When a man came to buy The McMahon you left him alone. He would take maybe a half-hour at it. The thing I noticed was that the one he would not like at all would be the first choice of the next man. And he would always claim, would the buyer, that The McMahons of that era were not a patch on the stuff that the firm was turning out even a few years ago. But, in the end, he would buy and he would usually borrow two pieces of twine to tie the McMahon to the crossbar of the bicycle to bring it home.
Men drive home new cars nowadays with the same solemnity in their bearing.
It was reminded of The McMahons and the men who used them this morning when I read a splendid article in the Bord Failte magazine, Ireland of the Welcomes, about the Patterson Spade in Antrim. That great company's Spade Mill is still open and attracts thousands of visitors every summer. It is the last of the spade mills which, I learn, produced nearly 180 different styles of Irish spade in those heydays of the Thirties and Forties. Including our McMahon. And, one last thing, I am indebted to the author of the article, Leslie Gilmore, for a nugget of old lore.