Christmas leftovers were uncomfortable in my stomach. Donning a brown wool coat, I decided to take the three-mile walk into the country to visit a family that always had a welcome and a bit of fun to offer. Maybe Willie Farrell would be there, and the little kitchen filled with Gaelic music, lilting, tapping feet and turf smoke.

“See that you’re home before dark, young lady,” were my mother’s parting words before I went out the door.

In 1938, Ballygawley was typical of Northern Ireland’s small towns, without cinema, playgrounds or dance hall, the only restaurant being a fish and chip booth set up by an enterprising family every Saturday night near the courthouse. The day after Christmas was crisp and sunny. Small curls of frozen snow hugged the edges of the cobbled pavements and loose pebbles. The village was silent, the street as empty as Sunday after church.

I walked up the steep hill that was Main Street, its shops and pubs shuttered, past the water pump at the corner where the old courthouse separated Main Street from Church Street, that long straight row of squat whitewashed houses with their half-doors painted every shade of green, red, and yellow. It was on these half-doors that the women leaned, cross-armed, during weekdays, gossiping or watching the children play in the open drains that ran a few yards from the doorsteps. The water from the weekly laundry, bath and daily dishes was emptied down these drains, there being no indoor plumbing in the houses of Church Street.

Near the end of Church Street was the house of the parish priest, with green railings around it and shiny brass knocker and letter box on the door. Next to this was Orange Hall, with its red, white, and blue painted flagpole and the Union Jack flying aloft. A patch of scrubland opposite these two buildings was known as Ball Alley. This was the playing field of cats, dogs, chickens, and the children of Church Street.

I passed by the three churches that represented the three denominations of the area, their graveyards bright with fresh flowers and holly wreaths, the stained-glass windows brilliant in the afternoon sun. The last building along the way was the little two-roomed schoolhouse, where I froze in winter and roasted in summer and loved always. A few donkeys in a nearby field, and a bull with a ring in its nose in Yankee Patterson’s meadow were the last signs of life along the way.

When I reached my destination, the woman of the house was in the byre, settling straw for the cow, which was still in the field at the side of the little white thatched house. She waved a fistful of straw at me, grinning, as I paused at the door.

“A happy Christmas to ye! Go on in,” she called.

“And a happy Christmas to you, too,” I replied, and headed for the kitchen door a few feet away.

The five children were around the kitchen table, a long plank scrubbed white, playing a game of Old Maid with cards Santa Claus had given the family at the Parish Orphans’ Party two days before. They were eight-year-old Patrick, the eldest, and Sean, Bridie, Molly, and three-year-old Tilly, the baby.

I squeezed in beside Tilly on the bench and joined in the game, while we exchanged news about Christmas, what we’d eaten, who’d visited, Christmas presents, and how drunk old Patrick, the postman, had been on the last lap of his ten-mile Christmas Day postal delivery. He’d fallen off his bicycle right outside McCrory’s public house and never did finish his rounds.

We thought it right smart of Postman Patrick to fall in such a hospitable spot. We laughed about this and other similar stories, but not before we’d admired each other’s new hand-knitted jerseys. The jerseys were a Christmas tradition and a source of great pride in every household. Many of the jerseys were multi-coloured and of various types of yarn, having been knitted from odd scraps of wool collected over the year, and often from old but cherished garments darned beyond further repair, which mothers unravelled, washed carefully, hung on lines to dry, and then wound into balls ready for another spree of knitting and new patterns.

We’d been playing for about an hour, when Mrs. Tierney came bustling in from the byre, drying her hands and wiping her forehead on the flour bag apron which she’d tied with a rope around her waist, and started making tea.

They had had goose for Christmas dinner. Mrs. Tierney always reared a goose for this occasion, and today was the best part, for today was goose-grease day, when the brown-streaked greyish stuff was thickly spread on slices of soda bread fresh from the griddle and crisped in the black iron pot over the open turf fire, a good sprinkling of coarse salt on it.

“Ye’ll stay, will we not?”

This wasn’t a question but a statement, for nobody in her right mind would pass up an opportunity of sharing this feast, this last of the season gluttony. As I savoured my first mouthful, the hot grease dribbling down my chin, the children kept their eyes on my face.

“Is it all right?” asked Dolly in a slurred whisper, glancing around the table then back at me.

“Great,” I said, my mouth full. “Why do you ask? What’s the matter with you, anyway?” I thought they might be playing some kind of joke on me.

Dolly and Sean whispered briefly to each other, then Dolly said, “We’d best tell ye. Ye see, me mammy forgot to put onions in the stuffing, and we thought you’d notice. Me mammy doesn’t know we noticed. We didn’t want to cut her.”

After tea, and just before I started out for home because darkness was creeping down, I stopped by the byre. Mrs. Tierney was crouched beside Daisy, her head resting against the cow’s side, the milk bucket clamped between her knees. Milk squirted against the tin with a thready swish.

“I just wanted to say good night and thank you again for the tea,” I said, pretending not to notice the tears I saw on her face.

“Don’t come close, child,” she said without lifting her head. “Daisy’s in bad fettle and might kick ye.” She paused for a moment, then sobbed, “And I didn’t forget to put onions in the stuffing. I just didn’t have any, ye see, nor a penny to buy one.”

“But it was delicious, everything was just great.” I added quickly, “As good as with onions.”

Mrs. Tierney threw back her head and laughed, startling old Daisy and upsetting milk all over her black stockings and canvas shoes. “Well, now, and she was a fine goose to be sure, and only an old fool like meself would be cryin’ for want of an onion.”