Bridie Landers in her period costume.
When John Huston set out to film “Moby Dick” in 1954, he found that New Bedford, Massachusetts, no longer resembled the whaling community Herman Melville so vividly described.
Searching for a more suitable location, he chose Youghal in County Cork.
Youghal was certainly no stranger to visitors. Beacons of light, flamed by nuns from St. Ann’s Convent, safely guided Norse traders and, by mischance, sea-pirates into the port during the 9th century. Oliver Cromwell, fresh from massacres in Drogheda and Wexford, wintered in Youghal in 1649, turning the town’s Catholic church into a horse stable.
Sir Walter Raleigh became mayor of Youghal in 1588-89. At his residence in Myrtle Grove, he reputedly lit the first pipe of tobacco in Europe. His country maid, believing His Lordship was going up in smoke, doused him thoroughly with a bucket of cold water. George the Third built a four-story Clock Tower in 1776 to house local offenders of the Penal Laws. By 1785, it was so crowded, the jail keeper had to move out.
But for a few glorious weeks in the summer of 1954, the 5,000 residents of Youghal forgot their beleaguered past with foreigners, and opened their doors to such movie stars as Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Noel Purcell and Orson Welles, who filled the shops, pubs and a multitude of rooms at the Adelphi Hotel. Paddy Linehan’s pub hit a gusher that July, going from six to 32 barrels of stout sold a week.
In 1994, I had the pleasure of meeting Bridie Landers, a native of Youghal who was chosen as one of the many extras for the movie.
Bridie Landers at Arrowhead, Pittsfield, MA, 1994. (Kevin O'Hara)
“It was like heaven on earth,” said the animated 84-year-old at the time, taking out a scrapbook and pointing to a picture of herself in a brown bonnet and period costume. “We thought we were on the pig’s back with the splash of money that came into town. I was paid 12 shillings sixpence a day for two days. Fair money. But, sure, all good things come to an end.
“Wasn’t it grand all the same,” she continued, her face animated in a flush of freckles. “The movie people covered the shopfronts with old clapboard, outfitted ourselves in shawls and dresses, and lined the quay with oaken barrels. Then there were sailor’s sea-shanties in the pubs, lovely songs, they were, and the unfurling of sails on the tall ships. I even managed to touch Gregory Peck’s wooden leg,” she devilishly added.
“But you could hardly call what I did to be acting,” she went on. “Like the other women, I had to pretend I was waving farewell to my husband, off on a three-year whaling voyage. So there I stood on the quay, waving with the rest of them, but not really waving to anybody at all, for I was already a widow these many years.”
Bridie Landers in her period costume.
In 1933, Bridie had married Dan Landers, a wounded veteran home from France following the First World War, one of 300,000 Irishmen who fought for Britain in hopes of being granted their own country’s independence after the war. Though shrapnel had been removed from his thigh, “a goodly amount remained,” said Bridie, “which poisoned his system and left him unable to work.”
Shortly before the outbreak of World War Two, the Landers received an eviction notice on their home at Sarsfield Terrace. Despondent, Bridie decided to save their home by seeking work in England, thus leaving Dan behind with their two children, Catherine, 6, and Donald, 4. For 10 years, Bridie worked in an ammunition factory outside Reading, relieved by only a few short visits home during that stretch.
At the war’s conclusion, the factory began to manufacture ballpoint pens. “Our pens were the first ballpoints in the world,” she shared proudly. “In fact, General Montgomery signed important war documents with the first of them.”
Sadly, three weeks after Bridie’s triumphant return to Youghal after rescuing their home, Dan Landers died of lead poisoning.
Bridie and her son, Donald, emigrated to my hometown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1958, after she had answered an ad in the Irish Independent to become a housekeeper at a local Catholic church. Her daughter, Catherine, remained in Youghal with her family in the house that Bridie had saved.
Shortly after I had met Bridie, I took her to Arrowhead in Pittsfield, the farmhouse where Herman Melville had penned his world classic in 1851. But Bridie’s only comments that day were about the large open hearth, the well-scrubbed wooden floors, and the kitchen utensils.
“Those big pots are like the ones my mother used to bake her currant cakes.”
The next evening, Bridie and I visited Nora Aherne, also a native of Youghal, to watch the video of “Moby Dick.” Bridie had only seen the movie once before at our downtown theatre, “where I passed out after seeing myself on the big screen.”
Fifteen minutes into the movie, we came upon Bridie’s quayside scene. Being the in-house projectionist, I replayed the segment several times, as Bridie and Nora tried to put names on the bonneted faces on the TV screen.
“Why, that’s Bessie Coakley behind me,” gasped Bridie. “And isn’t that Paddy Cooney’s wife? And look at the poor dear with the whiskers, a lovely little lady from Cork Hill. They were so fond of her. Oh, what was her name, a tall? And who is that Nora? Is it Josie Nunn? And look, will you, at Mary Hennessey!”
“Isn’t it strange how Bridie and I both emigrated from Youghal to Pittsfield,” added Nora, “and neither of us had a clue that 'Moby Dick' was written here.”
They sat back on the sofa and quietly watched as the Pequod sailed out from Youghal Bay. But it could well have been themselves on Pequod’s quarterdeck, looking back upon the dark-dressed women, the market square, the gray steeples, and the grassy headlands that surrounded their native home.
“Wasn’t it grand to be part of it, after all,” said Bridie, breaking her long silence. “Imagine me waving to the whole wide world from our little quay in Youghal.”
*Kevin O’Hara is the author of “Last of the Donkey Pilgrims: A Man’s Journey through Ireland.” Visit his website at TheDonkeyman.com