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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

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

Creena O’Connell: Gurranabraher, Shawls, Allotments

Creena was born in 1932. Her family were one of the first to get a house in Gurranabraher, an estate built in 1934. Her father was able to get part-time employment with Cork Corporation working on the roads; he died when he was 58.
She recalls a…

Tags: 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Allotments, Creena O’Connell, Gurranabraher, Milk and Cake Shops, Shandon Street, Shawls

Brenda Stillwell: Crawford Art College, Irish language, Slang

Brenda moved to Cork when she was 17, to go to Art College. She remembers hearing people conversing in Irish. She has lived in Cork for 30 years.

Tags: 1980s, Brenda Stillwell, Crawford Art College, Inchigeela Dairy, Irish Language, Sir Henry’s

Pete Newman: Shandon Street, Unemployment, Machoness,

Pete Newman (also known as Pete Duffy) was born in 1945. He grew up in Orrery Road off Cathedral Road. His relatives came from Broad Lane and moved up to Gurranabraher.
Cyclists going up Shandon Street used to hold on to the back of buses, which…

Tags: 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, Allotments, Bonfire Night, Disability, Hiberno-English, Pete Duffy, Pete Newman, Shandon Street, Slang, Slogging Apples, Steering Cars, Steernas, Unemployment

Bernard Casey: Cathedral Road, Childhood, Cork Jazz Festival

Bernard, at the time of this interview, was the chairman of the Cork Jazz festival.
He recalls air raid shelters in Cork during the 1940s. He talks about his routine as an altar boy. The first housing developments of Cathedral Road. The countryside…

Tags: 1940s, 1950s, Alter Boy, Bernard Casey, Blackberry-picking, Cathedral Road, Cork Jazz festival, Slogging Apples

Helen Goulding: Shandon, Catholic Church, Childhood

Helen, nee Bourke was born and reared in Barrack View near the North Cathedral. Her family later moved to Leitrim Street.
She talks about her childhood. People had little but shared a lot. Boiled eggs were eaten at Easter time. Everyone was involved…

Tags: 1950s, 1960s, Andy Gaw, Barrack View, Bonfire Night, Cinema, Cold Storage, Dancehalls, Dancing, Helen Bourke, Helen Goulding, Pawn Shops, Picky, Shandon Street, Squeezy Lemon, Sunbeam, Youghal

Una Lyons: Oliver Plunkett Street, Cinemas, English Market

Una (born 1960) grew up in a guesthouse, a Georgian building on Oliver Plunkett Street. She had two siblings. Her parents had an unusually cosmopolitan outlook. Her father was an engineer with CIE trains. The street was quite residential but she also…

Tags: 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, Beasley Street, Childhood Games, Cinema, Cudmores, English market, Milk and Cake Shops, Oliver Plunkett Street, Una Lyons

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

Nicola Meacle: Tullamore, UCC, Independant Living

Nicola (b. 1970) grew up in the countryside near Tullamore, County Offaly. She had two siblings, and her grandparents also lived with the family. She went to college in Dublin, and a year later she was injured in an accident.
She moved to Cork where…

Tags: Centre for Independent Living, County Offaly, Disability, Dublin, Martin Naughton, Nicola Meacle, Tullamore

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…

Noreen Cronin: Shandon, The North Infirmary, Childhood

Noreen grew up in a tenement in Dominick Street next to Shandon in the early 1950s. She went to the North Pres School and worked at the North Infirmary. Her mother used to deliver babies in the area and helped to wash and lay out the dead. Her…

Sandra Byrne: Commons Road, Tucker's Field, Family Life.

Sandra grew up in Commons Road, Blackpool. She has little memory of her mother; describes her father as a cranky man. He damaged his hand in an industrial accident and didn’t work again. She describes her home as a tense place. Sandra talks about…

Tags: 1980s, 1990s, Bonfire Night, Commons Road, Food, North Presentation school, Sandra Byrne, Schooldays, Tucker's Field

Peggy Kelleher: The Lough, Marriage, World War 2

Peggy (born 1930s) grew up in Hartland's Road, near The Lough. She was an only child. Her father, William Power, from County Waterford; he worked at the Munster Arcade and lived through the Burning of Cork by the Black and Tans in 1920; he was…

Derrick Gerrety: Douglas Street, Loafers, Dublin,

Derrick was born in 1950. He grew up in St Joseph's Square, Vernon Avenue, Clontarf, in a working-class enclave within a middle-class area. He describes his childhood as idyllic. The houses in the square were rented from the Sisters of Charity;…

Bernie McLoughlin: Turner's Cross, Ford's, UCC,

Bernie was born in 1939 and reared in Turner’s Cross. His mother had been a bookkeeper and his father was a supervisor in the post office. He had an older brother and an older sister, and he spent a lot of time with his parents.
He remembers queues…

Tags: 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Bernie McLoughlin, Childhood, Cork Opera House, Ford, Schooldays, Sullivan’s Quay, Turner’s Cross, UCC, University College Cork

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

Michael O’Connell: Faranree, Politics, Childhood,

Michael was born in the 1950s and grew up in Farranferris Ave below the Church of the Redemption in Farranree. He came from a family of 13 children. He was a student at the North Mon. His mother was a great GAA fan and a sporting person who played…

Padraig O’Horgain: Church Street, Funeral Customs, Republicanism,

Padraig O’Horgain (Pat Horgan) was born in Church Street in 1951. His father was a Republican and was interned in Britain between 1939 and 1946. His father later worked at Cork Harbour.
O’Gorman’s hat factory and other businesses were cited in the…

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

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