Janey Mary

The 1940's in Dublin were some of the hardest the country's ever had to face with high unemployment and poverty. Allot of fathers and heads of the family had to go overseas to work in order to send money home and be able to feed their families. Such desperate times inspired well known Dublin author James Plunkett to write his famous short story called “Janey Mary”. It is the story about a fatherless barefoot girl from the impoverished Canning Cottages neighbourhood called Janey Mary who has been sent out by her mother onto the cold and wet winter streets to beg for food, with strict instructions to not return without bread. But bread is nowhere to be had and the world outside is frosty and harsh, in more ways than one. The only people who had bread were those who could make it themselves, or the various organisations of the Catholic Church who handed it out in rations to the poor.

A first paragraph reads:
“When Janey Mary turned the corner into Nicholas Street that morning, she leaned wearily against a shop-front to rest. Her small head was bowed and the hair which was so nondescript and unclean covered her face. Her small hands gripped one another for warmth across the faded bodice of her frock. Around the corner lay Canning Cottages with their tiny, frost-gleaming gardens, and gates that were noisy and freezing to touch.” In her desperate search for food she misses school and remembers that she's also going to miss her old friend Fr. Benedict, the Augustinian priest. Father Benedict would visit the school sometimes in order to ask questions in Catechism and give the children sweets. “He was a huge man who had more intuition than intellect, more genuine affection for children than for learning”. That is the way James Plunkett describes the Augustinian priest. During one of his visits Farther Benedict found Janey Mary sitting by herself at the back