Denis P. Long: Working Life; Balckpool; Austrailia
Title
Denis P. Long: Working Life; Balckpool; Austrailia
Subject
Life History;
Description
Denis grew up in Blackpool. His father was a train driver.
He worked for the ESB (Electricity Supply Board) but wanted to earn better money and went to Australia in the 1950s. He tells a funny story about visiting a rocket range and meeting someone who recognised him from Cork.
He describes Blackpool as having been made up of numerous lanes and observes that its name derived from it being a boggy place full of streams. He comments that the River Lee is said to claim at least one life by drowning a year. There were two holy wells at Sunday’s Well; another called Lady’s Well at Leitrim Street.
He talks briefly about Poulraddy Harbour, Micah’s Harbour, and Corkeran’s Quay. The latter two places had grand names but were insignificant. He sings a verse of a song about the latter called “The Cruise of the Mary Jane” and a song that a teacher made Denis remembers that there was an incident with a harbour ferry in the 1940s which lost its steering and caused great panic.
He recalls the sports played in Cork, including bird-catching. Denis wrote a book called The Spirit of the Glen, about Glen Rovers GAA club.
There was a flood in Blackpool in 1935, and he recounts a funny story about a boy floating by on a sofa.
He remembers that a local man developed a way to generate his own electricity using water power. He was a teacher; under the system then, school monitors could become teachers without passing a teaching exam.
He worked for the ESB (Electricity Supply Board) but wanted to earn better money and went to Australia in the 1950s. He tells a funny story about visiting a rocket range and meeting someone who recognised him from Cork.
He describes Blackpool as having been made up of numerous lanes and observes that its name derived from it being a boggy place full of streams. He comments that the River Lee is said to claim at least one life by drowning a year. There were two holy wells at Sunday’s Well; another called Lady’s Well at Leitrim Street.
He talks briefly about Poulraddy Harbour, Micah’s Harbour, and Corkeran’s Quay. The latter two places had grand names but were insignificant. He sings a verse of a song about the latter called “The Cruise of the Mary Jane” and a song that a teacher made Denis remembers that there was an incident with a harbour ferry in the 1940s which lost its steering and caused great panic.
He recalls the sports played in Cork, including bird-catching. Denis wrote a book called The Spirit of the Glen, about Glen Rovers GAA club.
There was a flood in Blackpool in 1935, and he recounts a funny story about a boy floating by on a sofa.
He remembers that a local man developed a way to generate his own electricity using water power. He was a teacher; under the system then, school monitors could become teachers without passing a teaching exam.
Date
12 January 1998
Identifier
CFP_SR00177_long_1998
Coverage
Ireland; Cork: Australia: 1900s
Relation
Published Material:
Hunter, Stephen (1999), Life Journeys: Living Folklore in Ireland Today, Cork: The Northside Folklore Project.
Hunter, Stephen (1999), Life Journeys: Living Folklore in Ireland Today, Cork: The Northside Folklore Project.
Source
Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive
Rights
Cork Folklore Project
Language
English
Type
Sound
Format
.wav
Interviewee
Interviewer
Duration
43min 04sec
Location
NCE Ltd, Sunbeam Industrial Estate, Mallow Road, Cork
Original Format
Cassette
Transcription
The following is a short extract from the interview transcript relating to the audio extract above. Copyright of the Cork Folklore Project. If you wish to access further archival material please contact CFP, folklorearchive@gmail.com
S H: Incredible. You obviously have a great love of Blackpool and adjacent areas.
D L: I have, yes.
S H: You would regard the Bride Valley, this whole valley here as a special place?
D L: Oh, a very special place. I really think that over a hundred years, hundred and fifty years ago, I really think it was isolated from the City of Cork. That it was a place unto its own. A place that people would refer to; “Blackpool ". And not even mention Cork.
S H: So where do you think the “dark pool” part actually came from?
D L: Well, Blackpool was a very boggy area and there was three different rivers coming into Blackpool. And it was really a very boggy area and it took them a long time to get the rivers to run into one course. I'm just looking for a little bit here now. Anyway, they got 'em to run into one river and that carries on into the Northern part of the city and down into the River Lee. But um....what did you say then?
S H: Oh, I just said.... well, has the physical appearance of the area changed much over last sixty years or so?
D L: It has. Blackpool was made up of a lot of lanes. Small lanes. And the people that lived down there, most of them were related to one another.
S H: And then those big anonymous blocks of flats were put up, it changed, I suppose.
D L: They did. This is... I describe Blackpool as “A comfortable and long-established district, nestling between the hills of Farranree and the heights of Farrancleary ". And I said: " From such a hard and humble beginning, there are now many fine buildings and splendid streets, from Hatton's Alley, where was situated the original 'Blackpool' ". There was some leather-works or something there and the water took on a dark colour, and of course, that was “Blackpool", “Linn Dubh” in Irish. "The streets and lanes have spread out, northwards there is Great William O'Brien Street, Brocklesby Street, where our beloved school is situated, Commons Road, Thomas Davis Street, named after the great Irishman who said ' Educate, so that you may be free ', Dublin Street and Dublin Hill, Mallow Road and Millfield Village. Then towards the city, there is Watercourse Road, O'Connell Street, called after the great Statesman who won emancipation for the Catholic Irish; then, to manifest the genuine core of its honest Irishness, let the long list of the lanes of Blackpool be written. Spring Lane, Walshe's Lane, Green Lane, Foster's Lane, Slattery's Lane, Wherland's Lane, Broad Lane, Narrow Lane, Sunday School Lane, Quarry Lane, Peacock Lane, Keller's Lane ". That was Blackpool, compact, close, you see.
D L: I have, yes.
S H: You would regard the Bride Valley, this whole valley here as a special place?
D L: Oh, a very special place. I really think that over a hundred years, hundred and fifty years ago, I really think it was isolated from the City of Cork. That it was a place unto its own. A place that people would refer to; “Blackpool ". And not even mention Cork.
S H: So where do you think the “dark pool” part actually came from?
D L: Well, Blackpool was a very boggy area and there was three different rivers coming into Blackpool. And it was really a very boggy area and it took them a long time to get the rivers to run into one course. I'm just looking for a little bit here now. Anyway, they got 'em to run into one river and that carries on into the Northern part of the city and down into the River Lee. But um....what did you say then?
S H: Oh, I just said.... well, has the physical appearance of the area changed much over last sixty years or so?
D L: It has. Blackpool was made up of a lot of lanes. Small lanes. And the people that lived down there, most of them were related to one another.
S H: And then those big anonymous blocks of flats were put up, it changed, I suppose.
D L: They did. This is... I describe Blackpool as “A comfortable and long-established district, nestling between the hills of Farranree and the heights of Farrancleary ". And I said: " From such a hard and humble beginning, there are now many fine buildings and splendid streets, from Hatton's Alley, where was situated the original 'Blackpool' ". There was some leather-works or something there and the water took on a dark colour, and of course, that was “Blackpool", “Linn Dubh” in Irish. "The streets and lanes have spread out, northwards there is Great William O'Brien Street, Brocklesby Street, where our beloved school is situated, Commons Road, Thomas Davis Street, named after the great Irishman who said ' Educate, so that you may be free ', Dublin Street and Dublin Hill, Mallow Road and Millfield Village. Then towards the city, there is Watercourse Road, O'Connell Street, called after the great Statesman who won emancipation for the Catholic Irish; then, to manifest the genuine core of its honest Irishness, let the long list of the lanes of Blackpool be written. Spring Lane, Walshe's Lane, Green Lane, Foster's Lane, Slattery's Lane, Wherland's Lane, Broad Lane, Narrow Lane, Sunday School Lane, Quarry Lane, Peacock Lane, Keller's Lane ". That was Blackpool, compact, close, you see.
Citation
Cork Folklore Project , “Denis P. Long: Working Life; Balckpool; Austrailia,” accessed April 26, 2024, https://corkfolklore.org/archivecatalolgue/document/212.