Brenda Stillwell: Crawford Art College, Irish language, Slang

B S: That’s when I came to Cork, when I came to Cork first.

C O C: Oh brilliant, so, eh, I’m Cliona O’Carroll, I’m with the Northside Folklore Project, and’ eh, so we’ll lash away, and, but first you might tell me your name?

B S: Brenda Stillwell

C O C: Brenda Stillwell, welcome Brenda. So what, eh, just say, can you say first of all what kind of sparked this memory?

B S: Well I was looking at the picture on the wall of Cork city, it was the very view that I had from my first ever flat, and first ever time living away from home, when I came down to Art College. And I was

looking at it, the, I was looking at the bottom of Richmond Hill, but on the top story of the house so I was able to see kind of North Cathedral, the Cathedral, the hospital that was there at the time, but it’s a hotel now. But every morning I used to walk into the Art College. I was only seventeen when I came to Cork first, that’s thirty years ago now, and I would walk past where Whitaker’s Hatcheries were, and across the way there was a garage, and every morning this young lad that was working in the garage would come out and ask me, ‘Are you jagging?’ [C O C laughing]. And I had no clue what he was talking about, and I would just smile and keep walking. I’m sure he’d -- well I found out what the word meant, I’m sure he thought I was really stuck up, or very hard to get, or something, [laughter] playing hard to get. But I had no clue what the word meant, and it was all very foreign and strange to me, coming to Cork. And around that little area there was a lot of Irish speaking people. That was em, An Stad cafê and they would, I would hear them speak in Irish. And Inchigeela Dairy is where I’d go and get bread and milk, and I’d hear the customers and em, Mrs. Creedon, who was in the shop with her two Siamese cats, and that’s the first time I’d heard people converse in Irish, em, in their day-to-day living.

C O C: Did Inchigeela Dairy have a milk and cake shop as well, do you remember?

B S: There was a grocery shop.

C O C: Ah, yeah, yeah.

B S: And you just went in and got your regular groceries.

C O C: And tell me now, for, for the benefit of the, of the younger people listening to this, what does ‘jagging’ mean?

B S: Are you dating anyone?

C O C: Aah.

B S: But it was a couple of years later before I found that out, just by chance, and I was like, Oooh, that’s what he was asking me [laughter].

C O C: Aah, do you have any other kind of first impressions from Cork from when you first arrived?

B S: Em, it’s always exciting I think for anyone moving away from home for the first time and realize you actually have to buy your own milk. [C O C laughing] It’s one of the things, because we, I grew up on a farm and it was the first time I ever had to buy milk in my life. And thinking that you’d have loads of money in thirty euros a week, but half of it went in rent, and then you realize, oh actually, I have to buy my food. We walked everywhere, or cycled everywhere, that was, we didn’t even get on the bus, and, em, [Pause: 2 seconds] just how you can survive on so little. And, em, [Pause: 2 seconds] we used to go to a band every night. Sir Henry’s was a big venue at the time, and we used to go to a band every Monday night, The Hot Guitars, and they’re still going, and still playing and I would still go to see them thirty years on. And the lead singer is still as mad as ever, Joe Callahan, and at that time -- he still plays a lot of blues, harmonica and that kind of thing, but he used to dip his harmonica into the pint, into his pint, so, and he would play and it would just be beer spraying everywhere. [C O C laughing] And he was a real larger than life character on stage, but so shy off stage, and he’s still like that, this mad character. So that’s the connection from then, and now as well, that I would still go to see Hot Guitars.

C O C: Oh, lovely, oh, thanks very much. Does anything else occur to you before we finish up?

B S: That it’s, that Cork has just become my home thirty years on, and I love it dearly.

C O C: Oh, lovely, thanks very much.

Interview Ends