At about 11 years old, she would go down in the field with her friends and smoke a cigarette. One cigarette would make them feel sick. All her sisters, except Sis, smoked. They'd get their backsides tanned if they were caught. A youngster about the same age as Nora, Nelly, pierced her ears for her. It was stylish. Nelly put the darning needle in a flame, then dipped it in a steralyzing solution, and pushed the needle through her ear into a cork and pulled it through. Nora's earrings kept coming out, and when her ears got swollen, she hid them from her mother with her hair. Nora went to the National School in Creggs (photo) till the eighth grade.

She went to Loreto Abbey, Rathfarnham (an all girls boarding school on the outskirts of Dublin) to finish high school. In 1916, while at Rathfarnham, during Easter week when the rebellion broke out, she saw the fires from the city (Dublin), rebels going through, and British soldiers passed their way searching the fields for rebels ("Naturally I was a rebel, but don't think I pulled any weight with them"). She graduated from Rathfarnham May 14, 1921 and at one point considered becoming a nun (Mother Teresa went to Loreto Abbey, Rathfarnham in 1928).

When Nora was about 17, she met Martin when he drove his uncle to visit her mother, Sarah. There was a family connection (Martin's grandmother, Anne Halligan 1809, was the sister of Sarah's grandmother, Sarah Halligan 1814).

Nora's favorite subject was math, and she went to the National University, Dublin in 1921 to study physics for one year. Irish was her least favorite subject. Dissecting a worm in college biology "made my skin creep". She would sometimes skip class to play field hockey. She played right forward in field hockey on the college team, and in Rathfarnham. She also played a women's version of hurling called camogue in Ireland.

Martin & Nora used to go "rambling" (visiting every evening). For example, they would walk down to Mrs. Finerty's and "herself and Martin, one on each side of the fire, would rake over pedigree like nobody's business". Martin would ride into Creggs on a motorbicycle. They often went out together with Nora¹s younger sister, May, and her boyfriend, Sonny Hughes (later married). The courtship of Martin & Nora lasted about two years in Ireland. They had planned to marry in the US at the same time as May and Sonny in Ireland.

(From an interview with Nora around 1990. Note: She didn't volunteer information, but answered my questions.)

The IRA was fighting for the separation of Ireland from England. It was British rule in Ireland, so they were subversives. They wanted Ireland for the Irish, to be ruled by Ireland, not England. It should be a free independent country. It was taken over by England. England invaded Ireland for centuries and the Irish were never satisfied with that arrangement, so the IRA was an underground army. The Irish weren't allowed any liberties. They couldn't partake in the government. They were driven from their lands, their lands were taken over. A lot of them lived on the roadside. The houses were searched at night by British soldiers through the countryside. Soldiers walked through our house when my father was sick in bed.

Martin was with the underground, originally the IRB, which later became the IRA. The IRA was illegal when Pop was in it (an underground anti-British society). He was an officer in the IRA (1915-1922). Bill Hicky called him "Sergeant Major" because of his involvement with the Irish Army (1922-1924).

After the treaty with England, the party split up. Some were in favor of the arrangement and others wanted to reject it, so then there was a split in the IRA. When the split came, Pop quit the service because he'd be fighting against friends. It was sort of brother against brother for a while there. Some wanted to save the free state and some wanted to free Ireland. He'd rather have it free, but if he stayed on with the service, it'd be an outlaw branch.

Nora traveled to the US in 1926 on a German "small cockleshell of a boat" called the Thoringa (later sunk in WW2). The trip was supposed to take 7 days but it was rough and stormy all the way, so it took 11 days crossing. The boat first stopped in Boston (at which point she felt homesick-there was something final about it). The final stop was the New York harbor. She anticipated that Fifth Avenue would be "something fantastic altogether" because of a song about Fifth Avenue being paved with gold. She arrived first in the old section on lower Fifth Avenue, and it stank. "God almighty, this is Fifth Avenue? I could have cried when I saw a pair of man's pants flapping on a clothes line". She was impressed by the activity and flashing lights on Upper Fifth Avenue (in contrast to Creggs, where one could count the cars that came by in a week). She did not have any friends in the US, but had a friend from Ireland (Peg Murray, about her age) in Jersey City, who claimed her (she stayed with Peg in 1926). (She may have stayed at 20 Oak Lane, Scarsdale, NY).

Nora, Martin, & Tom

Her first son was named after Martin's father. When Tom was a year old, she (pregnant with Marty) traveled to Ireland with Tom while Martin stayed in New York and worked (economic reasons). She took another trip when Tom was five with Marty and John (6 months) and Tom went to first grade at the Village National School in Creggs for 5 months. Tom remembered "Tatters" (german shepherd) and "Prince" (Irish Setter) . They returned on the Laconia ship, Cunard steamshipline, to a house full of clocks (Martin acquired 6 new clocks).