The First Turkey

This is a story told to me by my mother, about her mother, from a time before she was born. Granny Begley was only mammy Begley back in those days but I can never bring myself to call her anything other than Granny Begley, it would be too weird in my head.

This takes place in the late 1930's, Granny Begley was married a few years at that stage but already had three small boys out of a family that would eventually encompass a full nine brothers and sisters. Granddad Begley had just began working for Captain Raskin as a farm hand. Working as a farm worker was not a well paid job and with a growing family, existence for the Begleys was hand to mouth. The few coins in Granny Begley's purse never went far but Christmas week highlighted just how little they had.

The Begley family had three forms of transport, Granddad Begley had a bike, weighing as much as a small car and made from the indestructible metal that comets are made of. The second was shanks mare, or walking to you and me. The final mode of perambulation was Neddy and his little cart.

Neddy was the family donkey, who once secured between the tines of the cart, could move heaven and earth, if he felt in the mood. On the day of the dreaded Christmas shop, Granny Begley hitched up Neddy, with the three kids loaded aboard, she struck out for the town. She had a week's wages in her purse which didn't amount to a hill of beans. Christmas dinner would be sparse. Granny Begley hoped she could stretch to a broiler hen for roasting on the most holy of days.

As they clip-clopped the five miles to town Granny Begley drifted off into a world of her own and failed to hear the flat bed truck rumbling up behind the cart. It over took them on a bend, wobbling dangerously on its hard rubber wheels. The back of the truck was stacked high with wooden crates, each stuffed with a huge gobbling turkey. The driver shook a fist out the window as he raced away at the break neck speed of 30 miles an hour.

Neddy bucked and skidded between the tines of the cart. Granny was too much of a lady to say anything bad about the driver of the truck, but she went very red. She got Neddy steadied and it was a minute or two before they were ready to continue on their way. Three bends later that they came across a smashed timber crate in the middle of the road.

"Woah," called Granny hauling back on Neddy's reins.

"Would you look at that lads," said Granny to my tiny uncles hunkered down in the back of the cart. "I wonder where the turkey got ta?"

As if in answer to her question the turkey gave a loud gobble from the field next to the road. He was wandering around clearly dazed from his confinement, as well as having just survived one of Ireland's first car accidents.

"Come on boys, don't let him get away," called Granny Begley bounding over the dyke, into the sodden field followed by three very excited little boys. So began the great Christmas rodeo. They chased in circles but the outcome was never in doubt. A turkey never lived that could outrun a hungry Irish man. Once the gobbling tearaway was apprehended, Granny Begley wrapped it in her shawl so he couldnt fly again. The Begley clan raced back to Neddy who was nibbling at the grass growing in the middle of the road. Granny dropped the turkey in the back of the cart instructing the three boys to hold on to it. They had their work cut out as the turkey out-weighed the oldest boy by a couple of pounds. Granny turned the cart for home spurring Neddy into a gangly trot.


This is the story of how the Begley family came to have a huge glistening turkey steaming on the dinner table that Christmas day for the very first time. Everyone dove in to their dinner except Granny Begley who could only look at her plate, downcast and worried.

"Why are you not eating Mammy," asked Granddad Begley.

"I can't touch it, tis a sin," Granny mumbled to her husband.

"Whisht woman, eat your dinner," he said with a laugh.

Granny picked but got no satisfaction from it, neither did sleep come that evening. Nothing would do her but to be waiting at the gate the next morning when the priest came to open the church.

"Morning Mrs Begley," said the priest when he arrived.

"Father, I think I've done something terrible. I need to make a confession,"said Granny Begley
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"Just give me two minutes Mrs Begley, I will be right with you," said the priest walking through the church turning on the lights. Ten minutes later Granny Begley found herself in a confessional shaking in her boots. The shutter slid back, "Bless me father for I have sinned it has been three weeks since my last confession" said Granny Begley.

"Tell me your sins, my child," said the priest from behind the grill.

"I have taken what is not mine father and defiled the most holy of days with my treachery," Granny said.

"What do you mean Mrs Be - my child," said the priest.

"I found a turkey on the road father, I killed it and feed it to my family when it was not mine in the first place," said Granny knowing this was a damnation offence. She was taken aback by the laughing from the far side of the grill.

"Mary, it's God's will that you found that turkey before a hungry fox. He works in ways that none can understand and if he intended you to find the bird, that is what he made happen. Leave here with a clear conscience, enjoy what God has delivered to you."

Despite this reassurance, from this day to the end of her time, Granny Begley could never eat turkey.