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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…
He was a messenger boy in the 1950s; he talks about the job and its good and bad aspects. He…
Pat Speight: Northside, Childhood Games, Schooldays,
Cork Storyteller Pat Speight (b. 1940s) was born near the North Cathedral, known by locals as the North Chapel. His first house in Cork he thinks was a kind of tenement, with three families living in one house; his father later bought out this…
Billy McCarthy: Childhood, Catholicism, GAA.
Billy, a one-time Cork Folklore Project member of staff and long-term collaborator, was born in Cork in 1941 and grew up with his six siblings in Quaker Road. His mother was born in Cork and his father came from Dunmanway. Billy attended St Marie’s…
Eileen Claffey: Childhood Games, Food, Farming, Festivals, Irish Language,
Eileen grew up on a farm in Inchaclough, West Cork with one brother and four sisters. She was the third child. They had a cousin and a neighbour’s child living with them. Her parents were hardworking– her mother used to work at least 12 hours a day.…
Noreen Hanover: Christmas, Childhood Games, Cinema, Ghost stories, Milk and Cake Shops, Pawnbrokers, St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Working life,
Noreen grew up during the 1950s in Nicholas Church Place, off Cove Street. She says the house was a tenement house shared with a family who lived upstairs. She went to the South Presentation Convent School. Her father died when she was 10. She left…
Kay O’Carroll: The Northside, Emigration, Childhood Games, Music, Tenements,
Kay O’Carroll describes her early life growing up in Gurranabraher giving engaging and colourful detail about childhood games and activities, the community spirit, women’s work, going out to the cinema and show bands as a young woman.
Kay was…
Kay was…
Noreen Geaney: Childhood Games, Céilí, Halloween, School, The Stations.
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…
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…
Mícheál Ó Geallabháin: Family, Community, Social Class, Sport, Music, Emigration.
An in-depth, evocative interview about growing up in The Middle Parish highlighting poverty and the power of education in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Mícheál Ó Geallabháin gives intimate and warm detail about family life, community spirit, class,…
Sean Lucey, Terry McCarthy: Blackpool, Dixies Showband
Seán Lucy was born in 1936. Seán is from a family of four. He started work as a radio and television repairman in 1950, before becoming a professional musician in 1960. He played the clarinet. He played with the Butter Exchange Band, a brass and reed…
Tommy Rooney: Second City Jazzband, Cork Academy School of Music
Tommy Rooney was born in 1931. He was reared in Crosshaven and was the eldest of nine. His father’s family were from Dublin. He joined the army in 1945 at the age of 14 and remained in the service for 12 years. He played music during some of that…
Pat Nolan: Northside, Cork Academy School of Music
Pat is from John Street on the Northside. He was educated at the North Monastery, which was good for general studies but did not teach music. The school environment was harsh. He left school early. His father bought him a second-hand saxophone, and…
Liam Foley: Blackpool, Showbands, Arcadia
Liam is originally from the Northside, from Great William Street in Blackpool. His whole family were musical, and even though his father worked as a cabinet-maker, he and the rest of the family were very keen on playing music at home. He went to…
Frances McCarthy and Betty O’Mahony: The Dixies, Christy O'Mahony
Frances has always lived on the Northside. She was born in Poulraddy, went to school in North Presentation school. When she was seven she moved to Ballyvolane and went to school at St Patrick’s College, Gardiner’s Hill, and Mayfield Community School.…
Noreen Hannover: South Main Street
Noreen Hanover was born in 1950 and grew up in the South Main Street area until 1975. Her family would have done most of their shopping on South Main Street and she relates the character of the shops there, their different purposes, as well as what…
Kieran Edwards & Noreen Crowley: Ballyphehane, Childhood, Community
Kieran Edwards and his sister Noreen Crowley (nee Edwards) are originally from Fr Dominic Road Ballyphahane, they start the interview by discussing the community that Ballypheheane nurtured. Noreen then talks of her youth and how she used to look…
Tony Doherty: Rainbow Ramblers, Cork Gay Mens’ Cooperative, Cruising.
Tony Doherty was interviewed as part of the LGBT project. He describes his younger days in Cork in the 1950s and 1960s. He went to England in 1968, five years after decriminalisation in the UK. His father was a Special Branch Garda who believed in…
Breda Sheehan: Blackpool, Childhood Games, Slogging for Apples
Breda (born circa 1950) grew up in Spring Lane, Blackpool. It was an industrial area with Goulding’s fertilizer factory and Ellis’s quarry.
She remembers a childhood game of swinging on a rope put up an ESB electricity pole. She remembers a number…
She remembers a childhood game of swinging on a rope put up an ESB electricity pole. She remembers a number…
Breda Sheehan: Halloween Games, Childhood Games, Family
Breda (born circa 1950) grew up in Spring Lane, Blackpool. As a child she used to play in The Glen, which was then in the countryside. The neighbourhood houses were small, with an outside toilet, so that every Saturday the children were washed in a…
Geraldine Healy: Children's Games, Schooldays, Western Road,
Geraldine grew up near the top of Western Road. She describes the area and comments on some changes that have taken place there over time. She talks briefly about her schooldays.
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…
She recalls…