Noreen Geaney: Childhood Games, Céilí, Halloween, School, The Stations.

Noreen Geaney: Childhood Games, Céilí, Halloween, School, The Stations.

Life History: Cork; Religion; Youth

An account of growing up on a small farm in the Cork countryside and the simplicity of life in the 1950s.
Noreen was born in Cuileann Ui Chaoimh in Co. Cork. She had three sisters and one brother. She attended Owen na Bui National School. She lived and worked in Dublin for six years and met her husband there. He was a prison officer in Mountjoy. They came back to live in Cork in 1972.
Noreen describes her family and childhood as being simple. Their needs were simple. Bacon and cabbage were their basic diet. She remembers Ling fish on a Friday and describes ‘Pandy’. Blackberry wine was made in season and buried in the ground for three weeks.
At the time old people weren’t living in homes. Noreen describes the funeral rites of her grandparents: How they were laid out in a brown habit and waked for two nights.
Stations were held in people’s houses. People gave money according to their means and Noreen recalls that the amount you gave would be read out at the church the following week.
Their school had only two teachers for all the classes. They walked a mile and a half and had to bring fuel for the fire.
Parenting was strict and Noreen recalls a story of sneaking out to a ceilí and her father beating her along the road afterwards.
Noreen describes the games and rituals of Halloween: Playing Blindman’s bluff and her mother laying the table ‘for the dead’.
Noreen worked in Dublin for years and came back to Cork with her family in 1972.



Note; This interview was conducted as part of the Cork 2005 Project

30 October 2004

CFP_SR00344_geaney_2004

Cork; Dublin; Ireland; 1940s - 1960s;

Cork 2005 Collection Catalogue Numbers:

CFP_SR00329_mccarthy_2004;
CFP_SR00330_odriscoll_2004;
CFP_SR00331_claffey_2004;
CFP_SR00332_hanover_2004;
CFP_SR00333_desplanques_2004;
CFP_SR00334_bale_2004;
CFP_SR00335_sheridan_1996;
CFP_SR00336_steiner-scott_2004;
CFP_SR00337_rot_2004;
CFP_SR00338_stafford_2004;
CFP_SR00339_odonoghue_2004;
CFP_SR00340_hawkins_2004;
CFP_SR00341_ocarroll_2004;
CFP_SR00342_ikebuasi_2004;
CFP_SR00343_ogeallabhain_2004;
CFP_SR00345_wulff_2004;
CFP_SR00346_abdoulbaneeva_2004;
CFP_SR00347_gunes_2004;
CFP_SR00348_fourie_2004;
CFP_SR00349_henderson_2004;
CFP_SR00350_valdman_2004;
CFP_SR00351_carmody_2004;
CFP_SR00352_osullivan_2004;
CFP_SR00353_mahknanov_2004;
CFP_SR00354_oflynn_2004;
CFP_SR00355_akhter_2004;
CFP_SR00356_walker_2004;
CFP_SR00357_kelleher_2004;
CFP_SR00358_manresa_2004;
CFP_SR00359_wimpenny_2005;
CFP_SR00360_skotarczak_2005;
CFP_SR00361_vermeulen_2005;
CFP_SR00362_owen_2005;
CFP_SR00363_dsouza_2005;
CFP_SR00364_setter_2005;
CFP_SR00365_obrien_2005;
CFP_SR00366_botan_2005:

Published Material:
‘How’s it Goin’, Boy? radio series (six thirty-minute episodes, broadcast 2005 and available on the Cork Folklore Project website)

O'Carroll, Clíona for the Cork Northside Folklore Project (2006) How's it goin', boy? Dublin: Nonsuch Publishing.

Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive

English

Sound

1 .wav File

31m 06s

Mayfield, Cork, Ireland

MiniDisc

16bit / 44.1kHz

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

N G: I’d say I started school about- you didn’t start that time at three or four, I started at about five, and we had to walk a mile and a half to school, it was Owen na Bui National School, twas a two teacher school at the time. And I remember my old teachers Mrs McSweeney and Mr Murphy, and you would have fourth, fifth and sixth class together in the one room and then you’d have the I suppose, the infants, the first, the second, and the third, in one room. And eh, naturally there was no central heating at that time, and we’d all have to bring a sod of turf to school in the morning for the fire. And I remember our lunch consisted of a bottle of milk, eh a couple of slices of brown bread, butter and jam. Well of course Noel, if there was a station on in the parish, you know where the Mass is held in the house, we’d be allowed go to the station and we’d bring lots of currant bread to school from the station. Let’s see where do I go on from here?

N O'S: That’s about the stations, are they still going on?

N G: Oh they’re still going on! They are, the majority of them now are held in the church, but they are, they’re still going on. But sure the stations in the country before I mean they turned the house inside out, cleaning it and painting and decorating and everything for the stations. I think they are mostly held at night in the homes, but they were always held in the morning, about nine o’clock in the morning. And eh of course then at the stations you had to pay the station money.

N O'S: Sorry for interrupting you Noreen, could you explain a little bit about what the station money is?

N G: The station money was money you would pay at the station, it was a half crown, well the big farmers now would have paid more, but you know anyone who could afford it, it was a half crown. It was for the priest for petrol for their car for the year, and the following week it would be called out in the church what each person gave, the station money.

N O'S: That’s very intimidating!