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Mary Sheehy: Gurranabraher, Street Traders, Bonfire Night

Mary was born in Washington Street in 1948; when she was 6 her family moved to Gurranabraher. Her mother was a trader in second-hand clothes in Kyle Street and a barmaid, her father worked for Cork Harbour Commissioners.
As a child, she had to wear…

Tags: 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, Bonfire Night, Childhood Games, Coal Quay, Community, Cork Harbour, Funerals, Ghost stories, Kyle Street dealers, Rubber Dollies, Schooldays, Street Traders

Mary Montgomery-McConville: Shandon Street, Peter and Paul's Church, Coal Quay

Mary was born in Shandon Street in 1930. She talks about winter on Lavitt’s Quay. Mary also mentions an Easter custom where on Good Friday they would tie the figure of Judas to a crane and set fire to it. Her grandfather made the confessional boxes…

Tags: 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Cinema, Coal Quay, Lavitt's Quay, Mary Montgomery-McConville, St Peter and Paul's Church, The Savoy

Mary Marshall: Blackpool, Childhood, Hunting,

Mary grew up in Thomas Davis Street, Blackpool. Both her parents were from Blackpool. Her mother liked to use Grand Parade library, and her father was an avid reader who told stories from Greek mythology. At the time the area bounded onto the…

Tags: 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, Blackpool, Childhood, Childhood Games, Goulding’s, Goulding’s Glen, Gypsy Lee, Hunting, Mary Marshall, Otter hunting, Piggeries, Tomas Davis Street, Traditional Songs, Welsh’s Lane

Marie Crean: South Parish, Cinemas, Black and Tan’s

Marie was born (in the 1950s) and reared in High Street, in the South Parish, off Douglas Street; she thinks the street was formerly Quarry Lane. Some of her area was altered to make a new road. She went to school in South Presentation.
She recalls…

Marie Finn: Barrack Street, Blackberry-picking, Catholic Church,

Marie (b. 1938) grew up in Barrack Street. She left school at 16 and started working.
She talks about the games she played as a child and recites part of a rhyme. You could pick blackberries and sell them to a sweet-makers. Oranges and bananas as…

Tags: 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, Barrack Street, Blackberry-picking, Catholic Church, Childhood Games, Dancing, Food, Marie Finn, McKechnie’s, Milk and Cake Shops, Pubs

Margaret Newman: Blackpool, Housing, Childbirth,

Margaret was born circa 1920. She talks about her pregnancies and the births of her children. She lived with a relative and describes her housing situation at the time; she looked after her relative after he became blind.
She tells a story about…

Tags: 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Alcoholism, Blackpool, Childbirth, Housing, Mount Farran, UCC, University College Cork

Margaret Newman: Sunbeam Factory; Christmas, Nicknames,

Margaret Newman was born in 1922. She explains that before the Sunbeam factory there was a flax mill, which employed some children in the late 1800s.
How children ordered their presents from Santa.

Note: This is one of 4 interviews conducted with…

Tags: 1800s, 1900s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, Christmas, Flax mill, Margaret Newman, Nicknames, Sunbeam, Sweet shops

Margaret Newman: Shawlies, Blackberry-picking, Laneways,

Margaret Newman [born 1922] talks at length about the shawls women wore, where they were bought, the types of shawl, and their uses.
She talks about the Bandon railway line, which was so slow you could lean out of the windows and pick blackberries.…

Tags: 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, Bandon railway, Blackberry-picking, Cash’s, Clay Pipes, Dowden’s, Gurranabraher, Laneways, Margaret Newman, Shawlies, Shawls, Southside, Travellers

Margaret Newman: Greenmount, Cures, Working Life,

Margaret (born circa 1920) grew up in Greenmount, near The Lough. There were 4 in the family; her father had passed away and her mother, Kate, went out to work.
She got cocoa and buns at her primary school. She tells a story about finding out that…

Tags: 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 2000s, Christamas, Cures, Dancing, Food, Greenmount, Herbalism, Margaret Newman, McKechnie’s, Social Care, St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Working life, World War II

Liam Ó hUigín: Henry Street, Bonfire Night, Childhood Games, Messenger Boys.

Liam was born circa 1940. His father was a docker. His mother died when he was 10 and his aunt reared him; she was a widow at 32 and had her own children.
He was a messenger boy in the 1950s; he talks about the job and its good and bad aspects. He…

Tags: 1940s, 1950s, Allotments, Bonfire Night, Celebration, Childhood Games, Cork Cold Storage, Food, Hang dog Road, Liam ÓhUigín, Messenger Boys, Musgraves, Pawn Shops, Slogging Apples, The Marsh, The One Day a Week, Tom Barry

Liam Ó hUigín: Henry Street, The Marshes, Childhood

Liam grew up in Henry Street during the 1940s. He talks about the marshes of Cork and Pike’s Marsh, named after a Quaker merchant family.
He recalls the practice of adding “a” to the end of some placenames, such as Pana for Patrick Street. There…

Kevin Leahy: Gurranabraher, Irish Army, Docklands,

Kevin was born (circa late 1930s) in Kelly’s Lane (later Boyce’s Street). His father was in the British Army and later the forces of the Irish Free State. When Kevin was 14 he went to work as a plumber.
He remembers Blarney Street, and women who…

Joseph Lane: Gurranabraher, Milk and Cake Shops, Pranks

Joseph grew up in Gurranabraher. He remembers three pawnshops of Cork. When people left Ballymacthomas to move into new corporation houses, they left their old houses behind, still complete with furniture and fittings.
Joe recalls a childhood…

Tags: 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, Ballymacthomas, Cinema, Cold Storage, Gurranabraher, Joseph Lane, Milk and Cake Shops, Pawn Shops, The Lido, Thunder up the alley, World War II

Johnny Chris Kelleher: The Evening Echo, Schooldays, Tuberculosis

Johnny Chris was born in 1929 in Fair Lane, later called Wolfe Tone Street. His mother, Mary Margaret Kelleher (1901 - 1970) was married twice; her first husband died of TB in 1924; she had to get a job selling newspapers to support her family. His…

Tags: Allotments, Anglesea Street, Barrett’s Buildings, BBC, Bingo, Bird-Catching, Blackpool, Bowling, Boxing, Boy Murphy, Card Games, Children’s Games, Children’s Mass, Christy Ring, Churchfield, Coliseum Theatre, Corbett’s Lane, Cork Corporation, Don, Donncha Ó Céileachair, Drisheen, Echo Boys, Evening Echo, Fair Hill, Fairs, Father O’Flynn, Faulkner’s Lane, Food, Gurranabraher, Gurranabraher Road, Hiroshima, Housey Housey, Housing, Irish Language, Jack Lynch, Johnny Chris Kelleher, Kearney’s Lane, Margaret O’Sullivan, Mossy Condon, Newsboys, Newspapers, Nicknames, Northside, O’Flynn family; O’Gorman’s Factory, Pádraig Ó hÓgáin, Polly Kelleher, Seán O’Mahony, Sketchy Roche, Slaughterhouses, Social Housing, Sport, St Anne’s Hurling Club, Street names, TB, The Holly Bough, Tommy Hyde, Tommy Kelleher, Trimbath Mulcahy, Trimbath’s Lane, Tripe, Tripe Houses, Tuberculosis, Walter McEvilly, Working class, Working life, World War II

Jim Horgan: Pouladuff, Theatre, Superstitions

Jim (born 1960) grew up in Croaghtamore Cottages, Pouladuff. His father was a draughtsman with Cork City Council. He was also an amateur film-maker, who made films with Jim and his siblings as actors. Some films required significant splicing by…

Tags: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Amateur Dramatics, Blackrock Players, Cinema, Cork Arts Theatre, Fidelma Supple Agency, Home Movies, Jim Horgan, Musgraves, Penny Youth Theatre, Pouladuff Road, Social Care, Theatre

James 'Jim' McKeon: Northside, Sport, Writing,

Jim (b. 1940s) remembers that his father worked for the railways and had a tied cottage in an area known as Kilbarry Cottages, or Railway Cottages. Then the family moved to Paddock House, Fairhill. The house was at the top of Washbrew Lane, and came…

Tags: 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 2000s, Animals, Brus, Cal Herlihy, Cork, Eucharistic Procession, Fahy’s Well, Frank O’Connor, House Shops, Jim McKeon, Kilbarry Cottages, Northside, Paddock Hill, Paddock House, Travellers, Working life, Youghal

Browse Items (56 total)