Across the Waves,
by T. Ryle Dwyer
(Mercier Press, €14.50)
It is clear who is the heroine in this story. It is Margaret Harrigan, a heroine taken straight from the life of the author’s own family. T. Ryle Dwyer is well known throughout the south-west as a journalist and historian. It is quite a saga.
Margaret was born in New York on October 6, 1918. Her father was Connie Harrigan, a first-generation American, and her mother was Mary Ryle who had emigrated to New York from Tralee, Co. Kerry, in 1911.
Margaret attended the local parochial school and later the public school. After a term at a Secretarial College she was employed as a telephonist at the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in New York. She and her colleagues overheard conversations and, according to the author, they were aware of not only the public lives, but also the private lives of the legendary figures in the political and entertainment worlds of the city.
Margaret met Johnny Dwyer, a lieutenant in the US army, for the first time in January 1939. It was a case of love at first sight. Margaret and Johnny were married in September 1942. It was a tiny ceremony consisting of just five persons: the couple, their witnesses, and an Army Catholic chaplain.
At first it seemed that Johnny and his 90th Division was to be shipped out to fight the Japanese in the East. Then this was suddenly changed, and he and his comrades were transported to England. The Division landed in Normandy in September 1944.
Over the next five months the couple conducted a prolific correspondence. Johnny described the hardships of living on the front line in the mid-winter cold. There were the dangerous night foot patrols when he and his platoon often came so close to the Germans that they could hear them talking to each other.
By the beginning of 1945 the Battle of the Bulge was over, and the Allies were victorious. General Patton told his troops they were now launching the final offensive. There would be no let-up until Germany surrendered unconditionally. Sadly, on January 31, 1945 Johnny and five other members of his platoon were killed as the 90th Division crossed the Our river into Germany.
Margaret was devastated by Johnny’s death. By American standards her war window’s pension did not amount to much. She had to go back to work.
A friend of Howard Hughes secured her a position as the senior reservations clerk for TWA at La Guardia Airport. Hughes had founded TWA. He was a brilliant aeroplane designer – also a very eccentric genius. He often commandeered a TWA plane to fly friends or associates to Hollywood or Europe leaving the airport staff to help out the stranded passengers.
She found it difficult to work for Hughes and, as much of what she earned was spent on those caring for her two young sons, Ryle and Seán, she stepped down from TWA.
Margaret and her sons migrated to Ireland in May 1948. They settled in Tralee. She enrolled her boys in the Christian Brothers School. The GI Bill of Rights later paid for them to attend universities in the US.
From the outset Margaret was an active member of the committee which organised the first ‘The Festival of Kerry’ in 1959. The plan for the initial festival was for five girls to be selected as contestants from cities abroad with Irish populations for the title ‘The Rose of Tralee’.
Margaret insisted that it was not to be merely a beauty contest, but that the judges should also take into account the personality, intelligence, skills, and achievements of the contestants. The festival developed and flourished, Margaret serving on the committee until the 1980s.
In the early 1980s when in her sixties Margaret took over the post of sales manager for the186-bedroomed Mount Brandon Hotel. The job involved her travelling to Bord Fáilte workshops in Ireland and the US. Tralee Urban Council made Margaret an honorary citizen in 1999. By then Tralee was a vibrant town and that she only wished that she was forty years younger. Margaret, one of those whose courage and perseverance went into making the Ireland we know, died on February 29, 2016.