AS one of a family of 15 children, growing up in the late 50s and early 60s, belonging to such a large brood was nothing out of the ordinary in the small Co Londonderry community where he was from, according to Maghera man Sean Henry.
“Big families were very common in those days, we didn’t pass any remarks on it,” says the 58-year-old, who is Magherafelt District Council’s good relations officer.
“There were other big families in the area - the McPeakes, the McGarveys, the McGurks, the Dougans, the Scullions - they were all in the teens.”
Reared at his parents’ farm. ‘Curdian’, in the townland of Dreenan, about six miles outside Maghera, Sean has six sisters and seven brothers, and a whopping 35 nieces and nephews.
“My father was Harry Joseph Henry and my mother was Bridget McErlean,” says Sean, adding that his parents passed away in 1997 and 2000, at the ages of 86 and 75, respectively.
“They got married on November 23, 1949. Baby number one came along in September 1950 - Mary, who is now 61.”
Less than a year later, on August 21, 1951, the second Henry girl arrived - Eileen. Almost exactly a year after that, Harry and Bridget had a third daughter, Martha, and the following year, on September 18, 1953, their first son Sean was born.
But their family was by no means finished. For the next 12 years, the couple went on to have roughly one child a year, resulting in the subsequent births of Henry Hugh, Seamus, twins Terence and Anne, Feargal, Eugene, Briege, Roisin, Gerard, Kevin, and finally, the youngest of the bunch, Liam, who is now 46.
“We were brought up on a farm and my father was continually buying land and reclaiming it as they talked about,” says Sean, when I ask how his parents coped with having so many hungry mouths to feed.
“He would buy mossy ground - back then in the 60s and even into the 70s, there were good grants from the Department of Agriculture for reclaiming that ground, so he made the farm bigger by doing that.
“We came from a very mixed farm, as most farms were back then - there would have been dairy cows, pigs, hens, potatoes, corn, there was a bit of everything really, and he had plenty of helpers. When we were growing up we would have been up early in the morning before we went to school, helping to feed the pigs and milk the cows.”
And not only were Sean and his siblings expected to be industrious at home, but their mother also refused to let them off lightly when it came to their schoolwork.
“My mother was very interested in our education, we didn’t get leaving school at 15 or 16, we had to stay,” he said, adding that they were all expected to complete their A levels and go on to university.
“Mummy was really good at school herself, but when she was 14, her mother died and she had to leave school and look after the five younger ones.”
Sean remembers how every Saturday, Bridget would spend what seemed like the entire day washing their clothes with her “old twin tub washing machine”, so that the school uniforms would all be ready for the following Monday.
“She was very, very busy, but she was very strong mentally and she could do it - there was no such thing as a problem, there was always a solution,” he says, adding that her sister Martha, after leaving school, came and lived with the Henry clan, and “helped mammy and daddy to rear us, and we are very grateful to her.”
Summer holidays and special occasions were jam-packed with fun for the 15 brothers and sisters, and their parents were instrumental in making sure they were memorable.
Sean particularly recalls one extra special Christmas morning.
“We were playing with our toys. We wouldn’t have got a lot but we were so easily pleased back then because nobody got much.
“My father had been out milking and he came into the kitchen with two blown up balloons. He whispered to my mother: ‘These must have fallen off Santa’s sleigh last night.’
“And I was always nosey so I was always listening! We went out looking for more balloons. We thought we could see the footprints of the reindeer. It was so, so real.”
Summers saw the siblings play all day in the hay fields.
“It was brilliant, you see during the summer holidays, we were never in the house. We never knew what boredom was. We were up early in the morning, we were always out.
“The fun we had in the hay fields, stacking the hay into wee stacks of seven, playing hide and seek. We only came into the house for something to eat and then we were back out again.”
Of course, as children they encountered occasional arguments - and the Henry gang had their own clever method of using their siblings’ unfortunate situations to their own advantage.
“If we got reprimanded at school, we wouldn’t tell on one another until a week or two later.
“If I wanted somebody’s sweets and they wouldn’t give them to me, I would say, ‘I’m going tell mummy you got slapped at school.’ ”
Sean says that today, the siblings continue to be close to each other “in groupings” - for example, he would have a natural attachment to his three older sisters.
“Us four are still close because we were always called ‘the four big ones’, so we got special concessions compared to the younger ones - we got staying up later at night, going places where the younger ones didn’t. We had to look after the wee ones - I remember having to change nappies.
“We are in contact by telephone maybe two or three times a week.
“It’s always good to have somebody to phone and talk to, but with the fast pace of life now it is difficult to keep in touch.”
Today, 13 of the 15 Henry siblings are still living in Northern Ireland; Eileen (now a grandmother herself) is a teacher in Wimbledon, and Feargal is a vet in Newcastle upon Tyne. Between them all, they have 35 children.
And Sean says that his mother Bridget, when she was on her deathbed, said that she “wouldn’t have changed a thing” about her life and her big family, and “was always happy.”