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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…

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…

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…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom Jones: Shandon Street, Emigration, Childhood

Tom was born circa 1950 in a building at the bottom of Shandon Street.
He remembers watching the Cork Opera House on fire in 1955. He recalls childhood games and explains the game of Kick the Can and Pitch and Toss. He talks about the nature of…

Tags: 1950s, 1960s, 2000s, Allotments, Blackpool, Childhood Games, Cork Opera House, Emigration, Gudge Cake, Rasa, Shandon Street, Spring Lane, Tom Jones, Turners Cross

Patricia McCarthy: Shandon Street, War of Independence, Trades

Pat McCarthy (née Byrnes) is from Shandon Street. She grew up in Mahony’s Terrace, overlooking Pope’s Quay which she knew as the Sand Quay. Her father worked as a lorry driver. She remembers Shandon Street having bakeries and butchers. There were…

Fergal Crowley: Patrick Street, Munster Arcade, Black and Tans

Fergal worked in the Munster Arcade, Patrick Street. He describes the shop. His father started work there in 1901. After the building was burned by the Black and Tans during the Burning of Cork, the British government paid to have buildings on one…

Tags: 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, Black and Tans, Burning of Cork, Cinema, Fergal Crowley, Milk and Cake Shops, Munster Arcade, Panna, Patrick Street, Poverty, Second World War, St Patrick Street, The Savoy, War of Independence, World War II

Tom Jones: Shandon Street, Murphy’s Rock, Television

Tom is from Shandon Street. In this interview, he remembers a helicopter landing in a field, sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s, which caused great excitement amongst the locals.
He mentions the arrival of televisions to Cork around 1963. Tom…

Tags: 1950s, 1960s, Childhood, Murphy's Rock, Shandon Street, Television, Tom Jones

Alice Delay: Togher, Country Life, Childhood

Alice remembers visiting her grandmother in Togher, which was the country, and eating bread and home-made butter. Her grandfather was a farm labourer. The house had an earth floor, and a ceiling made of sewn flour bags. Someone described the house as…

Tags: 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 2000s, Alice Delay, Bonfire Night, Christy Ring, Cinema, Civil War, Housing, I.R.A, Jewish, Lido, Poulraddy Harbour, Prison, Republicanism, Second World War, Sex, Slogging Apples, Social Class, The Emergency, War of Independence, World War II

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