, especially walking behind a funeral. …

‘Calamity struck in early 1949, the very same dark winter’s night that his younger sister Margaret was born.

“We weren’t long home from school but a tree fell on top of me. It broke the collar-bone, the cranium and it done in the right knee. I was put in a wheelbarrow and taken to Mullingar Hospital, broken up. I never went back to school. I was in hospital for about a year and ten months and I couldn’t walk for about two years.” …

‘Daniel secured his son an apprenticeship as a harness maker with a saddlery and upholstery business in Moate.[xii] His co-workers were an unusual trio whom JJ refers to as “the three deaf mutes.” None of them could speak or hear. And one of them, John Casey from Limerick, was operating with a single eye. “He lost his left eye with a needle when he was making mattresses,” explains JJ. “That taught me to keep the face turned away when I made them. And yet he could turn a collar for a horse, a mule, a donkey or a jennet.”[xiii]

‘They were the elite of harness makers.” ’

For more text, some footnotes, and good photos, see Turtle Bunbury on Facebook. Or buy the book. I wish I had recorded James’s rich brogue. I can almost hear it in Turtle’s interview. Can you?