Growing up, Mairead and her siblings received the Perfect Attendance Award in school every year.
“We never missed a day at school. Would you believe that? Never.”
Mairead’s punctuality and work ethic were instilled by her father. William Delaney served in the Irish army for two years and then worked as a postman until his retirement. Throughout his long career, he never took a single day off. He expected the same level of discipline of his children. The first and only time Mairead pleaded to stay home from school one morning, her father declined. He warned, “whatever they learn today, if you aren’t there, you will never know, because they don’t back up for anyone. They keep going. So now you’ve missed something really special that you might have done. Maybe you’d have missed nothing, but you don’t know that.” This notion of falling behind shaped the way Mairead viewed education and work.
Aside from his uncompromising views regarding grade school attendance, William was kindhearted and easygoing. Mairead calls him the “nicest father in the world.” Lilly paid Mairead and her sisters weekly for completing household chores: Mairead was responsible for cleaning the carpets, Claire covered the kitchen, and Eilish tidied the bedrooms. The girls typically used their allowances at the local candy shop, but Mairead sometimes saved up her pay for a few weeks to buy something more substantial, like a sweater. William snuck the girls pay in addition to that from their mother. “We didn’t have to do anything for his pay, though. That was the nicest part of it.”
Beyond his generosity within his family, William was known for his kind disposition around the neighborhood. It was as if he were magnetic. The other men who lived on the street flocked to him as he walked home from work, practically tripping over themselves to offer to carry his bag. “They all wanted to be his friend,” my grandmother recalls, “he was just a lovely man, you know?” In Mairead’s mind, William idealized the roles of husband and father.
At the age of thirteen, Mairead left school to begin working full-time at Rowntree’s chocolate factory in Dublin. Entering the workforce in one’s early teens was common in Ireland at the time, lower-class families often in need of an additional source of income.
No longer in school, Mairead received a real-world education. “Whatever I learned, I just learned on the street or through common sense, really.”
To learn one must be humble. But life is the great teacher.
–James Joyce, Ulysses
Though stamping designs onto chocolate truffles for hours a day may sound tedious, my grandmother painted a lively picture of her days at Rowntree’s. “It was fun. We had great laughs. We would break into song and it was grand.”
She continued to exhibit the hardworking spirit passed down from her father. “Even when I worked, I never missed a day. And I was never late.”
Mairead also learned the importance of acting respectfully as an employee. As her coworkers bickered with their foreman, she kept quiet and watched. “That’s how people like you. You don’t stick your neck out when they’re the employer.” This obedience seemingly worked in Mairead’s favor. She kept her job at Rowntree’s throughout her teenage years.
Outside of the chocolate production line, Mairead ran a sort of at-home factory. Mairead used the family’s old Singer sewing machine to make clothing for herself and her sisters. Her favorite garments to sew were miniskirts; “they were all the fashion,” she recalls. Despite Lilly’s motherly objections to the scandalous clothing trend, Mairead and her sisters often wore the skirts out to town.
Though the miniskirt is a far cry from my grandmother’s attire today, her interest in fashion remains apparent. Her striking trench coats and vibrant lipstick are consistent and glamorous parts of her everyday look.
Fashion…reflects what is really in the air. It reflects what people are reading and thinking and listening to, and architecture, painting, attitudes to success and to society.
– Mary Quant, British fashion designer and pioneer of the miniskirt, 1966
As a teenager, Mairead enjoyed going dancing with her sisters and friends. Dublin’s youth gathered at the city’s various dance halls, where live bands covered popular songs. “The music was all rock and roll.” John Denver was Mairead’s favorite, and her sister Claire was an Elvis fan. In fact, Claire eventually married Jim Nolan, who, according to my grandmother, was the spitting image of Elvis.
It was during one of her nights out at a dance hall that Mairead met Peter Morris.
In the Ireland of 1950s and 60s, our love stories began in the marvelous dance halls. These were wonderful places – full of hopes and dreams, full of music and song, full of youth and vitality, noise and energy.
–Jean Farrell, “The romance of Ireland’s dance halls in the 1950s and 1960s”