Breda Sheehan: Blackpool, Childhood Games, Slogging for Apples

Breda sheehan.jpg

Title

Breda Sheehan: Blackpool, Childhood Games, Slogging for Apples

Subject

Life History:

Description

Breda (born circa 1950) grew up in Spring Lane, Blackpool. It was an industrial area with Goulding’s fertilizer factory and Ellis’s quarry.
She remembers a childhood game of swinging on a rope put up an ESB electricity pole. She remembers a number of colloquial local placenames. She remembers people who called to the house such as the insurance man, with whom they had “penny policies”. Milk was bought from a milkman by filling one’s own jug. The rent man and a rag and bone man also called.
Swimming was done in a stream near a piggery; it had to be avoided when pigs were being killed. Shopping was done on a daily basis. She describes her route to school; she had to pass an unpleasant slaughterhouse. Thomas Davis Street was different from what it has become. She remembers getting caught by a security guard "slogging apples" in an orchard.

Breda was a researcher for the Cork Folklore Project.

Date

20 July 2010

Identifier

CFP_SR00387_sheehan_2010

Coverage

Cork, Ireland, 1950s-2010s

Relation

Interviews for Cork Folklore Project conducted by Breda:
CFP00389; CFP00396; CFP00398; CFP00399; CFP00401; CFP00402; CFP00450; CFP00480;

Interviews for Cork Folklore Project with Breda as an interviewee: CFP00328; CFP00388;
Other Interviews in the Colection:

CFP_SR00388_sheehan_2010; CFP_SR00389_healy_2010; CFP_SR00390_kelleher_2010; CFP_SR00391_crean_2010; CFP_SR00392_mckeon_2010; CFP_SR00393_twomey_2010; CFP_SR00394_stleger_2010; CFP_SR00395_speight_2010; CFP_SR00396_lane_2010; CFP_SR00397_obrienoleary_2010; CFP_SR00398_jones_2010; CFP_SR00399_saville_2010; CFP_SR00400_magnier_2010; CFP_SR00401_marshall_2010; CFP_SR00402_marshall_2010; CFP_SR00403_murphy_2010; CFP_SR00404_prout_2011; CFP_SR00405_walsh_2011; CFP_SR00406_prout_2011; CFP_SR00407_newman_2010; CFP_SR00408_newman_2010; CFP_SR00409_leahy_2011; CFP_SR00411_newman_2010; CFP_SR00412_newman_2010; CFP_SR00413_finn_2011; CFP_SR00414_ohorgain_2011; CFP_SR00415_oconnell_2011; CFP_SR00416_sheehy_2011; CFP_SR00417_mcloughlin_2012; CFP_SR00418_gerety_2012; CFP_SR00419_kelleher_2012; CFP_SR00420_byrne_2012; CFP_SR00421_cronin_2012; CFP_SR00422_ohuigin_2012; CFP_SR00423_meacle_2012; CFP_SR00424_horgan_2012; CFP_SR00425_lyons_2012; CFP_SR00427_goulding_2011;

CFP_SR00491_fitzgerald_2013.

Heritage Week 2011: CFP_SR00429_casey_2011; CFP_SR00430_tomas_2011; CFP_SR00431_newman_2011; CFP_SR00432_stillwell_2011; CFP_SR00433_oconnell_2011; CFP_SR00434_lane_2011; CFP_SR00435_montgomery-mcconville_2011; CFP_SR00436_ocallaghan_2011; CFP_SR00437_corcoran_2011; CFP_SR00438_jones_2011; CFP_SR00439_ohuigin_2011; CFP_SR00440_mccarthy_2011; CFP_SR00441_crowley_2011; CFP_SR00442_obrien_2011; CFP_SR00443_jones_2011; CFP_SR00444_mcgillicuddy_2011; CFP_SR00445_delay_2011; CFP_SR00446_murphy_2011;

Video Interview: CFP_VR00486_speight_2014

Published Material: 

O’Carroll, Clíona (2011) ‘The Cork Memory Map’, Béascna 7: 184-188.

O’Carroll, Clíona (2012) ‘Cork Memory Map: an update on CFP’s Online Project’, The Archive 16: 14. https://www.ucc.ie/en/media/research/corkfolkloreproject/archivepdfs/archive16.PDF

Dee, Stephen and O’Carroll, Clíona (2012) ‘Sound Excerpts: Interviews from Heritage Week’, The Archive 16: 15-17. https://www.ucc.ie/en/media/research/corkfolkloreproject/archivepdfs/archive16.PDF

O'Carrol, Clíona (2014) 'The children's perspectives: Place-centred interviewing and multiple diversified livelihood strategies in Cork city, 1935-1960'. Béaloideas - The Journal of Folklore of Ireland Society, 82: 45-65.

The Curious Ear/Documentary on One (Cork City Memory Map) http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/2011/0816/646858-curious-ear-doconone-cork-city-memory-map/

To view the Cork Memory Map Click Here

Source

Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive

Rights

Cork Folklore Project

Language

English

Type

Sound

Format

1 .wav File

Interviewee

Interviewer

Duration

21min 55sec

Location

Blackpool

Original Format

.wav

Bit Rate/Frequency

24bit / 48kHz

Transcription

The following is a short extract from the interview transcript, copyright of the Cork Folklore Project. If you wish to access further archival material for this interview or other interviews please contact CFP, folklorearchive@gmail.com


B S: We would have never went to Murphy’s Rock now because -- or Fitz’s Boreen -- because they would have been too far from our house. We would have had no need to go out there anyway because we had Goulding’s Glen at our doorstep, so in the Summer we’d be in Goulding’s Glen and you know if it was very warm now you’d go down there and swim. And they had loughs kind of built off, blocked off so that it would be deeper in areas you know. What it was actually was the Glen river that ran through Goulding’s Glen and actually ran down all Blackpool behind the houses in Spring Lane and down behind the houses in Thomas Davis Street. We would have played there as well and we called that place the High Bank. That ran now right behind the houses in Thomas Davis Street. The laneways, now all the laneways are gone. It would have come out then by then by Assumption Convent. I can’t remember the name of the Assumption convent now. It’s the big pink building. But we would have played there as well and em -- but it was channelled in that part. Up further where it ran behind the houses in Spring Lane there was a pig farmer and you could play -- you know, we could paddle away there in the water there but at certain times then you couldn’t because he’d kill the pigs. And all the stuff that would come out of the pigs would be left go into the water so you had to be very careful you know, to make sure that, that he wasn’t killing pigs at the time you decided to play in the water. But em I suppose in a sense looking back on it we had great freedom you know because we seemed to have great freedom to play and do stuff you know and we went to the cinema in Blackpool in, in The Lido and we’d go to the baths, Eglantine Baths over by the City Hall. Very rarely would we venture out of our own area you know, so, people now that lived maybe in Farranree and Blackpool itself would have went out to Murphy’s Rock but as I said Goulding’s Glen was just outside our door so we had it all really.

Citation

Cork Folklore Project, “Breda Sheehan: Blackpool, Childhood Games, Slogging for Apples,” accessed April 19, 2024, https://corkfolklore.org/archivecatalolgue/document/101.