It’s hard not to have ‘water on the brain’ these days after months of heavy rain which we thought would never stop.
Ballina residents, and indeed anyone who drives through the village, will most probably also have had their fill of water when subjected to the roadworks and delays as a result of water pipe upgrading by Shareridge Pipe Replacement Specialists.
Stuck at roadworks at the bottom of Grange Road one day my thoughts wandered to the locals of our village in the days before a piped water supply, when the main source of water for the home was collected from the village pump or fountain. This was a famous landmark and meeting place in past times, where people came and sat on the fountain stone and gossip was traded. The Fountain stone is now long gone but the fountain sits in it’s original spot just down from Ballina Primary School beside the old Parish Hall.
Towards the turn of the century, an RIC man, Sergeant Kiely, who was stationed in Ballina, wrote many poems relating to the village and once such poem was “The Fountain Stone” which was written in July 1895 and published in the Nenagh Guardian and it is well worth taking the time to read:
The shadows of night were falling
The sun to his bed had flown
As Mary came with the bucket
And sat on the Fountain Stone;
Biddy and Kit sat beside her
And old Sally joined them too
And Norry who asked the others –
“Is anything strange or new?”
And of course there was and plenty
Of that news that swiftly flies
The old little village scandals
Gosther, and gossip and lies;
And the female court sat busy
With those tongues that never halt
While threshing their absent neighbour
Who may or might be at fault.
“Oh gracious goodness” says Mary
“One half of this world doesn’t know
How half of this world are living
And sure ‘twill be always so”;
‘Tis frightful how times are getting
What is it men now won’t do?
And we aren’t worse they tell me
Than they are in Killaloe”.
And many an urchin listened
Who ought have a better school
With his shoeless toes inserted
In the dribbling fountains pool;
His Reverence passed; all nodded
And spoke in a pious tone
And if ‘twas charity only
And love at the Fountain Stone.
But still the school was continued
Though the bucket bubbled o’er
And never a tongue was blistered
And never an ear got sore.
While many a tune was lilted
When the younger folks had met
And many a fool was jilted
While dancing the new half set.
But if you ask Kate the reason
Why she’s been lingering so
She’ll say “It’s the fountains dribble
That always is weak and slow”
But never a word she’ll tell you
Of the sweethearts she had known
Or the promises made and broken
Around the old Fountain Stone.
Ireland can’t boast of another
Be it fountain, well or spa
That is such a matchless treasure
As our one in Ballina.
Of Trinity we’d make a fool
And Oxford couldn’t hold candles
To light the old Fountain School!!
Home Rule is our simplest problem
The Lords and Commons we’d square
To know who’ll grant the next land bill
And who’ll be the members for Clare;
Leinster may boast of old Tara
Limerick may claim Garryowen
Here’s for our own court of knowledge
And for the old Fountain Stone.
By Arlene White, April 2018
Source: Ballina/Boher Parish: Our History and Traditions by Kevin M. Griffin & Kevin A. Griffin
Killaloe-Ballina