Julia Cassidy
An Irish brogue, she had, developed in the south, county Kerry. My great grandmother was petite,
with blonde curls, blue-eyed. Julia had a strong will that offset her diminutive beauty and her
youth.
She'd turned her face south sailing hundreds of miles from her marital base: County
Cork. A 'slip of a girl', beside her a short broth of a man, husband John Cassidy. He had several
strings to his bow; literally, as he was a farmer, a breeder of strong horses, a cabinetmaker and
stonemason. All his artisan and practical skills would effectively establish their family in the
colony, New Zealand.
Julia was a seamstress, a player of the piano accordion, accompanied by (on fiddle), John,.
Both had a spirit of adventure and faith. John had a good eye for a lovely woman and a good
mare. He expected cousin Hugh Cassidy to follow him south, as others of their family
had taken ship for America.
John and Julia had left behind a 'sea of troubles' and had saved and been gifted from their
family, to sail cabin class after 1848.
They intended having a plot of land to make their home.
The Wakefield scheme netted many immigrants and the Cassidy’s had cannily bought
in South Canterbury through contacts. They landed in Dunedin. Undeterred, they bought a cart and
quickly set forth to Kerrrytown close to Ngai Tahu Pah Arowhenua, near Temuka, it was a
settlement that included catholic and protestant emigres from Ireland. Notable were the Connolly’s,
Scannell’s, O'Driscolls and now Cassidy’s. John, after settling his family, was often absent from his
hearth, travelling as a stonemason erecting churches irrespective of faith. He didn't
discriminate on doctrine anymore than his chisels did. He sculpted stone with mind
hands and sinews, using grewacke, or limestone or quartz for the graceful St
Mary's or the baroqu Basilica in Timaru. He travelled further afield to purchase
breeding mares.
Another chapter in their lives opened in the 1860s with cousin Hugh. Tall, bearded
and canny, he had an interest in farriers. He bought into Cobb and Company
(owning those essential postal and people services from
the early 1880s to his death in 1925). John provided the sturdy steeds.
My grandmother Julia Anne filled in some gaps. She graphically
retold stories of travelling with her mother on those very coach runs, watching horses'tails flicking.
Coaches and horses doughtily persevered over untamed, rutted tracks, forging forward, up and over,
above the ghastly gorges, stopping at wayside taverns to refresh selves and steeds, before going on
to the goldfields of the really wild West Coast.
There she described spying men of all races, in leather aprons and big hats, with
shovels and pans, wading rivers, tossing up gravel and sluicing. Immigrant communities
included Chinese miners, strange languages, foul curses; men punching each other and her mother
and uncle hushing her and quickly moving on.
She related also, a secret journey south, to farewell 'Uncle' Peter, who
was a stock man in Otago managing cattle beasts for a beef 'rancher'... but who was
departing for Melbourne, Australia.
Peter, it was told quietly to me, was justified in his 'rustling' for he was not satisfied with the
wages of a poor, unappreciated stock man. He went with his beasts - embarking with them,
setting up in Australia on his own account with his new herd... around Melbourne, 'over the ditch.'
I learned, Julia was a woman of strong abilities and passions.
Julia read and wrote, cultivated a garden, sewed and played music; was wife, mother, helpmeet and
community counsellor. People came to her for hurts to be healed, teacups to be read; the latter
a tradition my grandmother continued. Finding one's way depended on heart, a knowledge of your
roots, your heritage, feeling connected, really deep in your soul, I think.
What really is surprising here, is that so many of our families intersected. We know
about this complexity now, (by sophisticated research tools) but initially only through originally
listening at grandmother's knees, or reading notes in immense, leather-bound, gold-clasped,
family bibles, or through journals, old photographs...if we are lucky.
Julia Anne filled in the tapestry of Julia's brave, extraordinary life. I heard it related when
she (my nana) was doing something as everyday and mundane as darning socks, on a wooden
mushroom-shaped spool; painted on top with flowers.
She would wear a silver thimble with thistledown patterns; an heirloom
brought over with the Albert China teacups: rose-patterned, gilt-edged.
She taught me how to turn collars on shirts. Obsolescence seems to have been built in, in our
twenty-first century world, as throw away as political policies.
And that's where things got especially interesting.
New immigrants from Ireland were revolutionary in thought. They were Celts. Not for them to
anymore be 'slave' to a feudal system, or to remain under British rule ...yes the colony
was 'British' but they were distinctively, determinedly, Irish.
There's a great, yawning gulf there.
They made friends of neighbours, with sing songs, went riding to hunt, but no foxes were
imported.
There's an 'apocryphal' tale of a captain bringing six hapless gold foxes from Britain. But
before they could be disembarked at Timaru, friends of great grandfather got wind
of it, sometime in the 1860s. Going aboard they shot the feral creatures,as bunnies were already
proving a problem, alongside weasels, stoats, deer and goats.
Native species, formerly an abundant food source - mahinga kai,for Maori and Pakeha, were
dwindling.
I wear a foxtail on a coat: that tail's over 150 years old, certainly it was a gift from my grandmother
born in the 1880s.
What I know of my great grandmother, is through my grandmother, who was in awe of her mother
Politics. Beliefs.
An important belief was self sufficiency for Julia, who was definitely resourceful. The farmstead
and stables at Kerrytown had almost all they required for self-sufficiency and was growing apace
with the animals and expanding family. It was early 1880s and
my grandmother was a toddler, named, Julia Anne.
What she remembers one day is hearing her father ride off fast after a very tense discussion with
neighbours at the farm table the night before. Lamps burning into the wee hours.
The farm's artesian well was daily familiar to my grandmother. An essential on a well-stocked
farm. Yet a forbidden area, situated near to the barn and stables.
Its top was covered with wooden slats firmly fixed and a heavy surround of stones too high for a
small person to ascend. She, as a toddler, was forbidden to go beyond the hedge that was a barrier
by the swaying macrocarpas, early filled with carolling magpies, near the hen house.
On the morning after her parents' and neighbours' discussions she heard the familiar tones of a
Maori waiata. Singing so soulfully, she saw, was an Arowhenua wahine from whom they bought
smoked eels.
The kuia was driving a horse and cart with what looked like potato bags, lumpy, set on the back.
Grandmother peeked out, saw her mother greet the woman nose to nose, a hongi, breath to breath
and usher her in for tea.
Julia Anne was bidden to go fetch her pillow. She did and settled for a sleep on the couch by the
hearth, the breath of Bane the Collie sheepdog, panting in her ears. She snuggled into the hassock,
listening to the women's voices. More singing came filtering through and she nodded off. When she
woke the sound was of her mother humming in the kitchen area, the smell of griddle scones fresh
baking drew her in. Julia Anne went through. There was something different. What?
Scones were indeed being made, griddle scones as her mother termed them; honey was being taken
down from the shelf above the iron stove, by her mother, for drizzling over them as they browned
in the pan on the iron griddle. The waft of food made her tummy rumble and she went and hugged
her mother's knees, noticing how bright everything looked. Then, she realised... the lovely linen
curtains, her mother's pride were gone. The windows were bare. Her mother saw her look of
amazement then her trembling lip.
"It's all right my lovely" she said, "when Da gets back we'll put up new ones." In the meantime think how
you'll see the stars when having tea and we can tell tales of the moon as she blesses us with her light."
Irish settlers spread throughout the islands and knew of the land and Maori 'troubles' to which they
related as driven from their land by the English.
There had been news about the Parihaka peace movement, which began as a dignified resistance
led by Te Ati Awa chiefs. The Irish celebrated what they'd read of the resistance to British rule, then
were horrified by the killing, the arrests, the news the prisoners were to be transported south.
It was that news that had seen the Irish gathering (differences of religion irrelevant, drawn
together in resistance to tyranny) at the Cassidy home.
One Maori being transported from Parihaka, had escaped. A chain of Maori and Irish helped,
people drawn together in common cause. The warrior was safely down, hidden inside the Cassidy
well, helped there, away from pursuit, by Julia and her linen curtains.
There a safe haven on an Irish part of a new country's soil, he was to find refuge and make his way
safely back to his whānau. An Irish catholic woman had saved a man whom she did not know, a
man of peace, her brother in resistance to the English.
I was eleven when I learned of my heritage - which was that of women who acted as
their spirit moved them. My heroines, my fore mothers.
Since at school we had been taught from English textbooks my perspective was altered somewhat.
After school I'd cycle home via my grandmother Julia Anne's home, refuge, a place of
peace, where I sat at my grandmother's side, read, discussed. A place of security where there were
griddle scones for afternoon tea, a reward after I'd chopped kindling and set the fires. We would talk
about wide-ranging topics. I spoke of the Parihaka peace movement, which the teachers had
explained as men pulling up stakes and ploughing fields to prove it was their land. My grandmother
told me then, softly and proudly of my great grandmother's courage.
I felt it was a taonga entrusted to me by her proud daughter, Julia Anne. My heritage became acting,
an integral part of that movement, one of women of every age, trying to change the world, to effect
peaceful outcomes by passive resistance. I am glad of my Irish heritage from Julia Cassidy.
Her Korowai taonga (gifted by Te Ati Awa) linen-enfolded, was treasured by her daughter.