TJ: My name is Tom Jones, and I’ve given a story before. It’s an incident and I just wonder how many people would actually remember this. It had to be, let’s see, somewhere between ‘50s and ’61. We were playing in what was called the field, at the bottom of Spangle Hill, and this helicopter and it really looked like it was flying low and of course just the fact that there was something in the air at that time was really dramatic. It was flying really low and it circles Spangle Hill, and every kid chased the thing. Eventually, it landed. There is an ESB power station right there between Mallow Road and Dublin Hill. It’s right there. It’s and ESB substation. It landed there, and of course every other kid rushed out to see this thing and I remember looking, when I got there, I remember looking back and there’s an indentation in the field there called Tuckers Field it’s directly opposite the main offices of Harrington’s paint factory. I remember looking across at that and seeing multitudes of kids cascading down there almost like locusts. Everyone wanted to get out there and see this helicopter. I guess years later, it just reminded me of the fact. It’s almost like the helicopter was our Moses. And all these kids were just swarming down there, as if this helicopter, this Moses was going to take them to the Promised Land. I know we talked about it a number of years later as we were kids. It’s just a simple incident and I just wonder how many people actually remember it. Cause there had to be, cause there was thousands of kids. I mean they were just flowing down from Spangle Hill, to get across to see this helicopter. That was quite an event. That’s basically it. I thought of that the other day as I left here. I wonder how many people would actually remember that incident.
GoD: So, you’re saying it happened between ’58 and ’61.
TJ: Somewhere there. I would have had to be of course under the age of twelve. Somewhere between ’57 and ’62. I would have to have to place myself somewhere between ages eight and twelve at the time.
GoD: And you think other people of that age, would, of course, have to remember something like that. Wouldn’t they. So maybe it’s something we should start asking for. So, where would you give the exact location. If you were saying to them. Would you remember the helicopter where it landed?
TJ: Yeah, it landed right in the substation?
GoD: In the electricity sub station between the Old Manor Road and Dublin Hill.
TJ: Right. Actually, the road heads up to Murphy’s Rock. From the Old Manor Road, there’s a road that heads up to Murphy’s Rock where we used to play. And the Mallow Road. There’s an ESB sub station right there and that’s where the actual helicopter landed. I’ve no idea why or what. I’m sure it had some business.
GoD: Obviously.
TJ: To us, that would have pre the airport. Also hadn’t been opened.
GoD: Sure, there’d have been nothing in the sky before then.
TJ: Right. And that fact that it was a helicopter alone.
GoD: It would probably have been the first time people even saw it.
TJ: And this would have been pre-television.
B.S: Would ye as children have played any pranks on neighbours or anything?
P.M: Yeah.
B.S: Could you tell me a little about that?
P.M: [Laughs] I could. I told you we used to play ball on the terrace, Seminary Terrace up in Water Lane and there were two unmarried ladies for want of a better word, living there, Father Harte used stay with one of them and they made our life a misery because they’d be taking the ball and they’d be cribbing about us and we used have em so one day anyway we found a bit of a rope and the two doors they had brass knobs in the centre of the door and the two unmarried ladies, living next door to one another and we would - got the bit of rope we tied both knobs and we left a small bit of slack and we knocked at one door first and we left a small pause before we knocked on the other, then we knocked on the other and then we knocked on the other, the first one we knocked on first, the lady in the house would have tried to open her door and she could only open it so far because the rope wouldn’t let it open any further and then the other one came out slightly after her and she tried to open her door so she closed the first one woman’s door. [laughs] We did make their lives a bit of a misery alright.
B S: I only want you to think about this now but is there any chance that you could sing that song for me, because I’d say your father is the only person that would have passed down that song to our generation and the generation coming after us who’d have never heard of it, and your father memorised that ballad about Scoura Hill. You don’t have to do it. You can do it later.
M M: Well, Scoura Hill now was the old Ballyvolane Road and when I was a child there were a couple of houses still there. Quinna now lived in one and his brother. The rest would have been ruins and they’d have been at the side of what were known as the Glen and he used to sing that on a Sunday night, Scoura Hill, and we’d have great fun singing it. If I can remember it Breda, I might get mixed up.
B S: It doesn’t matter if you get it mixed up, you know. It’ll just give a general idea.
M M: Oh the Jew and plough, a lively trade up in Scoura Hill
For all have bought but few have paid up in Scoura Hill
And when the Jew men come each day
They’re paid their debts in the quickest way
There’ll be a couple of the houses burned each day up in Scoura Hill
A policeman he came up last night up to Scoura Hill
He swore to teach us to do what’s right up in Scoura Hill
But when the officer began to roar
The officer shouted ‘Get inside doors’
He was struck on the nose with a stale back bone up in Scoura Hill
Oh the military they came up last night up to Scoura Hill
They swore -- Oh I’m wrong -- to teach us to do what’s right up in Scoura Hill
But when the officer began to -- I’m mixed up Breda. I have to go back to when the policeman came up. [Pause] I’ll sing it another time for ya.
B S: Polly Riordan and the rent
M M: Oh Polly Riordan never gets her rent up in Scoura Hill
For when she calls, the money is spent up in Scoura Hill
Polly Riordan says she won’t call again
She’ll fetch the military tonight at ten
There’ll be a couple of the houses burned down then up in Scoura Hill
Oh the military they came up last night up to Scoura Hill
They swore to teach us to do what’s right up in Scoura Hill
But when the officer began to roar --
He was struck on the nose with a stale back bone up in Scoura Hill
B StL: And then when the – when the gas man -- everybody had a gas meter for their gas and you’d have to put money in, you know. Your gas would go if the money went down, like petrol in your car and you’d have to top it up, put money in and the gas would be on again. But every -- I don’t know how often it would have been, the gas man would come and you’d nearly always, your mother would nearly always get money back. But I don’t think it was the fact that my mother was getting money, I was always fascinated at how quickly the gas men could count the money. I used be foolish and they’d be putting it into the bags, and tying the bags and into their bag then, you know, and then your mother would get a receipt for how much gas was used and what money was over then, she’d get back. And he might only do half the lane. They’d be all ‘the gas man is coming, the gas man will be here’ you know and whoever -- like supposing you lived across the road -- the – the lane from me an he came to me an I maybe got four pound back, but he’d be coming to you tomorrow but you’d have no money. So like you’d – you’d get money from me until he gave you yours tomorrow, do you know. When the gas man came ‘twas like Santa, that they got money back [laugh]. Those kinds of memories really are what you’d have, do you know.
B McL: I suppose the best recollection I would have of my father is when Ita and Vincent’s kids were on the scene when they were young like and 5 and 6 and that and he was a great man for playing with the kids and sort of doing knacks with his fingers that he kind of project from the light onto the wall you know and he’d have things I don’t know how he’d used do it it would look like rabbit ears at one stage you know and would look like something else at another stage and he told the same stories to them all as they were growing up and he would do the same with my kids afterwards and the story always involved a rabbit you know and he’d call him Mr. Rabbit you see it was all about the rabbit and he’d bring in all sorts of things to it and all the kids loved would be delighted with it and it always came then to the punchline and the punchline was that the rabbit turned around and said to my father “Mr Mcloughlin, have you a match?” now as in striking a match. What the significance of it I never knew but all the kids would just wait for the punchline (fumbling with recorder and microphone) as I don’t know what it meant “Mr Loughlin, have you a match?” but they’d all be there. Hanging on, waiting for that to be said. And they’d be hilarious laughter then after that. But he just had that way with them that he was very good very good with kids you know. He was very very witty man you know but he won’t be a joke-teller you know.
Describes attending school in cold substandard buildings. Preferred self-directed learning to rote memorizing. Her love of nature and science was evident early and evolved into her passion to follow medicine as a vocation and career, despite the opposition of her parents and GP who feared it would be a hard life especially for a woman.
Reflects on the deficiencies of medical training in University College Cork, especially the deliberate use of fear and humiliation in teaching which has left a negative mark on her and other colleagues. Suggests that the need to imprint so much information through humiliation is no longer necessary due to improvements in technology.
Outlines her career path through various roles, experiences and responsibilities including working in Accident and Emergency and time in New Zealand.
Discusses her impressions of Grattan Street Medical Centre both as a physical building with leaks and in disrepair and as a unique workplace with a community of multiple disciplines which function well together.
Speaks about her current work as an Area Medical Officer, the kind of patients she sees and typical issues that arise including developmental checks on babies and following up with parents.
Reflects on attitudes towards medicine and the HSE especially among parents, and how as a doctor she has to deal with this in order to achieve best outcomes for child patients.
Outlines the problems with Grattan Street staff car parking and the issues it cause.
Talks about the outlines of the history she has gleaned about Grattan Street Medical Centre Building as a Quaker Meeting House and as a public dispensary.
Speaks of the marriage registry office which is part of the Grattan Street building, where weddings happen during her work day creating a strange but joyous contrast.
Discusses the amount of paperwork and documentation required for all the work in Grattan Street that remains from past decades which fascinates her.
Reflects on her hopes and the possible futures for the Grattan Street Medical Centre building, and the fate of services that will move to St. Mary’s Primary Care Centre in Gurranabraher. Compares the two locations and emphasizes the importance of a good workplace culture within a building. Talks about possible patient attitudes to the new building. Hopes it will have a communal staff canteen.
Outlines the importance of administration staff in contributing to positive experiences for patients and facilitating the efficient work clinical staff.
Reflects on the difficulties of a medical career including 90 hour weeks, missing out on parties and travelling, and having to tell mothers that their babies have died.
]]>Edith grew up in Youghal where she recalls playing childhood games including Red Rover, chainey, a makeshift tennis and sandcastles on the beach.
Describes attending school in cold substandard buildings. Preferred self-directed learning to rote memorizing. Her love of nature and science was evident early and evolved into her passion to follow medicine as a vocation and career, despite the opposition of her parents and GP who feared it would be a hard life especially for a woman.
Reflects on the deficiencies of medical training in University College Cork, especially the deliberate use of fear and humiliation in teaching which has left a negative mark on her and other colleagues. Suggests that the need to imprint so much information through humiliation is no longer necessary due to improvements in technology.
Outlines her career path through various roles, experiences and responsibilities including working in Accident and Emergency and time in New Zealand.
Discusses her impressions of Grattan Street Medical Centre both as a physical building with leaks and in disrepair and as a unique workplace with a community of multiple disciplines which function well together.
Speaks about her current work as an Area Medical Officer, the kind of patients she sees and typical issues that arise including developmental checks on babies and following up with parents.
Reflects on attitudes towards medicine and the HSE especially among parents, and how as a doctor she has to deal with this in order to achieve best outcomes for child patients.
Outlines the problems with Grattan Street staff car parking and the issues it cause.
Talks about the outlines of the history she has gleaned about Grattan Street Medical Centre Building as a Quaker Meeting House and as a public dispensary.
Speaks of the marriage registry office which is part of the Grattan Street building, where weddings happen during her work day creating a strange but joyous contrast.
Discusses the amount of paperwork and documentation required for all the work in Grattan Street that remains from past decades which fascinates her.
Reflects on her hopes and the possible futures for the Grattan Street Medical Centre building, and the fate of services that will move to St. Mary’s Primary Care Centre in Gurranabraher. Compares the two locations and emphasizes the importance of a good workplace culture within a building. Talks about possible patient attitudes to the new building. Hopes it will have a communal staff canteen.
Outlines the importance of administration staff in contributing to positive experiences for patients and facilitating the efficient work clinical staff.
Reflects on the difficulties of a medical career including 90 hour weeks, missing out on parties and travelling, and having to tell mothers that their babies have died.
0.00.00 - 0.00.23 |
Intro |
0.00.23- 0.02.04 |
Games Played as Child in Youghal Grew up in Youghal. Children’s games: chasing games, Red Rover, What Time is it Mr Wolf?, Chainy. Elastics game: Long piece of elastic tied into a loop with a person at each end with complex rules about how to jump in and out and over and back. Played tennis: in the tennis club and also “over the gate”. It was the era of John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova and Bjorn Borg. Played a form of football. Made mud pies. |
0.02.04- 0.02.26 |
Describes game Chainy or Chainey in more detail Still played in her child’s school. One person catches another and they must keep holding hands and keep catching people until they are all holding hands in a long chain. |
0.02.26- 0.03.06 |
Describes Red Rover or Bulldog She didn’t like Red Rover. Stand in chain and chant “Red Rover, Red Rover, we call over X” Begins with 2 children holding hands and the person who is called over must try to run through their hands and break the link, which Edith says always hurt and as she was “quite small” she was usually the weak link. If someone didn’t break the link they had to join that chain. |
0.03.06- 0.03.47 |
Games on The beach Not much time in the water/sea because it was too cold. Made sandcastles, sand tunnels, forts, dams to keep the sea out or bring the sea in. These plans never worked and Edith says “you learned about futility as a smallie”. |
0.03.47- 0.04.38 |
Playing Without Adult Supervision Spent a lot of time quite bored in fields or on bikes. “We’d just head off on the bikes for the day: I don’t really know where we went or why we went.” Only television was RTE 1 and RTE 2- “Poverty 1 and Poverty 2” there was nothing to watch. Call to friend and come back when felt like it. No phones. Improvised ways out of problems. Reasonable amount of time without adult supervision. But there were always watchful adult eyes: “if you were doing something you shouldn’t be doing your parents would usually hear about it.” |
0.04.38- 0.05.00 |
Where not allowed to play Places not allowed to be on bikes when little: out the front on the main road where cars were quite fast. Not supposed to go on the back fields where there was a bull. (Suggestion in her response is that they may have not always obeyed!) |
0.05.00 - 0.05.16 |
Home Mum, dad and sister 3 years older. Mum was primary school principal. Dad worked Monday-Friday 9-5. |
0.05.16- 0.06.51 |
Primary School Remembers being cold and very bored. Went to school in “Park” on a crossroads on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. Where her mum was teacher. 2 teacher outside toilets and no central heating when she started school. There was a stove to heat the classroom very like the school in Muckross Farms. Two “boot rooms” or cloakrooms. Inside toilets eventually installed. Very few students. |
0.06.51- 0.09.50 |
Secondary School Went to Loreto in Youghal it was also very cold. Some years were in prefabs. The school was near the lighthouse. When you were bored you could look out to the sea from an old redbrick house which was left to the nuns. It was very exposed to the weather- wind, rain and salt spray from the sea-wall. Enjoyed maths and science. Lots of repetition in the schoolwork. Would prefer self-directed learning not just learning by rote. For people with other kinds of intelligence it wasted their potential and opportunity. Heuristic learning- learning through play and experience. She learned how to sew a button, balance a cheque book and pay a bill. Skills for living in the world: how to cook how to clean how to look after your physical health, mental health should be taught. |
0.09.50- 0.11.19 |
Love of Nature and Science leading to Medicine. Was always interested in nature and biological sciences: “mad about nature”. When 13 or 14 a friend brought a roadkill mink to science class to dissect it. The teacher was a bit squeamish, but Edith said she would do it “no bother”. Remembers “pure awe” at how remarkably perfect the insides were, “how it all fitted, and it all worked”. Had dissected earthworms before. Drifted then to wanting to do medicine. Set her heard on it. |
0.11.19- 0.14.09 |
Medicine as a Vocation, the Determination Required Mom and dad really didn’t want her to do medicine at all. They called in the local GP to tell her not to do it- which had the opposite effect. She applied for medicine at 16 when she sat her leaving cert for the first time and had to repeat it because she didn’t get enough points. In some ways in hindsight her parents were probably right. It is a hard life and requires working very hard for a very long time. Edith was a premature baby and was always physically small and thin and her parents were concerned. Her colleague with an Italian grandmother described the need to do medicine as being like a holy fire [Note: “sacro fuoco” maybe?] similar to a vocation but perhaps not spiritual. If you have this fire nothing else will do. She also applied for computer science. If she hadn’t done medicine in college, she thinks she would have gone back to do it later in life. Local GP told her it’s a very hard life for a woman- which is not the thing to say to a 15-year-old. Thinks the nuns that taught her was feminist in their way as they were ambitious for their students. The GP said that you don’t want to do nightshifts when pregnant or be on call when you have small babies. The cards are very much stacked against you to make it in medicine as a consultant as a woman. Edith says he was right but that you don’t want to hear that at 15. |
0.14.09- 0.15.17 |
Nuns’ Ambition for the girls Only one in school to do medicine. Many of the students did honours maths. There was competition between the boys’ school and the girls’ school. They’ve now combined. Some schools didn’t offer honours maths or honours science subjects to leaving cert for girls. |
0.15.17- 0.18.40 |
Medical Training in UCC University College Cork Didn’t love medicine in UCC. Didn’t find the training easy- a culture of throwing people in to it. Students told that most of them would become GPs and that medical students learn themselves they don’t need to be taught. Lectures often had little relevance to what was in the book. Clinical training involved bullying, teaching by fear, humiliation. Consultant was seen as god. Lots of waiting around for people who didn’t turn up. Mental fallout for some of the people in her class. And the system may not have made them better doctors. Saw how students were taught differently overseas. Students were getting sick in the morning with nerves before clinics. Had friends who weren’t doing medicine. Met her now husband at 19. Always had something outside of medicine to stay grounded. Always liked the clinical work and the patients. |
0.18.40 - 0.23.40 |
Clinical Training Book learning- through lectures. Clinical placements for students with a particular service for a time follow their team and learn how to take a patient history and examine a patient. Initially must ask about everything when taking patient histories until you know what to look for. Lived in nurses’ home in Limerick for six weeks. Consultant would take you to see an interesting patient to ask you questions. Some were fine but some were set up so that you would definitely fail so that you know that you know nothing and be humiliated. It was done to everybody no one was singled out. Describes how the consultant asked students questions. Thinks that the experience has left a mark on her and otherwise confident colleagues as they sometimes have difficulty answering questions in group settings, or when in a particular tone. Describes it as like being triggered. Edith didn’t go to one consultant’s clinics because she found she wasn’t learning from him. No one would notice if she wasn’t there. Jokes that she hopes UCC doesn’t as they’ll take away her degree! |
0.23.40- 0.25.25 |
Why this teaching system was used in UCC Consultants wanted to imprint the exceptions and rare cases on their minds so they wouldn’t forget. It was basically the Socratic method. They were once told that they weren’t good enough to be medical students. Then not good enough to be the vets in Ballsbridge and lastly that they weren’t good enough to be the medical correspondent in the Irish Times! Sounds funny now but at the time they were devastated. But Edith still remembers the name of the particular type of amputation due to this scene. This system of teaching & learning was designed when people need to remember a lot of information. Now things have changed as “all the information is there” now you need to learn how to use it. An interesting patient is one which had something which was rare. Edith describes it as something with four legs, a tail and neighs but is a zebra not a horse. |
0.26.05- 0.30.07 |
Career Path for medical students SHO- senior house officer. After qualifying you become an intern. After a first year as an intern you can become an SHO. Then become a Registrar, then a Senior Registrar, Specialist Registrar and eventually a Consultant. SHO could be 2-4 years long. SHOs are the general grunts they do all the hard work. Edith did 6 months surgery in Mercy Hospital, 6 months of medicine in the South Infirmary Hospital and really enjoyed them. Every thirds week in the Mercy they worked 110 hours. In hindsight they had “ridiculous levels of responsibility”. Then did the 2 year specialist paediatric training scheme in Dublin. Then did paediatrics in New Zealand, then accident and emergency. Did GP training in New Zealand. Returned to Ireland when her eldest daughter was 1. Worked as GP in Cork. After her twins were born Edith went back to work when they were 8 months old. She worked for Swiftcare for 5 years. Husband stayed at home to mind children and was going to go back to work. She was clinical lead with Swiftcare which included corporate, management and clinical. Looking to reduce her hours and her friend asked if she would be interested in a job in Grattan Street and she started March 2013. |
0.30.07- 0.33.44 |
Enjoyed Accident and Emergency work in New Zealand Edith says A&E in New Zealand is fabulous. It was real doctoring. The immediacy of it. See lots of different things. Got her clinical confidence- could deal with anything. Security removed anyone who was abusive. There was always enough resources, staff, beds. People weren’t burnt out in the way they are in Ireland. Requires being on call on nights. Did A&E in the Hutt outside wealthy Wellington CBD Central Business District and Porirua. Deprived areas around the Hutt so there were cases of self-harm, domestic abuse and patients from lower-socioeconomic areas. Gravitated towards those areas, similar in her time in Temple Street. In Cork Edith works mainly in the Northside. The social supports either weren’t there or didn’t work in her experience in Ireland. Children unable to access basic dental care was unheard of in New Zealand where they have better primacy care. |
0.33.44- 0.36.36 |
Early Memory & description of Grattan Street Medical Centre A woman working downstairs said it was like coming to Colditz [German WW2 Prisoner of War Camp]. Arrived with a friend. Everyone was so nice. An old Quaker Meeting House. In busy urban areas between a school, busy road, houses, church complex. Hodgepodge! Kind of Victorian road frontage. Older building at the back made of cut stone. Higgledy-piggledy. Different types of signage. There’s a bit of a railing and bit of a ramp. Building kept together with duct tape and bits of binder twine. It’s a bit sad looking. But it has been here a long time and will be here in the future. A building that’s seen use and is embedded in the community. In keeping with Middle Parish. |
0.36.36- 0.39.02 |
Services in Grattan Street Medical Centre Health centre which provides community-based services for people based in Middle Parish, inner-city area, eye clinic provides community eye services for all of the North Lee HSE area- from Blarney to Carrigtwohill. Community podiatry clinic. Community medical doctors: child development clinics and vaccination services for North Lee. Public Health Nurse (PHN) services based in Grattan Street. Home Care Services Unit. Community dental services has moved out. Girls at front desk do European Health Visit Card and stamp forms- eye clinic etc. Community Welfare Officer used to be there as well but they have moved. Vaccination services. Similar but disparate services. Serve different populations within the community. Community based services are geographically decided rather than by your condition. |
0.39.02- 0.40.40 |
Engagement with a Community Based Service Hopes that services run in the community for the community get a better engagement rather than traveling to a tertiary centre. More likely to engage with a PHN who you may have been to before than an anonymous person in an anonymous clinic that changes each time you go. Community knowledge of Grattan Street in a way that there isn’t for CUH. Grattan Street doesn’t deal with life and death so expectations are different to a hospital. Physically less distance for people to travel in the community. |
0.40.40- 0.43.44 |
Working in Grattan Street Communal Building Uses Grattan Street for office-based work. Some clinics in Grattan Street but the demographics have changed and there are fewer babies and young children in the area. Primarily paper-pushing and renewing the connections that you have with the people who work in Grattan Street. Clinics in South Doc so it’s possible for Edith not to meet any other healthcare professionals only patients so Grattan Street is a social hub and important part of the job where information is transmitted in a more informal way not through writing. Importance of feedback. And Grattan Street facilitates that. Communal building. Can see people walking past and talk to them if you leave your office door open. Facilitates those networks. You will know who is in the building and check in with Celine in the office to see who else is there and what is happening. AMO- Area Medical Officer now Community Medical Doctors. |
0.43.44- 0.51.20 |
Clinics and Patients in Grattan Street Afternoon clinic downstairs in room 4 in Grattan Street. 6-10 patients in an afternoon clinic from 2:30-4pm. Anything referred in by the PHN or the assessment of needs- the disability services, and early intervention- concern with an ongoing developmental delay in child in the community. Checks for vision, head checks, hip checks. Partly routine partly not routine. Patients tend to be very early or very late. People will turn up 30 minutes early or 15-20 minutes late. Other places people turn up on time or a few minutes late. But with small babies delays happen for parents. Staff has high tolerance for that. Sometimes a mum will come with other children as well, or with a granny or granny will come with the children or there will be a friend or helper there too. Majority of patients come from PHNs. Form from PHN saying who their GP is and why they’re being referred. Always checks their names especially as more and more patients don’t have a typical Irish name. Some of them change mobile numbers often so checking those details is important. Change of address is also a problem. Some come from Edel House a women’s homeless service. Takes a background history or birth history- where they were born, birth weight, past medical history. Discuss risk factors, examine patients and how to proceed and be very clear with follow up instructions with the parents. We only remember 30% of what we are told. Usually don’t see patients again- not a follow up, ongoing service, don’t provide therapeutic intervention. “Good at normal”- this is within the range of what we expect. Much of medicine is about the abnormal. Most usual medical issues she deals with: Vision checks for squint, hip checks- concern about deformation, head checks. Developmental assessment- concern about autism or global developmental delay or intellectual disability. Preschools are good at spotting developmental concerns and referring them. |
0.51.20- 0.54.53 |
Attitudes of Parents towards Health & Medicine and HSE Parents want the best for children and are happy to do the best what it takes. Rare case where parent is in denial about their child’s situation- Edith doesn’t hassle them so as not to sour therapeutic relations down the line. Most people engage unlike adult medicine. Some parents may have complicated or chaotic lives and social workers may need to get involved. Advocate for the child’s best interests and is represented in the family. Even parents with most complicated lives can address the child’s needs. HSE is different. Expectation of a bad service especially where Grattan Street looks a bit rough and ready, but surprised that they get a good service and Edith is pleasant and doesn’t rush them out. Difficult conversations about telling parents of long waiting lists. Edith cannot speed up assessments. |
0.54.53- 0.58.43 |
Most Unusual Cases come across Doesn’t like unusual. Should not be seeing anything acute or sinister. A child staring into space could have autism sometimes it could be an absence seizure which needs a difficult treatment. Genetic abnormality which causes a developmental delay. Acute cases usually picked up by the paediatricians. Be careful about not scaring parents. Sometimes parents are reluctant to go to hospital. Acute cases are the ones that you think about when you go home and are not at work. Acute is something which cannot wait. Less concerned about something which is stable and isn’t going to change eg if someone is fragile X a chromosomal condition which causes developmental delay, commonest cause of intellectual disability- if a patient has this it is not going to go away. But if there’s a child you think has a brain tumour which has given them an acute squint which has come on over 24 hours out of nowhere then you don’t want to wait. |
0.58.43- 1.01.44 |
Dealing with Parents Reluctant to go to Hospital Most parents want what’s best for child. Sometimes parents can sometimes be preparing to fight to get what they think their child needs, and be adversarial. Can spend much of consultation time to get the parent onside. Have to be careful to not reinforce the idea that the parent thinks they need to push harder to get what they want. Explains that she wouldn’t do for someone else’s child what she wouldn’t do for any of her own. That can be a powerful message for a parent. If that doesn’t convince them then she has to start thinking about social workers: is there child abuse, is the parent drunk or stoned. |
1.01.44- 1.02.30 |
Why People may be reluctant to go to Hospital Down to resources: can’t afford taxi, no one to mind children, don’t want to go to CUH Cork University Hospital. Often single mums, mums without social supports, or trying to work and mind children. Physical upheaval is difficult. Logistically and economically difficult for parents. Example from Gurranabraher. |
1.02.30- 1.04.58 |
What it is like to work in Grattan Street Unique. Communal building, sense of community. Even people that you don’t deal with clinically you get to know which is important. Buildings are about the people in them not just the services they provide. Physicality of the building- open gallery- you can see & hear who is there. Would prefer it if was a warner building. Survivor bonding over the deficiencies of the building. Problems with parking. People say they work in Grattan Street not in podiatry. |
1.04.58- 1.06.24 |
Parking Small area for parking, not big enough for all the people who work there. Have to move your car to let people out. Didn’t park in the car park when working a half-day because wouldn’t be able to get out. School and houses also use the parking area and they can get cross if they are blocked. |
1.06.24- 1.09.12 |
Past of the Building Quaker meeting house. Building is set up like a church- entrance with arch and sweeping staircases, ceiling roses, curved picture rails. Awareness of the thickness of the walls and windows, not the typical shape for an office building or healthcare centre. Stone plaques outside in the parking area which commemorate the building. Was a dispensary from the 1940s one of the school nurses on the list of interviewees has a friend whose father was the dispenser or pharmacist there. Some of the came to Grattan Street as children for speech and language therapy. No anecdotes about when the lights went out or when it flooded. Cultural understanding of dispensary is that it was a publicly funded pharmacy but that they were fairly grim places for the ordinary not the great and the good. Lots of rooms and big building. |
1.09.12- 1.11.37 |
Weddings in the Registry in Grattan Street Other part of the building is the registry office at the front where people get married. Weddings out the front when coming to work. Children crying and elderly people. Swathe of human life. Unusual to see weddings in the urban work environment which makes everyone smile. And she will miss that when they move. Thinks other employees will have stories and anecdotes. |
1.11.37- 1.15.00 |
Paper & Documents in Grattan Street No one would believe how much paper is in the building. No one removes paper because no one knows who it belongs to. Paper based system for records. Accretions of paper. Shared office space where very little is thrown away. Extraordinary volume of paper created and used. Referrals done on duplicate books with carbon copy. Referral books for services which no longer exist- going back as far as the 1970. Old computers unused. Random boxes of leaflets. |
1.15.00- 1.18.10 |
Words to Describe Grattan Street and its future Community. Resilience. Service. If it was a dog it would be a Labrador, and old smelly one with bad teeth that farts a lot! A pet that everyone loves. Would hate to see the building closed and empty. Sense of spirit in the building. Understands that Quakers signed over the building with the view that it would be used for health services to the community. There’s no disabled access or toilets at present. Buckets in kitchen when it rains. Won’t do well if it is left empty and cold. Community based health resource rather than offices and admin. |
1.18.10- 1.22.13 |
Future of Services moving from Grattan Street Services moving to St Mary’s health campus. Podiatry moving to St Mary’s. PHN have moved already. Vaccination will move to St Mary’s. Eye clinic will move to St Finbarr’s. Dental has gone to Finbarr’s. Unsure about European Health Cards. Home Care may stay here. Marriages will stay. They have had little information about the services. Understands the complexity of project managing the move. Eye clinic will be physically remote from St. Mary’s. Lose sense of networks even though you can still pick up the phone. Lose contacts and networks and personally knowing people in other services. Personal knowledge of how other people work. It gives you more information about how to triage or perceive a referral when you know the people. Anything that interferes with getting information relevant to the patient and decision-making will make her job slightly harder. |
1.22.13- 1.25.19 |
Sense of Patients’ Perspectives Some clinic space may have to be kept in Grattan Street because of the most vulnerable patients in the area eg. from Edel House and newly arrived immigrants, and people who have moved out of direct provision. Families where English might not be first language and from backgrounds where there might be poor healthcare. Travel may be difficult for these patients, especially going “up the hill” to St Mary’s. Will advocate strongly to keep a clinic in Grattan Street- it’s easier to move 1 doctor to see 30 patients than vice versa, and do not need any specialised equipment. Grattan Street is a disaster for people with cars- St Mary’s is much better it has parking, space and coffee shops. Ensure that better services elsewhere don’t leave more vulnerable patients behind. |
1.25.19- 1.27.47 |
Comparison between Grattan Street and St. Mary’s St Mary’s will have: heating, lifts disabled toilets, large waiting areas, easy access. [Edith’s phone vibrates during this section] In Grattan Street if you are on crutches you can’t come to work. St Mary’s will fix these problems. Change is hard. [Edith’s phone vibrates during this section] With a new start if gives the staff a chance to effect the culture of the new building. Everyone in the building making small inputs. Christmas lunch potluck and baby showers in Grattan Street for which there is no policy or permission required people organised it themselves- autonomy and power. |
1.27.47- 1.31.31 |
Culture of the New Building & Importance of Admin People need to feel they have some autonomy of their workplace eg. the signs in Grattan Street which people put up without needing permission. Every clerical and admin staff can hear the patients who come into Grattan Street so they understand that they are not a piece of paper or a number. Further away people are from the person they provide the worse the service provision. Service lives and dies on its administrative staff. When admin staff goes on holidays the clinical staff are bereft! Importance of admin staff even though their role can be minimised. But in Grattan Street there is a good balance. St Mary’s may be isolated in separate rooms. |
1.31.31- 1.33.02 |
What Makes Good Admin Support? Patience. Being able to spin so many plates. First point of contact for people who use the service. People who understand that it’s really important. Although HSE gets a bad reputation every admin staff has been helpful and gone above and beyond. Celine in Grattan Street is very patient. |
1.33.02- 1.35.14 |
Patient Expectations of St Mary’s Big scary, bewildering building. Hope that people will be made to feel welcome. Scale of foyer area is colossal and may be overwhelming. Community should have some autonomy over the building in the same way the staff should. Comfortable seats and accessible baby changing facilities may be enough to make people feel welcome. |
1.35.14-1.38.08 |
Centralised Canteen Would like to see centralised canteen for the staff with access to healthy food. Small things become important. Easy to walk around and access healthy food. Sense that the community can use the space- not much green space on the northside. Chance to look at a different model of healthcare. Moaning is easy and can create a toxic culture if things never change. Small kitchen room on St Mary’s health campus. St Finbarr’s has a centralised canteen but CUH doesn’t. Give people healthy options on site. |
1.38.08-1.40.43 |
Community connection with Grattan Street more generally Edith has little interaction with Middle Parish community. Sees people coming and going from Middle Parish Community Centre and from the SHARE Centre, may help them across the road. Very little interaction which she finds quite sad. Would know some of the support workers in Edel House through working with them and phone calls. Reality of life is everyone is very busy. No funding for other community outreach projects. May run ante-natal classes in Grattan Street which would be good. The more engaged the community can be with the building the more likely they will be to turn up to their GP appointment or diabetic nurse appointment. |
1.40.43-1.43.40 |
Reflection choosing Medicine Would not want any of her children to do medicine. Comes at a big cost. Have to work 90 hour weeks and tell mother that their babies had died while her friends were traveling and going to parties. Have to go through hard parts of job to get to a role that you like. Came first in paediatrics in UCC please don’t tell Prof Carney/Kearney that she only went to about 2 paeds lectures! But spent a lot of time in the wards. Children are direct and Edith likes that. Interview Ends |
His mother was not allowed to keep her job in the public service once she married, she took up oil painting and cared for her mother.
Describes his school days and recollects specific teachers. Outlines his engineering education and his emigration to England for work. Lived on Eton High Street and attended Tottenham Hotspur football matches. Influenced by stories of older relatives who regretted remaining in England he decided to return to Ireland.
Discusses how he began hillwalking as a hobby through photography. Explains what’s involved in leading a hill walk and how he wrote a number of hillwalking guidebooks. Mentions various walking routes in Ireland. Admires France’s rights for walkers, which are more favourable than the situation in Ireland.
Recalls starting work in Grattan Street medical centre and the various disciplines that operated there over the years. Discusses his duties as porter. Talks about the happy history of the medical centre building including its Quaker origins.
Remembers social events with fellow Grattan Street staff including Christmas parties. Mentions memorable events and incidents in Grattan Street including the floods of 2013.
]]>Sean grew up by the Lough in Cork city and spent holidays in Ardmore. Describes his family home and memories of his grandparents. Talks about playing football and the game Red Rover as a child.
His mother was not allowed to keep her job in the public service once she married, she took up oil painting and cared for her mother.
Describes his school days and recollects specific teachers. Outlines his engineering education and his emigration to England for work. Lived on Eton High Street and attended Tottenham Hotspur football matches. Influenced by stories of older relatives who regretted remaining in England he decided to return to Ireland.
Discusses how he began hillwalking as a hobby through photography. Explains what’s involved in leading a hill walk and how he wrote a number of hillwalking guidebooks. Mentions various walking routes in Ireland. Admires France’s rights for walkers, which are more favourable than the situation in Ireland.
Recalls starting work in Grattan Street medical centre and the various disciplines that operated there over the years. Discusses his duties as porter. Talks about the happy history of the medical centre building including its Quaker origins.
Remembers social events with fellow Grattan Street staff including Christmas parties. Mentions memorable events and incidents in Grattan Street including the floods of 2013.
0.00.00 - 0.03.24 |
Family and Early Memories Born in the Bons (Bon Secours Hospital). Lived all life in Cork except 4 years. Holidays in early teens to Ardmore fishing for mackerel. Brothers Paddy & Brian. Grew up on Hartlands Road by the Lough. Played football in the field by Lough or fished. Primary school St Joseph’s on Mardyke- socially mixed school with people from Northside, Southside and the country farmers’ children. Pres (PBC Presentation Brothers College) was a paid school beside them with uniforms. Got a lift to school with dad in the morning. Hour and a half for lunch so walked home for lunch. Mother stayed at home wasn’t allowed to work in public service once married. Secondary School CSN Coláiste Spioraid Naoimh Bishopstown for 3 years. Then the Regional College for junior engineering certificate course. Went on to an electrical engineering course and qualified in the early 1980s not many jobs available. Went to England using qualifications a little. Got job as porter in Grattan Street with Southern Health Board now HSE. |
0.03.24 - 0.06.08 |
Family House and Grandparents Small house 2 rooms in front, 2 behind, middle bathroom and flat-roofed kitchen at the back. Shared bedroom with 2 brothers. When 13 years old his grandmother came to live with them. In his pre-teen years his grandmother knitted a lot of their jumpers “long in the backs to keep your ass warm”. Grandmother was independent woman, went to Liverpool when 16, worked as telephonist. She married teacher in Cork & lived on Redemption Road. Stocky woman. Big motherly figure. People didn’t take exercise back then. Pleasant personality. Family visited her house on Sundays and she had “curranty bread”, Lucozade or orangeade. Parents would bring grandmother to mass. Remembers grandfather as very stern and always spoke Irish. |
0.06.08 - 0.08.30 |
Games Football across the Lough. Describes Red Rover game. In winter played football on the road which was a steep hill. Only one car on the road picked two neighbours’ gates to play football. Broke a few windows. Good natured nothing untoward. About 12 children on the road at the time. Still living on the road he grew up on now only about 4 children. There could have been 20 children at one time. The football wasn’t taken that seriously it was only killing time. |
0.08.30 - 0.09.30 |
Women banned from Work in Public Service after Marriage Mother took up painting with local oil painters in Cork for about 15 years. And then looked after her mother. There was no nursing homes. |
0.09.30 - 0.11.23 |
School and Teachers Br Albius teacher keen on science. Taught them Latin in primary school. Taught about condensation on the glass. Teacher used a sheet in the schoolyard to show how a sail on a ship works. Br John was favourite teacher because he played guitar. Sean thinks that life puts you in a certain career and if you’re happy you stay with it. You can “what-if” your life away but there is no point. |
0.11.23 - 0.13.18 |
Time in England Worked in factory doing electronic assembly. Lived in flat on Eton High Street with a few lads. Went to Tottenham Hotspur matches at night with stadium lit up- magical experience. Enjoyed England but after 2 years decided he didn’t want to grow old in England and if you stay too long you won’t be able to get away from it. Saw a generation of aunts and uncles who never came back to Ireland and regretted it. Likes the outdoors and hillwalking. Hardest thing about England- you can’t get away from people. Population of 55 million. |
0.13.18 - 0.15.20 |
Hillwalking Hobby through Photography Got into hillwalking through photography and landscape photography. But hillwalking took over. Cork Backpackers hillwalking club for about 20 years. Dungarvan Comeraghs, Galtees, Carrantuohill, Beara peninsula. Can only do that in rural places of England. Club meets on grand parade and divides into groups for different walks. Get coffee before the walk and a meal after the walk. |
0.15.20 - 0.17.46 |
What it takes to lead a walk They wouldn’t let you lead the walks. He went on the committee in order to put himself forward for leading walks. Kevin O’Flynn and from Ken Sumtana Malaysia taught people how to lead walks. Teaching people how to navigate and read maps. Started leading as coleader, then leader with supervision and it became clear he had an aptitude for it. Good hillwalker has a degree of fitness. Choose a leader with he same fitness level as you. The walk is only as fast as the slowest walker. About 5 hill walking clubs in Cork. Mountaineers, Cork Backpackers, Bishopstown is big club, Blarney and a few others. They dovetail into cycling as well. |
0.17.46 - 0.22.50 |
Writing books on Hillwalking Hill-walked on his own to research the books. Came across a slim guidebook on hillwalking and decided he could do it. So he wrote one on Mangerton. Impossible to get anyone to publish it so went to publish it himself but you end up with 3000 books in cardboard boxes. A guy in west Cork distributed small publishers’ books. Over 10 years he wrote 5 guide books. They made him a few thousand euro a year. Reeks, West Cork, County Cork. Books included: routes, maps, route descriptions, a little bit of history. Size of a letter about 50 pages and can fit in the pocket. Books became dated because places on the routes could no longer be accessed. “Trails Ireland” can be accessed on the internet. In France you cannot own up to the cliff face so the whole coastal area can be walked in France. It’s not the same here in Ireland. While in Ireland the old railway lines are being reopened more should be done to open the coastal area. Putting up barbed wire to stop people crossing the land. Success of Dungarvan Greenway Westport-Achill Cycle way Athlone to Mullingar route. Thinks we need more of that in the world we live in. If motorways can be built requiring land being baought up then it can be done. Mahon walk on Sundays Success of Ballincollig park or the lough for recreation. Common ownership will be taken up |
0.22.50 - 0.25.50 |
First impressions of Grattan Street & services over the years 26 years old when started in Grattan Street. Thought it would be a job for 6 months but stayed 35 years! Not much happening when he started. There were Public Health Nurses and Community Welfare Officers looked after people waiting for their dole or social welfare or interim payments. Initially Community Welfare gave out beds and blankets in Grattan Street but eventually it was thought this was demeaning and gave vouchers instead. Sean counts at least 15 different services run from Grattan Street during his time there: Public health nurses. Dental (came from City Hall), Schools Nurses (came from City Hall) Speech therapy, Social Health Education Project (SHEP) Psychology department, community workers, home help, podiatry, eye clinics, admin, Area medical officer European health insurance scheme, ophthalmic department, community welfare and Public Health Nurses At the moment [April 2019] 6 services remaining. Speech Therapy has moved to Western Road. Psychology moved to Blackpool. Most moved to bigger premises. Community Welfare moved to department of social welfare about 8 years ago. Grattan Street at any one time it had about 50 staff, 50 telephone extensions. Work for about 5 years and move on. Turnover of staff. About 150 or move staff have been Started as the youngest lemon and now is the “elder lemon” |
0.25.50 - 0.27.45
|
Duties as the porter Opening & closing the building. Liaise with maintenance Male presence for security. What doesn’t come under someone else’s job description he does. Things that could never been written in a job description. Busy in mornings, quieter in the afternoons. Doing the post. |
0.27.45 - 0.30.55 |
Unique Atmosphere of Grattan Street Grattan Street has so many disciplines where people interact in a “friendship kind of way”. Big enough to have heart. But not so big that it becomes impersonal. Building itself is 150 years old. Happy story attached to the building wasn’t prison or psychiatric hospital. William Penn who founded Pennsylvania allegedly stayed a night in the building. Ghost of Grattan Street Becky Haughton ghost is supposed to haunt the place. Supposed to see her on the stairs at dusk. SHEP used to have meetings in Grattan Street at night. They heard a strange noise at night. Masonry had fallen onto filing cabinet in the store. |
0.30.55 - 0.33.16 |
Grattan Street Social life and Changes Files and vaccination records, nurses dressings kept in the stores. Grattan Street has heart, spirit and character. Happy, friendly building. Party at Christmas. 30 people. A nurse might play the violin, or poetry, or make an alcoholic punch or home baking. When he came here first was in his 20s and the nurses were in their 30s the nurses were into home baking these days it was more shop bought. |
0.33.16 - 0.34.55
|
Stories: Theft and Letters Dentist in Grattan Street had an expensive “flash” car which was stolen. It had been used in robbery and recovered. SHEP started in half the canteen Psychologists were in Grattan Street who were sending two letters to the same address one to each of the Once broken into and one of the doctors felt it was a reflection on the state of his room when Sean couldn’t tell whether it had been broken into or not. |
0.34.55 - 0.35.20 |
Podiatrist Appointments No one was turning up for podiatrist appointments. Secretary had forgot to send out appointments. |
0.35.20 - 0.37.44 |
Events in Grattan Street Medical Centre Flooding 2013 had to move vaccines. They arrived in small car and they had to do two runs and ploughed there way through 2 and a half feet of water. Couldn’t stand the smell of perfume. Spray their room with perfume so she wouldn’t come in. AMO had gotten locked in by mistake by the cleaners. The fire brigade had to get her out with a ladder European health insurance card. Someone came saying he was annoyed his name was spelled wrong. They could only put 22 characters for the surname and he had 23, his name ended in a double-Z they had dropped a single Z and he accepted their explanation. |
0.37.44 - 0.41.46
|
Unusual Incidents in Grattan Street Medical Centre Bank robbery on North Main Street. Bad was thrown over the back gate. Sean found 2 bags of money. Guards came and replaced them with dummy bags, Roches Stores bags. Man came into the building trying to steal things. He was confronted and left his mobile and found him through his mother’s number. Bad weather a few years ago. All the pipes had burst when Sean turned on the boiler. Front portion of the building flooded. Elderly man in his dressing gown and slippers outside podiatry. He had wandered down from the Mercy. |
0.41.46 - 0.43.01
|
Patients Dying in the Building Two patients came to get their toenails done and they died. He was in his 90s and 5 years later almost to the day another man died and they cleared the building. |
0.43.01 - 0.44.14 |
Story of child driving a car Guy in car waiting for his dad. Spoon stuck in the ignition to start the car. Gone like a rally driver he was no more than 14. |
0.44.14 - 0.44.52
|
Birds in Building. Arrives early 2 male blackbirds chased a female blackbird into the building. Arrives half an hour before the staff. Turned off lights and opened the big double doors. |
0.44.52 - 0.47.25
|
Story of Heating Failure in Grattan Street & Organisational Error Heating failed in the building. No heating for about 5 days. 5 different staff phoned 5 seniors in 5 different departments and they all authorised 6 heaters for the building so that 30 heaters arrived. Thirty separate 3 kilowatt heaters were plugged in totalling 900 kilowatts which is far more than the building could take. Awful burning smell came from the waiting area, emanating from the fuse. Sean plugged out all the heaters for safety. In response to this he thinks that: ‘People don’t understand how their decisions interact with others’. |
0.47.25 - 0.49.37
|
Poor Maintenance of Grattan Street Building In 34 years the building has been painted twice, three times at most. Windows are never cleaned. Rent a building in city how much would it cost and what would the maintenance for that be? You’d need to get a new car serviced. Never any more spent on the place. Plan was to install ten new windows a year. After the first ten no more were installed. Attic never insulated. Roof leaks. |
0.49.37 - 0.51.00 |
Change to the medical services with close of Grattan Street Services are moving out. Shame to lose a public building in the city centre. Every institution needs a city centre presence. New primary care centre 250 staff. Like wing of CUH. It will be great when it gets going. |
0.51.00 - 0.53.40
|
Quakers, features of the building and staff routine Understands the Quakers gave building for use by HSE. Would like to see the building used as a city centre museum. People in wheelchairs can access the building without help. Getting a taxi for someone from the building is very fast. Staff use local supermarket for their coffees. Sean holds post & letters for the school during summer and Christmas. The type of bed available from the Community Welfare was very basic back in 1984, it was like an army bed. |
0.53.40 - 0.54.12
|
Podiatry & Diabetes Couldn’t tell us about nursing. Thinks the podiatrist sees more diabetics these days than previously. |
0.54.12 - 0.55.26
|
Reflection & Outlook on Life You can “what if” your life away. Married now. 50 when he got married. His 50s are his happiest decade. Everyone needs someone to share their life with. [interviewer states the year as 2009 but should have said 2019] Interview Ends |
Speaks of the poverty in the Middle Parish which necessitated buying goods on credit and selling clothes and jewellery to pawnshops. Mentions pawn locations. Mentions bringing empty bottles to shops to fill them with milk.
Discusses the conditions of the tenement houses in the Middle Parish including the sanitation arrangements such as outdoor toilets and the use of newspaper as toilet paper, he also mentions heating issues including timber, turf and coal which was available via a voucher scheme. Further discusses cooking, washing in the tenements including the introduction of gas and electricity. Also mentions medicines for lice and worms administered at home.
Says that boys and girls played different games separately when he was growing up. Mentions some of these games in more detail.
Discusses foods (including tripe and drisheen, pig’s tongue, Connie Dodgers) meal routines and the shops where food was purchased. Liam and his mother brought lunch to his father where he worked on the docks.
Returns to the topic of corner shops and shopping and the types of food available there, further comparing this to supermarkets today.
Speaks of the death of his mother and the change in living circumstances that this entailed.
Describes getting a vaccination in the dispensary, what it was like inside and who worked there.
Mentions fights outside bars at night time.
Talks about air raid shelters built in Cork city during the Second World War, what they looked like and where they were located.
]]>Liam Ó hUigín: Grattan Street, Healthcare, The Marsh
Liam grew up on Henry Street in The Marsh and recalls playing football on Grattan Street which was busy and full of activity with businesses, pubs, shops a fire station, barber shops and tenements. He discusses some shops and games in more detail.
Speaks of the poverty in the Middle Parish which necessitated buying goods on credit and selling clothes and jewellery to pawnshops. Mentions pawn locations. Mentions bringing empty bottles to shops to fill them with milk.
Discusses the conditions of the tenement houses in the Middle Parish including the sanitation arrangements such as outdoor toilets and the use of newspaper as toilet paper, he also mentions heating issues including timber, turf and coal which was available via a voucher scheme. Further discusses cooking, washing in the tenements including the introduction of gas and electricity. Also mentions medicines for lice and worms administered at home.
Says that boys and girls played different games separately when he was growing up. Mentions some of these games in more detail.
Discusses foods (including tripe and drisheen, pig’s tongue, Connie Dodgers) meal routines and the shops where food was purchased. Liam and his mother brought lunch to his father where he worked on the docks.
Returns to the topic of corner shops and shopping and the types of food available there, further comparing this to supermarkets today.
Speaks of the death of his mother and the change in living circumstances that this entailed.
Describes getting a vaccination in the dispensary, what it was like inside and who worked there.
Mentions fights outside bars at night time.
Talks about air raid shelters built in Cork city during the Second World War, what they looked like and where they were located.
0.00.00 - 0.00.31 |
intro |
0.00.31 - 0.02.55 |
Memories of Grattan Street and surrounding area Shops and Buildings Grattan Street was a busy street with many businesses. Most important was the fire brigade. When the new St Francis Church was being built (Broad Lane church as it was called by people in the Middle Parish) the fire brigade amalgamated with Sullivan’s Quay and the priest of Old Broad Lane church moved into the old fire brigade building while new church was being built. Children missed the excitement of the fire brigade. Very vibrant street. 6 pubs: Kellehers, Crosses, Landers, Carrols (later called the Tostal Inn), Ramble Inn (owned by Mrs Brick) two Murphys public houses near Broad Lane which runs from Grattan Street to North Main Street. Shops and sweet Shops: The Rodisses, The People’s Dairy, The M Laundries, 2 Gents Hairdressing Saloons (called barber shops): Leahy’s and Keanes. Where the Community Centre is now was called Mechanics Hall, because the mechanics had a union and meetings there. Later it was known as Matt Talbot Hall. There were lots of tenement houses in the area. [Liam’s phone rings.] |
0.03.06 - 0.05:04 |
Tenement Houses, Lanes, playing in Graveyard Where Patrick Hanely Buildings are now there were tenement houses. Liam only barely remembers them as they were being demolished in the late 1940s and early 1950s. They were derelict sites for a while, which was his playground. St Peter’s Cemetery down Peter Church Lane, playing among the headstones, and hiding or planking cigarettes. Shops: Manning’s Shops at corner of Henry Street and Grattan Street, Mrs Mullins at corner of Coleman’s Lane. From Coleman’s Lane to Adelaide Street there were 4 or 5 houses there with 4 or 5 families in each house. Remembers Shinkwin? Family, the Dineens. When they moved out they went to Gurranabraher, Ballyphehane and the suburbs in Ballincollig. |
0.05:04 - 0.06.56 |
Childhood Games and Activities Very little Traffic on the roads at the time. Liam was living in Henry Street round the corner from Grattan Street. Recalls soccer matches from one end of the street to the other and wouldn’t see a car. Friends who came from Blarney Street or Barrack Street couldn’t understand why the streets were so wide and loved it for a game of football. If a woman with a pram approached while they were playing football they would pick up the ball or if they played near the Mercy Hospital they knew that they should keep quiet without anyone telling them and Liam thinks that has changed today. Many of his friends live in Grattan Street and everyone was a happy family until there was a row and they had a battering match with “stones down the quarry”. They used to swim by the Mercy Hospital by the ladder. And then on to ‘the pipe’ up the Lee Fields and then the weir and every second day they had the Lee Baths one day for boys one for girls. Today it’s mixed. |
0.06.56 - 0.11.32 |
Poverty-Buying on Credit and using Pawn Shops Could get messages or shopping on tick or on credit. Milk, bread, quarter (pound) of cheese. There was no bottle of milk you had to bring in your own jug. If you ran out of money the shopkeeper would write it into a book and at the end of the week you could pay it off. A few people could afford not to be ‘on tick’. There were a few pawn shops on the North Main Street one near north Gate Bridge Jones, another across from Coleman’s Lane called Twomeys. There may have been more. There was one at the bottom of Shandon street owned by Jones as well. There were 18 or 19 pawn shops around the city one at bottom of Patrick’s Hill, one by fire brigade station on Sullivan’s Quay, two on Barrack Street. People would pawn clothes. Tradesmen would pawn trowels on Monday morning. Often for drink/ alcohol. Wives would pawn husband’s suit and take it back the following Saturday for going to mass. Nearly everyone used the pawn it was the forerunner to the Credit Union. If you pawned a pair of shoes for 10 shillings, you got a docket and you had to pay 11 shillings to get it back. Wives would be stressed making sure they could get the husband’s suit back in time for mass. It was a thriving business. If you didn’t claim your pawned items after a certain period it was put for sale in the window. Some people would pawn things openly. Other people would hide it under a shawl, or pretend to be pawning something for someone else. People felt ashamed. Almost everyone was scraping a living. Even some shopkeepers looked after people who may not have had enough to pay at the end of the week. At Christmas the shopkeeper would give you a present of a Christmas Cake or Christmas Candle depending on what type of customer you were. |
0.11.32 - 0.13.02 |
Work, Pawns, Showing off Wealth Liam doesn’t remember what or whether his family pawned. Liam’s dad was a docker which was paid on a daily basis and his mother was shrewd enough to put away some money every day. He knew that relations of his pawned things though. Bracelets, wedding ring, engagement ring, rarely a watch very few people had watches. Liam knew someone who went to work in Dagenham and he came back a Dagenham Yank with a different accent “a twang” and a watch. He walked into centre of Henry Street, pulled up his sleeve and pretended to be winging his watch while looking at Shandon clock tower just to show off his watch. |
0.13.02 - 0.13.46 |
Telephone Phones were also very scarce. One shop in Henry Street had a phone and there was a queue there for people wanting to use it. There was another phone booth by Vincent’s Bridge coming down Sunday’s Well. Liam remembers playing there and being afraid to go in to answer the phone. |
0.13.46 - 0.18.37 |
Tenement conditions, Emigrants, Social Comparison, Fuel Poverty Laneways around there: Philip’s Lane from Grattan Street to North Main Street. Skiddy’s Castle from Grattan Street to North Main Street. Coleman’s Lane, Peter Church Lane (now Avenue), Broad Lane (at the back of the church), all on to North Main Street from Grattan Street. Conditions were basic looking back with an outdoor toilet. One family on Henry Street had ten families with one cold tap in back yard and one toilet between them. They had to clean out every morning and bring an enamel bucket upstairs every morning. Had an inferiority complex about relations coming home from England. The relatives would be dressed up in finery but later Liam discovered they were also badly off but made the effort when coming home. The story of someone’s uncle who came back from America after 40 years and the family had moved out to the suburbs and they had a barbeque. And the uncle used the toilet inside the house. He said he used to eat inside and the toilet was outside and now it is reversed! They used newspaper instead of toilet paper. Turf and timber blocks for fuel for heating which father got going out the Straight Road. Some people got a voucher for a peck of coal which might only be a large shovel full. Some families got vouchers for free shoes like in the shop Furlongs in South Main Street (owner may have been lord mayor later) Liam wasn’t sure where the vouchers came from- maybe the Health Board. Doesn’t think there was any child benefit. Maybe the Sick Poor would provide the vouchers. They would visit people and the people would try to hide that they were calling. |
0.18.37 - 0.22.42 |
Cooking, Bathing, Hygiene and Medicines No cooking facilities only the fire. Mother would cook pot of potatoes on the fire and then transfer to the hob. 1948 no electricity in Henry Street at the time. When they got gas in mother told him not to leave kitchen door open to hide it from Liam’s grandmother who lived upstairs and was the real tenant. It wasn’t an oven it was a thing on a stand with two rings on it. Older people were afraid of being gassed. Saturday night the galvanised bath was put in front of fire with hot water and washed, and if you were the last person in the bath the water would be dirty. And then the children were lined up against the wall to get a weekly does of cod liver oil, or Brutlax, California syrup of figs, Senna? All because of worms. Some newspaper put on the table and hair combed with fine tooth comb to get rid of lice- it was an ordeal. Brutlax was like chocolate but a laxative. Milk of magnesia used as well. Given those every Saturday night to prevent you getting sick. Some of them had a terrible taste. If someone got sick taken to the dispensary. |
0.22.42 - 0.24.12 |
Children’s Games Different for boys and girls Spent much time in the derelict site where Patrick Hanley Buildings are now, used to connect to Cove street. They had battering matches with stones and they were going to the Mercy Hospital 4 or 5 times a week. They used to play chasing hiding from the nuns around the Mercy Hospital. Could bring a spinning top and hit is with a whip up and down the road without fear of traffic. Girls would tie a rope to a pole and swing around it and skipping as well. |
0.24.12 - 0.31.57 |
Food, traditions, routines. Lunch at Work Porridge for breakfast which you eat if you were given. His grandchildren now have a choice of 5 cereals. Goodie- bread and milk mixed maybe with sugar sprinkled on it. Some shops on North Main Street like Simcox or Currans Bakery you could get bread wrapped in soft tissue paper which was kept in a drawer at home for when visitors came to use for the toilet because it was better than newspaper. Potatoes and cabbage. Father loved pigs meat: pig’s heat, backbone, pig’s tail, crubeens. Liam still loves a crubeen except for the trouble of cooking of it, and it’s messy to eat. Mother was reared around Vicar Street. Barrack Street, Blarney Street, Shandon Street: that’s the way people lived because there was little Gurranabraher built and Ballyphehane wasn’t built yet. Tripe and drisheen is still a favourite, can get from Reilly’s in the market. Tripe cut into little pieces, with cornflower, onions, “white sauce”, drisheen put in later. Tripe and drisheen would be weekly. Liam loved the pig’s tongue because it was lean. Set day for each food. Liam’s dad was a docker and he would cut the ear off the pig’s head, put it in a sandwich with bread and butter, wrap in newspaper and that was his lunch. He wasn’t the only one. Thinks tripe is from sheep’s stomach. Blood in the drisheen. Connie Dodgers for Lent allowed one meal and two collations. Con Lucey said you could have a biscuit with a cup of tea as a collation. Liam thinks it was Larry McCarthy’s bakery that made a biscuit twice as big as the normal one. For Lent had to fast every Friday and couldn’t eat meat, except for people of a certain age. Religion was a big thing for people at the time. Lent didn’t bother Liam’s dad. Dockers worked hard. Where Elysian Tower is now, where the Eglinton Baths were Liam went with his mother and a bowl of soup and bread and butter and a tea towel over it. The dockers sat on the kerb eating their soup and sandwiches and they were all black with dirt no washing of hands. All the work was shovelling coal, Liam worked there for 2 days and had enough of it- nearly wanted a small shovel to fill the shovel he had. His dad was small but very wiry and strong. “They were marvellous people” |
0.31.57- 0.37.05 |
Pastimes, Shops and Opening Hours Dad spent time in the pub maybe too much. People listened to the radio or sat in front of the fire reading the newspaper. Some people with go hunting or play football or hurling. Liam plays golf now but at the time it was only for the elite doctors and solicitors. Liam’s dad never stood inside a golf club. Liam was 10 when his mother died she would offer him tripe and drisheen or a creamy cake for dinner and he would choose the cake. The corner shops are gone now because of the supermarkets. Corner shops on Henry Street were: Bode’s?, Mannings, Horrigan’s, Dermot’s on Adelaide Street. Dermot’s was first all-night shop in the city- wouldn’t be there during the day. Open from 8pm to 8am. A salesman in coca cola told Liam that Dermot lived on Pope’s Quay and owned a Morris Minor car and he drove it to Adelaide Street 7 days a week and the car was ten years old and there wasn’t 5,000 miles on it because that was all the driving he did. In Ballypheane Liam sees people carrying lots of bags after shopping in Aldi on Tory Top Road. Liam remembers going to Dermot’s for quarter pound of cheese (3 or 4 slices), half pound of tea, 2 eggs, there were no fridges so you bought and you ate them there was little storage. Dermot would put greaseproof paper over the blade and cut perfectly a few slices of cheese which had come from a timber box. Girls were interested in the box for making cots for dolls. There was no variety of cheese available just the one block. Sugar was available in quarter pounds rather than big bags. Men coming home from the pub would be sent back out to get a box of cocoa or milk from Dermot’s. There was no one on the street after 12 o’clock unlike today when there’s lots of people around after nightclubs. |
0.37.05 - 0.39.00 |
Death of Mother and Family Living Arrangements When Liam’s mom died his aunt who had 6 children moved upstairs from Liam. She has 5 daughters and 1 son and the son died of meningitis at 4 years old. Liam’s grandfather was dead. Aunt moved to grandmother in Vicar Street to look after her. Liam was going to school in Mardyke, father’s place during the day, went to grandmother’s in Vicar Street for food and washing and then back to the Marsh to sleep. He skipped school for almost 3 months (‘on the lang’) until the school wrote to his dad, who gave him a lecture. He was nearly 14 then and on the verge of leaving school anyway. |
0.39.00 - 0.44.13 |
The Dispensary now Grattan Street Health Centre, Tinsmith and Nurse Lots of cases of meningitis. Everyone in Cork used to go to the Dispensary. Everyone now in their 70s seems to remember Dr Cagney. He would give a bottle of coloured water. If you forgot your bottle you had to go to Mr Gamble the tinsmith in Grattan Street. He made ponnies, gallons, billycans. But when plastic came in there was no need for tinsmiths. Remembers getting injection or vaccination from Dr Cagney, thinks it may have been for smallpox but is not sure. He dreaded the needles for the syringes which were “like six-inch nails”. You went through a gate, into a yard and there were steps leading up to the entrance. A grey-haired woman maybe called Mrs O’Keefe. There were benches like in a church. There were hatches. You queued up for the doctor. And the hatches gave you the medicine. Other place for illness was Mercy Hospital. Recalls a midwife Nurse Anthony who called to people’s houses. Liam thought when younger than it was the midwife who brought babies on her bicycle. Aunt lived on Thomas Street (a continuation of Peter’s Street) to the back entrance of the Mercy Hospital where the “dead house” was where Liam’s mother was laid out. Remembers the Quirkes and the Horgans, Glandons?, McCarthys living there too and they all moved out when Mercy took over the whole block. Liam doesn’t remember playing around inside the Dispensary. |
0.44.13 - 0.45.35 |
Making vs Buying Lunch People who worked in Dispensary didn’t live in area. Doesn’t think people make lunches for work anymore. In modern day people go to shops like Spar for sandwiches and rolls. Wives/mothers used to make “lunches for them in the morning” for children who were working and there was a can with milk, tea and sugar. |
0.45.35 - 0.46.14 |
Families Living in Dispensary Grattan Street Thinks Mrs O’Keefe was only working there, possibly the cleaner. Mrs O’Keefe may not have been her name. Liam doesn’t think they were charging people in the dispensary. |
0.46.14 - 0.50.55 |
Attitude to health, Pubs, Fights, Market Gardens, Childhood Mischief There was no such thing as being left on a trolley. The Mercy hospital was the only hospital Liam knew, and every child in the Marsh went there at least once after a fall, hit with a stone on the head, a few stitches. Although, Liam’s aunt lost a son to meningitis. Didn’t have the medicines we have today. They were simple times but he doesn’t remember going hungry ever. Lots of pubs on Grattan Street and people were spending lots of time and money which put a burden on the family. Saturday night on Grattan Street there would usually be a fight, stripped to the waist. Bonfire night used to be a great night but no longer. No awareness of mental health. Called the Lee Road the Madhouse Road. First coloured person Liam ever saw was on Sheares Street and when they saw him they called him “Johnny the Black” and they got a chase. A chase was very important for children at the time. Fisherman on Wise’s Quay near Vincent’s Bridge the children used to throw stones in to frighten the fish away and the fisherman would chase them. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday the market gardeners would bring their produce on horse and carts to the Coal Quay and the shopkeepers would come to buy vegetables off them. Liam and the children would steal (“knock off”) some cabbage and carrots. “Oliver Twist was only trotting after us”. |
0.50.55 - 0.51.15
|
Sweets You’d get a few sweets in Woolworths from the girls who worked there, to prevent them trying to steal them! |
0.51.15 - 0.55.10
|
WW2 Air Raid Shelters in Cork Three air raid shelters on Sheare’s Street, 2 in Henry Street and maybe a few in Grattan Street, at least one. O’Connell on Sheares Street was in charge of air raid shelter no 3. Fear of being bombed by German’s during World War 2 mass concrete buildings rather than underground. Liam has photograph of an air raid shelter on Patrick Street outside the Victoria Hotel and a photograph of it being knocked down. The son of the man who had the key to air raid shelter no 3 would rent out the space to old children if it was raining and they wanted to use it to play cards. In the 1940s. he lived at corner of Moore Street and Sheares Street. They were being demolished in 1948 or 1949. Air raid shelter remains inside the door of Elizabeth Fort and there are 2 on the grounds of the South Infirmary (Victoria Hospital), they’ve now been converted to stores. If you stand at bottom of South Terrace and you look up at “Rock Savage” on top of the hill at the back of the South Infirmary you can see it protruding out. Liam remembers the LDF became the FCA and that their “top coats” were good as blankets during the winter as you could put your hands into the pockets. Nearly every house had an army coat on the bed. Everyone was issued with a gas mask, Liam has one from a friend of his. Everyone had to be measured for their gas mask at the city hall or in schools. Liam’s dad wasn’t not in the LDF but his uncle was and it was his coat that was on the bed. |
0.55.10 - 0.59.24 |
Grattan Street, Dispensary, surrounding lanes, Terence MacSwiney connection Grattan Street was busy, vibrant street, always something happening there. Can’t believe seeing the traffic there now. Liam took a photograph of Prince Charles stopped in traffic outside the plaque to Patrick Hanely Buildings. The Dispensary was a historical place, there was a time when Grattan Street was a river and Meeting House Lane from North Main Street (at the side of Bradleys) was the entrance to any of the buildings on Grattan Street. Henry Street was known as Penrose Quay. On Adelaide Street at the back of where Curran’s Restaurant was there was a square called Penrose Square- after the Penrose Family that lived in Tivoli. If you come down Coleman’s Lane from Grattan Street and enter North Main Street up on the wall there are four plaques for the building where Terence MacSwiney was born. People think he was born in Blackpool because they confuse him with Tomas MacCurtain. Terence married one of the Murphy brewers. Liam is very interested in Terence MacSwiney and loves talking about him, maybe because he comes from the same area in Cork. |
0.59.24 - 0.59.41
|
Outro. Interview Ends. |
Recalls as a teenager being told by a doctor who was smoking to give up smoking. Comments on how widespread smoking was at the time. Humorous story about asking a Garda for a cigarette.
Story of Cork character ‘Kick the Bucket’, a young man who was convinced he was going to die very soon but lived to be 81.
Speaks of playing on the streets of The Marsh and The Middle Parish as a child and how they would go to the Mercy Hospital if they were injured playing football. Describes rival groups of boys from Grattan Street and the Coal Quay having fruit throwing fights.
Describes how as a child he used a skull from a tomb in St Peter’s Cemetery to use as a Jack O Lantern. Returns to the topic of underage smoking and acquiring cigarettes from adults.
Explains a form of recycling where he collected empty glass bottles to return to a shop in exchange for money. He used the money for cigarettes and matches or to pay for a cinema ticket. Recalls Dermot’s Cake shop on Adelaide Street.
Talks about his passion for fishing, avoiding the bailiff and selling his fish catch to local fish and chip shops. Tells of his fishing rob being confiscated by the bailiff and retrieving it.
Mentions children taking sweets from a shop on Sheares Street without paying for them.
Discusses income inequality and buying clothes on the Coal Quay. Explains how he made floats for fishing from wine bottle corks made by his dad’s friend for Woodford Bourne’s on Sheares Street.
Reflects on crime and safety in the city centre and tells the story of a house being burgled where the owner shouted out that he had nothing worth stealing.
Outlines some long standing Grattan Street residents’ concerns about their neighbourhood today including students, student parties, students drinking on the street, cark parks, bus routes, student accommodation, Edel House, increased traffic, methodone clinics, community Gardaí and the HSE’s use of buildings in the city centre.
Remembers Shawlies on the Coal Quay, including his own grandmother. Describes the products sold there and farmers bringing vegetables with dirt on them by horse and cart. Mentions Ryan’s Pub on North Main Street and how the farmers might frequent it.
Speaks of the simple food and meals he ate, and how his shoes were pawned but bought back in time to wear for mass.
Recalls the violence and fear of St Joseph’s School and wanting to leave to go fishing. Speaks of his preference for St. Francis School where he was not beaten and learned a lot. Outlines getting food and cocoa in the morning at school. Tells the story of a father confronting a Presentation Brother for an excessive beating to his son.
Talks about food and his mother making bread and mentions other foods and treats from his grandmother.
Speaks about fatal diseases in the past including mumps. To receive medication in the dispensary you had to bring your own empty bottle.
Speaks about the work of the Middle Parish Community Centre especially in relation to addiction. This prompts Joe to speak of his own story of dealing with his alcohol addiction, the risks alcohol posed to his health, liver disease, his desire to see his grandchildren grow up and his happiness now he has successfully remained sober for many years.
Mentions the Barrett family who lived in the dispensary building.
]]>Joe recalls the dispensary on Grattan Street, its waiting room and the names of the doctors who worked there. He describes in detail his visit there to get a vaccination as a child. Discusses medical treatments administered at home by his mother including those for fleas and head lice.
Recalls as a teenager being told by a doctor who was smoking to give up smoking. Comments on how widespread smoking was at the time. Humorous story about asking a Garda for a cigarette.
Story of Cork character ‘Kick the Bucket’, a young man who was convinced he was going to die very soon but lived to be 81.
Speaks of playing on the streets of The Marsh and The Middle Parish as a child and how they would go to the Mercy Hospital if they were injured playing football. Describes rival groups of boys from Grattan Street and the Coal Quay having fruit throwing fights.
Describes how as a child he used a skull from a tomb in St Peter’s Cemetery to use as a Jack O Lantern. Returns to the topic of underage smoking and acquiring cigarettes from adults.
Explains a form of recycling where he collected empty glass bottles to return to a shop in exchange for money. He used the money for cigarettes and matches or to pay for a cinema ticket. Recalls Dermot’s Cake shop on Adelaide Street.
Talks about his passion for fishing, avoiding the bailiff and selling his fish catch to local fish and chip shops. Tells of his fishing rob being confiscated by the bailiff and retrieving it.
Mentions children taking sweets from a shop on Sheares Street without paying for them.
Discusses income inequality and buying clothes on the Coal Quay. Explains how he made floats for fishing from wine bottle corks made by his dad’s friend for Woodford Bourne’s on Sheares Street.
Reflects on crime and safety in the city centre and tells the story of a house being burgled where the owner shouted out that he had nothing worth stealing.
Outlines some long standing Grattan Street residents’ concerns about their neighbourhood today including students, student parties, students drinking on the street, cark parks, bus routes, student accommodation, Edel House, increased traffic, methodone clinics, community Gardaí and the HSE’s use of buildings in the city centre.
Remembers Shawlies on the Coal Quay, including his own grandmother. Describes the products sold there and farmers bringing vegetables with dirt on them by horse and cart. Mentions Ryan’s Pub on North Main Street and how the farmers might frequent it.
Speaks of the simple food and meals he ate, and how his shoes were pawned but bought back in time to wear for mass.
Recalls the violence and fear of St Joseph’s School and wanting to leave to go fishing. Speaks of his preference for St. Francis School where he was not beaten and learned a lot. Outlines getting food and cocoa in the morning at school. Tells the story of a father confronting a Presentation Brother for an excessive beating to his son.
Talks about food and his mother making bread and mentions other foods and treats from his grandmother.
Speaks about fatal diseases in the past including mumps. To receive medication in the dispensary you had to bring your own empty bottle.
Speaks about the work of the Middle Parish Community Centre especially in relation to addiction. This prompts Joe to speak of his own story of dealing with his alcohol addiction, the risks alcohol posed to his health, liver disease, his desire to see his grandchildren grow up and his happiness now he has successfully remained sober for many years.
Mentions the Barrett family who lived in the dispensary building.
0.00.00 - 0.00.30 |
Intro |
0.00.30 - 0.01.41 |
Memories of dispensary and Vaccination Dispensary was a beautiful looking building especially as it was surrounded by tenements. Barrett family were caretakers. 6 GPs worked there and remembers 4: Dr Galvin (low-sized woman), Dr Jimmy Young (who played hurling for Cork), Dr Kiely (male), Dr Michael Cagney his family’s GP, delivered him and his brother at home. Waiting room was like church seats. His mother usually brought with him. |
0.01.41 - 0.06.06 |
Vaccination in the Dispensary Grattan Street Vaccination: his dad brought him. Front door was in Grattan Street. Queue of boys outside. None of the boys who came out looked happy, they all suffered from the fear and pain. Joe was about 8 years old. Instrument doctor had was like a branding iron for cattle or a bolt. The needle was the size of a nail. Dad held his wrist and arm very tight. His dad brought him for ice-cream afterwards. When he was 12 there was another round of vaccines and he was determined not to take them until he discovered they were like sugar cubes not needles. |
0.06.06 - 0.09.24 |
Fleas and Head Lice treatment Everyone had fleas and headlice, but some of his friends still deny that they had it possibly out of shame. Everyone left their doors open, as they had nothing to rob. Dads got paid on Friday night and there was a small party at the weekend- raspberry and crisps in the pub. Went to the dispensary to get prescription for head lice. When mother cut his hair she put it in newspaper and threw it in fire and you could hear fleas and lice banging. “Scabs and bits of hair here and there” You could see dead fleas and lice on the back of other boys collars in school. DDT “defestor” Mrs Shinnick? Pharmacist gave them a green bottle which smelled. The liquid burned the scalp. Fine tooth comb to get the dead lice out. The smell would last for hours. And in school the following day people would recognise it and know you had had lice. |
0.09.24 - 0.10.53 |
Smoking Doctor trying to get him to give up smoking Dr Jimmy Young (or maybe Dr Cagney) moved to a private clinic on the South Mall. Joe was smoking as a young teenager. If he was caught a neighbour would kick him in the arse before telling his dad. His dad never hit him but would put his hands on his belt which was sufficient threat. Dad brought him to Dr Young to be told how bad smoking was. And while he was telling Joe to give up cigarettes he was smoking a Woodbine cigarette at the time. People smoked everywhere except church. |
0.10.53 - 0.12.07 |
Dared to ask Garda for a cigarette Doesn’t drink or smoke now. Had to take a dare when asked by a friend. Friend dared him to ask a Garda for a cigarette. Garda kicked him in the arse. Walked like John Wayne for a week! |
0.12.07 - 0.15.30 |
‘Kick the Bucket’: hypochondriac ‘character’ in Dispensary A head cold was serious at times. Practically impossible to get a house call from a doctor. So they would be bundled up in sheets like a mummy and transported to the dispensary. Mother saw a man in the waiting room nicknamed “Kick the Bucket” because he was a hypochondriac convinced he was going to die soon. Joe saw him as he got older and went to the doctor on his own. Kick the Bucket died at 81 and the news spread faster than the fire at the Opera House or Jennings. |
0.15.30 - 0.15.46 |
End of Dispensary After a while doctors got their private surgeries and A&Es accident and Emergencies opened. The dispensary sort of dwindled out. |
0.15.46 - 0.16.42 |
Grattan Street injuries Playing as Children Lots of memories from around Grattan Street area. Born on Devonshire Street near Pat MacDonald Paints, and there was a big population living in the Marsh. More than 100 children playing on the streets around Peter Street and Grattan Street. Alleyways, where car parks are now, there were their soccer pitches. They counted 120 potholes in their soccer pitch, big enough to fall knee deep into. If you fell in you could twist an ankle or break a leg. Friends would lift you out of the way of the pitch but you had to crawl to the Mercy Hospital yourself because the match had to go on. |
0.16.42 - 0.18.59 |
Battles and fights with rival groups of boys Their rivals were the Coal Quay boys. Saturday evening they would raid the Coal Quay for the left over rotten fruit. They had timber palettes set up as a barricade and after 12 o’clock mass on a Sunday the Coal Quay boys would come. (had to go to mass otherwise someone would tell the Presentation Brother or you parents. Joe did miss a few) Battering match would start. Rotten apples. Soggy bananas. Tomatoes were the best. No stones. Whoever ran out of ammunition first you had to run away. 30 guys running down Coleman’s Lane would be easy targets. But the Marsh lads could spread out on Grattan Street. |
0.18.59 - 0.24.29 |
Halloween skull as Jack O Lantern from Tomb in St Peters There was no real fighting just wrestling. Maybe some fighting with firsts. No kicking someone in the head. Boxing with community centre against Mitchelstown. Joe couldn’t hit a small boxer and they had to stop the fight. Around the same time it was Halloween in St Peter’s graveyard all the tombs and headstones were in the centre not along the side. They were able to get into the tombs and went in with a match and were surrounded by bones in the dark. Didn’t need pumpkins they decided they would get a nightlight scandal, buy matches from Mr Barry and get a skull from the tomb and scares girls. Heard something moving in the tomb one night. His dad was a postman and he had a big torch but Joe could never find it when he wanted it. Always bring cigarette butts out of the tomb. Used safety pins to get the most out of the cigarette. |
0.24.29 - 0.26.24
|
Cigarettes and getting money from empty bottles 8pm in the evening and at 8am the doctors and surgeons left or arrived at the Mercy Hospital, and they could’ve smoked in their offices at the time. Doctors sometimes threw away a cigar butt. Sometimes the children followed a doctor for 10 minutes and he might not throw the butt away! As they got older they went to Mr Barry’s shop and could get 2 fags (cigarettes) and a match for an empty bottle of Lucozade, which they could get from the Mercy Hospital. All the glasses were returnable at the time. They decided to take more bottles. 2 bottles would get you 4p four pence and you could go to the pictures (cinema) for 3p thruppence (three pence) and have money left over for cigarettes and a match. Tanora bottles from Jennings. |
0.26.24 - 0.31.03 |
Fishing for Money trouble with the Bailiff Dermot’s Cake shop on Adelaide street best cakes and creamy milks straight form the cow. Decided to take up poaching to get some money. Lots of mullet and salmon in the river at the time. Was rarely caught poaching because he could plank (hide) them at home within a few seconds. Sold them to Burns on Douglas Street, the Uptown Grill in MacCurtain Street (which must have lasted 60 years) the woman there said to bring over any more because they’re so fresh the blood is still hot in them! Mr Hurley the bailiff caught him occasionally and took his fishing rod and reported him to his mother and tell her to send Joe over to collect his fishing rod. He’d ask which rod was his in a room full of confiscated rods. Joe’s was the cheapest “Black Prince” but he’d get a more expensive one. Needed money for cinema and chips. Best two chippers: Hayden’s on Shandon Street and Kiely’s on Maylor Street. Wrapped in newspaper, lots of vinegar and salt. Tastiest part was to squeeze the vinegar out of the newspaper even with the dye running in it. Slogging apples down the Mardyke selling to woman Dooney Dawney. |
0.31.03 - 0.34.24
|
Money & Sweets: Selling fishing Rod & tricking shopkeeper Sold the rod for money to an angler and bought a cheap rod again. He was a well-known angler on the Lee. Good anglers and fairly good anglers but luck plays a big part. Ahern sisters owned a shop a Sheare Street (Sheares Street). Penny bars and sweets ‘blackjack’, ‘cough no more’, ‘macaroon’ (Erinmore tobacco). Asked for penny bar that was up high so she would have to climb up and they would take a bar from the lower shelf. They once took it in turns to ask how much a bar was even thought they were all a penny and she eventually banned them all for life from the shop. It took them a year or two to get back on good terms. |
0.34.24- 0.35.55
|
Safety of City in Past, Making floats for fishing, Social & Income Inequality Never any trouble when growing up. Joe’s 2nd eldest son is 38 lives on Northside, daughter on the southside and eldest son still lives in the Marsh. His children would say the Marsh was a great place to rear children. Where the Woolshed Bar [on Sheares Street] is now used to be Woodford Bournes the wine makers. And on the corner Paddy worked the guillotine to make ‘the corkies’ corks for the wine bottles for Woodford Bournes. Joe’s dad was a friend of Paddy & “they used have a drink together”. Joe would go to Paddy for bits of cork to make floats for fishing. He would bore a hole through the cork for the fishing line. “so we got everything for nothing”. Even got clothes from Coal Quay for very little. Some of his friends deny that they ever wore clothes from the Coal Quay. Joe thinks there was no in between either you were rich or you were poor. |
0.35.55 - 0.36.45
|
Story of Man with nothing worth stealing Remembers old man second-next-door-neighbour and there was someone prowling around his house. He had nothing worth stealing only a transistor radio which everyone had so there was no one to sell it to. This neighbour shouted out “come on in if you want something. I have nothing and you’re welcome to half of that!” |
0.36.45 - 0.38.50 |
The Marsh today: Families vs Students Joe’s son Michael would still love to raise his children in the Marsh area, even with the volume of traffic. Joe thinks the Grattan Street area cannot take anymore offices or traffic. He says that the HSE have many of the buildings. Joe is lucky as he owns his own house. Married a Coal Quay girl Breda Dineen. There are plans to build student accommodation with 350 rooms on Grattan Street where the Munster Furniture and Hardware was. Joe says he will sell up and leave the parish if that is built. It will break his heart to do it but he can’t put up with any more. Talks about Edel House being discussed on the radio. And thinks there were a lot of “undesirables” in there. In recent times they were warned to behave themselves on the streets and Joe thinks that they do. He thinks that as well as genuine cases there are people looking for houses. Joe would like the HSE to take some buildings further out in areas like Montenotte, Model Farm Road and the Lee Road. He thinks that people who work for the HSE live in these places so won’t choose them for buildings to provide services. As a result buildings and services are put in the city centre. |
0.38.50 - 0.40.25
|
Shawlies and booming trade on Coal Quay South Main Street, Castle Street, North Main Street when he was a child was booming. Joe’s grandmother was a shawlie. Joe’s wife re-enacts the shawlies. Joe remembers vermin everywhere on Coal Quay especially on Monday morning. Near where Bodega is now where Clayton Love’s used to be, the Loft Carpet is there now shawlies could trade in there too. You could trade indoors but you paid more to be out of the rain than trading outside. Joe’s grandmother traded under the clock and only sold fish- mackerel and apples. You’d be surprised how many ‘lords and ladies’ would buy their fruit and veg in the Coal Quay because it was fresh with mud still on the cabbage brought in by farmers on horse and cart. |
0.40.25- 0.41.15
|
Ryan’s Pub on North Main Street and sleeping Farmers Mary Ryans bar many people went in there in the mornings for a ‘pick me up’ to keep warm. Farmers would abandon the horse and cart to go in there. Most horses would know their way home even if the farmer had too many “nips of Powers”. The farmer would fall asleep in the back of the cart and wake up in Blarney or Ovens. Joe would jump on the back of the cart without the farmer knowing and go out the Carrigrohane Straights which was the countryside then. Then they might swim in the Lee Fields sometimes in their clothes. ‘We were young, foolish but happy’. |
0.41.15 - 0.42.05 |
Food, Shoes and the Pawn Weren’t getting T-bone steaks at home. But they had potatoes, vegetables and homemade skull (bread). Was never hungry. Mother would get remnants of lino from the Munster Furniture and Hardware and cut them for insoles for their shoes. They had good shoes for going to mass which you had to take off straight away at home to be sent to Jones’s Pawn on the end of Shandon Street. |
0.42.05- 0.43.30
|
School Violence and good teacher Hated St Joseph’s School because always got kicked in the ankle or had his toe stepped on or a clatter on the back of the ear for not being able to spell. Left there and went to St Francis School and the entrance was from North Main Street by Bradley’s Supermarket or by Broad Lane beyond the dispensary. Learned more in last two years in St Francis from lay teachers than he did from St Joseph. Teachers may have scolded them but never hit them. “Anything you don’t understand ask me” the teacher told them. Joe was watching the clock for when to leave, and watching the tides to know when the tides were bringing back the fish. |
0.43.30 - 0.44.50
|
Changes in the Marsh for families: safety & shopping Joe’s son would love to live in the Marsh to rear his children. Couldn’t let them run around on the street with the traffic. But they would have Fitzgerald’s Park and close to Mercy Hospital. 5 minutes from 3 different supermarkets. Sometimes hear people singing or shouting coming back from the pub. The neighbours come to watch. Only incident he remembers in 36 years is that a few car mirrors were broken. Grattan Street is off the beaten track despite Washington Street being so close. |
0.44.50 - 0.46.15
|
Food or not at School Not given food in St Francis School but given food in St Joseph’s in the morning “to toughen you up for the beating you would get in the afternoon”. Cocoa and creamy buns in the morning. A few years later they cut back to scones which weren’t the same! One time Joe didn’t get cocoa and a bun because his dad had gotten a promotion. And it upset Joe that all his friends got it. At the age of 10 or 11 he was in St Francis “the Rowdy Boys College”. St Peter and Pauls School was before Joe’s time. |
0.46.15 - 0.48.17 |
Food and Cooking Homemade skull or loaf of bread. His mother would make the bread. And nine times out of ten it would turn out right. the Hills were the biggest population of their aunts and cousins. Across the road from them was nanny Hill. Joe would get his dessert there. For school lunch he’d go home and get a sandwich with soup in the winter and diluted raspberry. Cheese sandwich- “poor man’s meat”. Very lucky to get a ham and cheese sandwich. When going back to school he would pause outside his house no 9 Devonshire Street. Across the road was 34 Nanny Hill’s house and she would bring over the heel of homemade skull plastered with blackcurrant jam which he’d eat on the way back to St Joseph’s on the ‘Dyke [Mardyke] only 5 minutes’ walk, but took him 10 or 15 minutes because he didn’t want to be punctual. He would get a punch from a brother for having a ring of jam around his lips. |
0.48.17 - 0.49.40
|
School beating by Presentation Brother and boy’s father’s revenge There is a [Presentation] brother who is now married and living in Grange with a son and daughter. Joe would call him names if he ever met him again. A friend of Joe’s spent three nights in the Mercy Hospital after a beating from this brother. He made him take down his trousers until he only had his Y-front underwear on and beat him there with a four-foot bamboo cane. He was lying on his belly in the Mercy. There’s a black fire escape in St Joseph’s which is still there. The father of that boy had the brother hanging over the fire escape. People were screaming. And Joe and others were hoping that he would drop him. |
0.49.40 - 0.51.39
|
Relief after school, Priest Friend assisting the Marsh Community Joe’s life began when he left that school because the fear was gone. He was able to concentrate in school then. In St Joseph’s the teacher was only interested in teaching 4 or 5 smart guys and the rest were punch bags. When Joe was 21 he had as good a job as any of his peers. The brothers were sadists he says. Thinks it took 5 years to become a priest and 7 to become a brother. They were young men who had never seen life and mostly put there by their parents. A retired priest, friend of Joe’s, ‘an t-athair Ó Murchú’ who was the priest in St Peter and Paul’s and is now in Belgooley. Joe goes down to him once a week on a Sunday and they bring him a creamy cake. When people were fighting for things in the parish he supported them, even when they weren’t agreeing with the HSE. The car park where Munster Furniture is the HSE were talking about putting a multi-storey car park there 30 years ago which was diverted to Dunnes Stores Car Park. |
0.51.39 - 0.53.03
|
The Marsh Community object to multi-storey carpark People in the Marsh chained themselves across Grattan Street to stop trucks coming in to build a multi-storey car park. But they told the Gardaí in advance so they were on their side and they had no trouble. Joe knew the sergeant well and they used advise them the best way to have a peaceful protest and yet stop everything. Joe has many other memories but feels a little bit under pressure because of the recorder. Other things that they did ‘fighting for their rights’ because they could see offices and buildings going up that they opposed. |
0.53.03 - 0.58.30
|
Problems with multi-storey car park and Student Accommodation in the Marsh Was in a meeting with the Council and Paul Moynihan from City Hall explained what was happening. The council own so much of the car park and building to right of Munster Furniture and Hardware. So if the council don’t sell these to the new developers there won’t be enough room for the student accommodation. Joe doesn’t have anything against students but object to their parties which have aged some local residents. Thinks in the past students didn’t behave how they do now. Joe & his wife decided they’d leave if the student accommodation is built, they don’t mind whether they go to the northside or to the southside, but somewhere on a bus route or somewhere near the city. Joe says he’s getting emotional because he always swore that he would die in the Marsh. Joe would like to see a small 5 or 6 storey hotel being built instead and there’s space for coaches. Or family housing being built. They named out other places where student accommodation could be built eg. The Good Shepherd building across from the Lee Fields and Joe was told the students would have so far to walk because they would be high-end students. Joe says the students behave like riff-raff when they are drunk. He was told the accommodation would have security. Joe knows one of the security men for the student accommodation on Lancaster Quay and they are behaved inside the complex but outside there is no control. Joe fears that students will be drinking in doorways in the Marsh or outside on tables which are being built for them to study on. Joe said that if they are 320 high-end students they will have cars and nowhere to park them, and they will have more money for alcohol. So Joe said the riff-raff students would be better! Joe can’t believe a walk from St Anne’s to UCC is too far. |
0.58.30 - 1.04.41
|
Sicknesses past and changes now People died from diseases which no one knew what caused them. Some diseases that were killing people have simple cures now. Joe is more concerned about sicknesses today including insects like ticks and leeches. They would go to the dispensary for medication and prescription. If anything was too serious they would send you to the A&E but first get you to sign a form saying you had visited him so that he could get paid. Lots of measles. Chickenpox. Mumps used to be a killer disease especially for men as it could make you impotent. If you went to get medication from the Dispensary you had to bring your own empty bottle. Completely different attitude from doctors now. Might have been given tablets even if there was nothing wrong with you. People who were sent to St Anne’s because of a drinking/ alcohol problem for a few weeks but never came out. Joe didn’t get a clip in the ear growing up but he did do it for his children. Joe used to drink and just wanted to sleep after it. He thinks that women today wouldn’t take the abuse that women used to put up with. One man who went to St Anne’s was signed out by his niece years later and he was afraid of the double-decker bus and went back in of his free will to St Anne’s. |
1.04.41 - 1.06.53
|
Issues with HSE Services in the city Centre Joe hopes HSE look elsewhere for offices rather than in the city centre. Methodone clinics around Cork Joe was told need to be in the city because they won’t travel for it which means it needs to be near Grattan Street. There’s a Community Garda. But Joe and his wife have not seen a Garda on the beat for three weeks. |
1.06.53 - 1.09.04
|
Work of the Middle Parish Community Centre Joe and others including George [Patterson] do their best to keep the Middle Parish Community Centre going. Narcotics anonymous rent out a room upstairs. Alcoholics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous. There’s been no vandalism. Joe saw a man he knew going to Narcotics Anonymous outside La Verna near St Francis Church and he shook his hand because he was proud of him for trying to give up. |
1.09.04 - 1.26.27
|
Experiences as an alcoholic and trying to give up Joe describes himself as a “dry alcoholic”. Joe hasn’t drunk for six years. He didn’t realise he had a drink problem because he was never aggressive or barred from anywhere. It took Joe years to realise he was unable to home after work without first going to the pub. And that he was having a few pints in a number of bars and that this was adding up to ten pints a night. He decided eventually that he would stop. If someone had told him that he had a drink problem he would have been “highly insulted” and thought he could stop drinking any time he wanted. He went to a few AA meetings and they didn’t suit him. He used to smoke 55/60 cigarettes a day while driving articulated trucks long distance for 35 years all over Ireland. He gave up cigarettes and thought it would be easier to give up alcohol. Ten years ago he gave up alcohol for 2 years. Alcoholics’ Anonymous saying is ‘one day at a time’. He was down in Inchydoney Hotel with his family and dogs. He was tired after lots of driving to Dublin, Wicklow and delivering salt to Killybegs. He kept track of his progress being off alcohol and appreciated the support of his wife. He went into the hotel and had some coke. The Munster Final was on. While waiting at a busy bar for more Coke he saw two men he knew drinking stout. And he ordered a pint of Murphys stout after he saw them. He made ten attempts to leave the pint there, but it overpowered him. He had a devil on one shoulder and a guardian angel on the other. He usually drank a pint in four sups. He went close to the toilet for his first sup in case he was sick from not being used to drinking after two years. He ordered a half-pint of Murphys. He felt fairly content because he felt he could handle the alcohol now. He had two pints of Beamish in Forde’s with a friend of his on a Friday. And slowly he was having more pints and on Wednesdays as well as Fridays until “the drink had a hold of me again”. He knew he couldn’t handle whiskey. Collapsed three times due to liver poisoning. He had to come home from Turkey when he collapsed, his doctor said they saved his life. He wasn’t allowed to eat or drink for 4 days. His GP was waiting for him at midnight when he arrived home in Cork and brought him to the Mercy. He told Joe he was lucky because his liver function was only at 52% working. It took 17 hours for his liver to get to 53% working. After a few weeks he started drinking again. He collapsed at home one morning unconscious for 20 seconds. GP took tests. Went to the Regional Hospital and put in intensive care. Dr Seamus O’Mahony was his liver specialist out there. Seamus told him not to waste his time if he was going to keep drinking and not to come to him without his wife because she would tell the truth about his drinking. Doctor asked him how many units he drank and Joe asked to speak in pints not units. Joe said 20 pints. The doctor said that’s a lot to have in a week. And Joe’s wife said that’s on a Saturday! Two drinking sessions on a Saturday. He was getting liver function tests on a regular basis and his liver was getting stronger. Joe used to give up alcohol two days before going to the doctor but didn’t realise that alcohol makes triglycerides in the body which take days to be broken down. Joe used drink cans of beer at home when his wife was away. He would vomit it up after two ‘slugs’ or gulps. And then he would try to drink it again. He said that you have to admit it to yourself that you have a problem. He realised that if he didn’t stop he wouldn’t see his five grand-children grow up. He has never been happier than he is now sober. His children can ring him at any time for a lift. And his children can depend on him. Joe still takes one day at a time. Joe knew a guy who was 33 years sober and he went to London and started drinking and was knocked down by a bus. |
1.26.27 - 1.28.44
|
Family living in the Dispensary building Grattan Street Barrett family who lived in the Dispensary had children who are still alive living in southside who would be older than him. “they were all genuine down to earth people”. To the left of where the marriage registrar is now is where they lived. On the right hand side was an old lady sitting in a box like a phone box cut in half. And she would take people’s details as they entered. The double doors to the clinic were closed. The Barrett sons went to St Joseph’s School as well. Joe jokes about a previous interview I had with a friend of his Liam O hUiginn, and jokingly says he’s a very old man. Joe also apologises again for not being used to “speaking in public” pointing at the digital recorder. |
1.28.44 - 1.28.55
|
Outro. Interview ends. |
Describes her Cork grandmother Eileen O’Reilly née Ahern who always saw the funny side of things. She was a milliner and dressmaker and took in lodgers, usually meteorologists working at Roches Point. She also claimed to have heard the banshee the night before her husband died.
Speaks of her humorous grand-aunt who lived in Greenmount and describes her home including the sideboard and salt dish. “Drinking her tears” was one of her sayings.
Imelda refers to her schooldays in Scotland including corporal punishment administered by nuns. Her school had a mine beneath it to train the boys to work in mines when they were older. Was not sure of her career when she was in school but she came from a medical family. Her father chose their school subjects with a view to them acquiring vocational jobs rather than corporate jobs where they could be fired.
Discusses her father’s optician practice and how she and her family worked with him there writing prescriptions and repairing glasses.
Speaks about moving to Glasgow for college, finding the people friendly and accidently living in an alcohol-free part of the city. Enjoyed the college ski club.
Describes her podiatry clinical experience in Scotland. Explains that podiatry requires dexterity. Podiatrists work on a range of issues including biomechanics, diabetes, gangrene, neurovascular disease, wound care, ulcer prevention and more. Mentions the Irish Medicines Board regulatory issues surrounding podiatry nail surgery in Ireland at the time of interview.
Explains that the typical podiatry patient in the Grattan Street Medical Centre is usually high risk. States that podiatry services need to be expanded so they deal with more moderate risk patients in order to catch early problems and thus prevent them becoming serious issues.
Says that her first reaction to the Grattan Street building in 1999 was that it was like Colditz prison because of the bars on the windows. Explains that she does not share other staff’s love of the Grattan Street Building because of this and further criticises the leaky roof, holes in the walls, dirtiness of the canteen, and its general unsuitability as a clinical environment. Imelda encourages patients to complain about the conditions in the building but they don’t wish too as they are satisfied with the service. She has had positive experiences with other staff in spite of the building not because of it. She will miss the people not the building.
Mentions a patient’s negative opinion of refugees arriving in Ireland in the past, but says that it’s no longer a common opinion.
Expresses positivity in relation to the move to St. Mary’s Primary Care Centre Gurranbraher. Hopes that the services can be expanding and the workplace will be greatly improved including storage space, a computer system, space for filing cabinets.
Remembers that her older patients spoke of the dispensary in Grattan Street where they received free medicines and doctors’ appointments.
Expresses surprise that someone would want to get married in the Grattan Street marriage registry office as she does not like the building.
Mentions that podiatry work requires you to adapt to people and situations and also negatively affects your back. Speaks of patients telling her things in confidence that go beyond podiatry and her attempts to assist them such as encouraging them to contact counselling services due to sexual abuse and bereavement.
Recalls some incidents during flooding events while at work.
Describes how she saw many cases of rickets in Glasgow but none in Cork, while Cork had a higher rate of patients with long-term effects from polio, including the need for shoe adaptations or splints.
Speaks about vaccines and how to encourage people to take them. Suggests that the success of vaccines in suppressing diseases has meant that many parents haven’t seen any cases of these diseases and thus do not appreciate the risks they pose.
]]>Imelda grew up in Bathgate between Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland. Her mother was from Cork so Imelda spent time in Whitegate in her youth where she enjoyed the relative freedom she had there playing children’s games and spending time on beaches like Corkbeg and Inch.
Describes her Cork grandmother Eileen O’Reilly née Ahern who always saw the funny side of things. She was a milliner and dressmaker and took in lodgers, usually meteorologists working at Roches Point. She also claimed to have heard the banshee the night before her husband died.
Speaks of her humorous grand-aunt who lived in Greenmount and describes her home including the sideboard and salt dish. “Drinking her tears” was one of her sayings.
Imelda refers to her schooldays in Scotland including corporal punishment administered by nuns. Her school had a mine beneath it to train the boys to work in mines when they were older. Was not sure of her career when she was in school but she came from a medical family. Her father chose their school subjects with a view to them acquiring vocational jobs rather than corporate jobs where they could be fired.
Discusses her father’s optician practice and how she and her family worked with him there writing prescriptions and repairing glasses.
Speaks about moving to Glasgow for college, finding the people friendly and accidently living in an alcohol-free part of the city. Enjoyed the college ski club.
Describes her podiatry clinical experience in Scotland. Explains that podiatry requires dexterity. Podiatrists work on a range of issues including biomechanics, diabetes, gangrene, neurovascular disease, wound care, ulcer prevention and more. Mentions the Irish Medicines Board regulatory issues surrounding podiatry nail surgery in Ireland at the time of interview.
Explains that the typical podiatry patient in the Grattan Street Medical Centre is usually high risk. States that podiatry services need to be expanded so they deal with more moderate risk patients in order to catch early problems and thus prevent them becoming serious issues.
Says that her first reaction to the Grattan Street building in 1999 was that it was like Colditz prison because of the bars on the windows. Explains that she does not share other staff’s love of the Grattan Street Building because of this and further criticises the leaky roof, holes in the walls, dirtiness of the canteen, and its general unsuitability as a clinical environment. Imelda encourages patients to complain about the conditions in the building but they don’t wish too as they are satisfied with the service. She has had positive experiences with other staff in spite of the building not because of it. She will miss the people not the building.
Mentions a patient’s negative opinion of refugees arriving in Ireland in the past, but says that it’s no longer a common opinion.
Expresses positivity in relation to the move to St. Mary’s Primary Care Centre Gurranbraher. Hopes that the services can be expanding and the workplace will be greatly improved including storage space, a computer system, space for filing cabinets.
Remembers that her older patients spoke of the dispensary in Grattan Street where they received free medicines and doctors’ appointments.
Expresses surprise that someone would want to get married in the Grattan Street marriage registry office as she does not like the building.
Mentions that podiatry work requires you to adapt to people and situations and also negatively affects your back. Speaks of patients telling her things in confidence that go beyond podiatry and her attempts to assist them such as encouraging them to contact counselling services due to sexual abuse and bereavement.
Recalls some incidents during flooding events while at work.
Describes how she saw many cases of rickets in Glasgow but none in Cork, while Cork had a higher rate of patients with long-term effects from polio, including the need for shoe adaptations or splints.
Speaks about vaccines and how to encourage people to take them. Suggests that the success of vaccines in suppressing diseases has meant that many parents haven’t seen any cases of these diseases and thus do not appreciate the risks they pose.
0.00.00 - 0.02.27 |
Background and House Grew up in Bathgate between Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland, mom is from Cork. Spent time in Cork as child granny from Greenmount. Great-grand parents lived in James Street. Granny from Barrack Street lived in Whitegate, married to a guard [Garda] from Cavan. 2 sisters and 2 brothers. 3 weeks in Cork, and holiday in October. Old house and moved to estate where lots of people to play with. Then moved to house on main road where lots of older people. |
0.02.27 - 0.04.23 |
Children’s Games Hide and Seek, chap door run (run away knock), elastics, skipping, marbles, kiss cuddle and torture (boys chased the girls and if you were caught you got to decide between as kiss, cuddle and torture), British Bulldogs (someone always got hurt doing it). |
0.04.23 - 0.14.27 |
Memories of Granny (Grand Mother) Impact on family still, had a saying for everything. Saw funny side of things even though she had a hard life. Getting Imelda to go back to the butchers claiming “those aren’t four lean chump chops” Freedom of spending time in Whitegate, playing in Trabolgan- archway supposedly haunted by a duke. Granny’s house was rented, beside the barracks, had four bedrooms. Mattresses for them when they called over. Granny would cook scones, custard, stews. She played piano and sang. Loved music, had record of James Last. One of granny’s sayings: “Throw a bit of lipstick on brighten yourself up” She was small, wore glasses, long-sighted. She was a milliner and dress-maker. Annamae Aherne was a woman from the village who told Imelda her granny had made her first ball gown for her first dance. She did alterations for people. She had a Singer Sewing Machine with a foot pedal. In her 80s granny’s eyesight was going but she would work the foot pedal and Imelda thread the needle and guided it. Granny crocheted as well. She had lodgers. Eddie Tucker meteorologist at Roches Point lodged with granny for 25 years. Tony Cotter (meteorologist) lodged there for a while (Silvia was his wife). Headmaster at local school lodged with her for a while. Liam Cotter walked her dog in the rain and when he returned she had a warm towel ready for the dog not Liam! |
0.14.27 - 0.18.18 |
Granny’s House in Whitegate Scotsman piper as a knocker on her front door. Beautiful view from her front door of the sea across to Cobh. There was a garage next door and she would sit and chat with Gerry O’Connell. Spent time on Corkbeg beach where the refinery and holding tanks are now. There was a ballroom there. Spent all day on the beach. Dad and granny would bring the stews and potatoes from the house to the beach. Inch beach, even if it was raining. In and out of the water all day. Inch had good waves to dive into. Cousins there as well. Lanagan cousins from Dublin, Gibson cousins from Leixlip. She loved Cork because it had better weather than Scotland. |
0.18.18 - 0.22.25 |
Stories from her Granny Granny said she heard a banshee the night before her husband died. Heard a noise at the door and opened it and there was no one there. Grandfather stationed in Blarney before Whitegate. Thinks her granny “liked to play the field a bit” and had arranged to meet different men and she had to send her sister to meet one and cancel one of the meetings. Granny’s sister cut off her granny’s long plaited hair. Imelda’s granddad used to cycle from Whitegate to Cavan to see his family and would get as far as Mullingar on the first day. Great grand parents lived on James Street Mary Ellen and Jeremiah Ahern, buried in Ballyphehane cemetery. Learned about them from great-aunt in Greenmount Buildings off Barrack Street. Dad was Scottish and had sense of Irishness but his mother didn’t as they left Northern Ireland as Catholics in a predominantly Catholic area. Imelda’s mom went back and did her “highers” exams the same year Imelda was doing hers. |
0.22.25 - 0.24.50 |
Grand-Aunt Grand-aunt was funny and had funny sayings like “drinking your tears” with laughter. A sideboard was where you kept dishes, condiments, sugar bowl, drawers with cutlery. Dish for the salt rather than salt shaker. |
0.24.50 - 0.31.26 |
School In Scotland: mixed school, state schools, catholic school. St Mary’s primary School Bathgate. Dad’s sister was a teacher and she came to that school when on her placement. Mistress of the infant school would dye her hair a different colour every week pink and blue. Some of the teachers psychologically unhinged. Nun who slapped people with a hoover slap and would run her knuckles down pupils’ spines. There was a mine underneath the school to train the boys how to work in a mine. It had good sports facilities. At Christmas they had a Ceilidh, which Imelda had at her wedding and everyone loved. She liked English and History. It annoys her that they weren’t taught Scottish history. Says there is a difference between rebellion and uprising. Very little Irish history on their curriculum in Scotland. She feels Scottish but has an affiliation with Ireland. She’s been in Ireland over 20 years and doesn’t think she will lose her accent. |
0.31.26 - 0.33.13 |
Family Tree Great grandfather was apparently good with horses and was a coachman in Ballymena House although there is no record of him in the archives. He lived until his nineties. And he was a gardener too. Worked in garden in Ayrshire. Granny didn’t speak about Northern Ireland at all and considered herself Scottish. |
0.33.13 - 0.36.33 |
Choice of Career and Career Path Didn’t know what she wanted to do in school, thought about optics but didn’t like physics. Applied for Podiatry in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Got a place in Glasgow and enjoyed it. Opened a practice in Bathgate, family involved in medicine. Dad was optician, sister dentist and sister optician. Moved to Dublin when she was going out with a man from Drogheda and worked in Inchicore and then moved back home when they split up. Got a job with greater Glasgow health board. And worked in Lothian. Shettleston in Glasgow. Job came up for diabetic unit in CUH, Dr O’Halloran looking for a podiatrist which she didn’t get but was second on the panel but didn’t understand what that meant. Later a job came up in the community and she took it, back in 1999. |
0.36.33 - 0.39.54 |
Choosing Podiatry for University & career. Dad’s influence Had been thinking about different options but couldn’t come up with anything better and felt pressurised to make a choice. Hated Podiatry after the first year as it was mostly revision for her and she was bored. She began to enjoy it in second year when there was more patient interaction and became more challenging. Her dad had a formula for all the children in school for which subjects they did. He thought that if you have a vocational job that you will always be employed, didn’t want them to be hired by large corporate companies where they could be fired. Her brother did law, brother is GP, sister dentist, sister optometrist. Thinks her dad was a bit closed to other occupations. It wasn’t bad advice but she won’t be using that approach with her children. A nephew doing economics and another doing architecture and they love them. Family is all fairly artistic but it wasn’t an option at the time. |
0.39.54 - 0.42.00 |
Father’s Optician Practice Imelda and family worked there. She could write prescriptions for lenses and repair glasses. Dad worked five days a week and two evenings as well. Didn’t have much time off. He had five kids had to work hard. He retired at 67. Still enjoys his whiskey. He’s very sociable, people would wait for two hours to go to see him. He would be buzzed for the next patient but he would still be talking to the previous one. Teachers in her school would know what Imelda was doing because they would have heard from her dad. |
0.42.00- 0.44.15 |
Living in Glasgow and College Loved people from Glasgow who are friendly and warm more so than Edinburgh. 17 when went to college, she had done 6 years in secondary school. Claire, a friend from school, did podiatry as well. But they picked a flat to live which was a “dry area” where no alcohol was served. Ski club in college. Imelda says if you can ski in Scotland you can ski anywhere because it’s dangerous and icy and with exposed rocks. |
0.44.15 - 0.48.06 |
Training Small college not affiliated with university, and it was a diploma. Not a degree and affiliated with Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh and Caledonia in Glasgow. On Crookston Road in a prefab where the clinics were. Because it was free everybody came and they could cater for 40 or 50 people. A podiatry school was established in Ireland about 6 years ago (2013) it’s in NUIG Galway University. Cork put in a bid for it but didn’t get it. [Whispers that Cork should’ve gotten it!] thinks that they bought the curriculum and course content from Glasgow. Glasgow was a small place so you got to know the lecturers well. Training was 9-5. Over the summer clinical set had to be done over the holidays because patients needed to be seen. 2 or 3 days of lectures and 2 or 3 days of clinics as well. Lots of hours of clinical training which she thought was good to get the practical experience as podiatry is a job that requires dexterity. She thinks the focus now in training is more on the background, and that a lot of people graduating now cannot treat a corn because they haven’t been shown properly or haven’t been exposed enough to it. Focus is also now more on wound care. Focus on wound care in high risk patients means you lose skills in other things like biomechanics and nail surgery. |
0.48.06 - 0.52.38 |
Role of Podiatrist Not about cutting toenails. They do cut toenails if there is something wrong with them. Holistic view of the patient. Look at the patient from the waist down. Biomechanics is the way people walk and the alignment of the joints and muscles. Hen toed and bow-legged. Some things can be corrected if seen early enough. Most of her patients are older, they are diabetics or have neurovascular disease or other neurological issues which you are not correcting just offloading to prevent ulceration. Diabetes on the increase and its complications can cause terrible things with feet- ulcers, gangrene etc. Wound care is a big part of what she does. Including removing skin, tissue and bone from wounds. Focus on wound care may not be what they should be doing. Issues with nail surgery. Hopes it will be sorted when State Registration comes in. 4 staff when Imelda started 20 years ago and there are 6 now. She thinks there should be over 60 now in her Cork area based on the population. There were 96 podiatrists in Glasgow when she worked there. Biggest population in HSE South. Fighting fire all the time not doing any prevention. |
0.52.38 - 0.57.00 |
Typical Client or Patient All high risk. Greater risk or have had ulceration, infection, amputation, gangrene. Active means they currently have one of those issues. Those with potential to develop problems may have problems with circulation, sensation or underlying medical conditions. Should be getting the moderate risk people and helping them from developing into Never-ending ‘like painting the Forth Bridge’. [colloquial expression for an unending task] Lots of diabetics. Majority of those with foot diseases are vascular because the vascular team doesn’t have a foot team. Mainly over 65s. But have people under 65 and have a few children too. Frustrating to only by offering a limited services because of lack of staff. |
0.57.00 - 0.58.28 |
Nail surgery Podiatrists enjoy doing nail surgery. When local anaesthetic issue is cleared up they will have to be retrained in nail surgery in NUIG (National University Galway). Not legal under Irish Medicines Board to use and buy and store anaesthetic. Could use it now if they could get a patient group directive going. |
0.58.28 - 1.01.50 |
Podiatry in Glasgow More of a general podiatry service. More structure in the services. Specialist clinics with pathways. A wider range than in Cork. Range of things that should be seen in Cork but were seen in Glasgow. Worked with foot care assistant. Did a biomechanics clinic. Did a nail surgery once a month to keep up to speed. Doing the same thing in Cork becomes monotonous and boring a bit of variety is more interesting and challenging. |
1.01.50 - 1.05.26 |
Impression of Grattan Street Thought it looked like Colditz because of the bars on the windows. Was feeling quite despondent about it. Thought “oh my god what have I done” Marion O’Donovan founded the podiatry service in 1967 in Greenmount Community Centre. Imelda had been working in Bishopbriggs in Glasgow seeing 30 patients a day- which was lunacy. Worked with foot care assistant and it was like a conveyer belt. She used a scalpel for the debridement [the removal of damaged tissue or foreign objects from a wound.] When she started with Marion they had 4 patients in the morning. Marion was very kind to her and didn’t want to scare her by giving her too many patients at the beginning. Told Marion “you could book in a few more!” Marion was very nice and ‘mothered’ |
1.05.26 - 1.08.06 |
Big Changes of Staff Speech and language were there and left before Imelda started. Secretarial staff- there has been a huge turnover of staff from Admin support. Aisling who is the current agency staff is great. Imelda, Marion, Helen, Vicky were in Podiatry. Marion is retired. Helen has been there the longest. Helen does 2 days a week, Vicky does 3 days a week, Imelda does 4 days a week. PHNs change a lot, AMOs change a lot and admin staff has changed as well. Lots of people coming through Grattan Street and so Imelda knows a lot of people from different areas- a good form of networking. Good that she knows who to contact, especially about patients. [Phone Rings. Interview Paused] |
1.08.06 - 1.09.31 |
[interview restarts] Never thought it was a nice building. Bars on the windows. Hasn’t seen it painted. Money has not been spent on it. It’s a clinical environment which has not been well maintained. Imelda will not be sad when Grattan Street closes. Substandard. Holes in the wall. Will miss the camaraderie. |
1.09.31 - 1.10.42 |
Parking in Grattan Street and relations with Colleagues Parking has been a nightmare. There has nearly been fisticuffs about it. May have to move your car ten times when with a patient. Lucky to have free parking. On the whole got on well with colleagues, except for a few who were hard to get on with due to odd personalities. |
1.10.42 - 1.12.00 |
Patients’ Perspective of Grattan Street Imelda tries to get patients to complain about the holes and cracks in walls. People don’t want to complain but they are happy with the service and the people. |
1.12.00 - 1.15.30 |
Grattan Street vs a Different Environment St Mary’s Would like pleasant surroundings for the workplace where people spend so much of their time. Imelda describes Grattan Street as a kip. 20 years working in that environment is not good. Hopes that in St Mary’s the services can be expanded. Set up an ad hoc foot care clinic in Mayfield and it was a way of saving HSE money as patients were being prescribed bespoke footwear from GPs which is expensive and may not often be needed. Imelda can insert insoles into stock shoes which helps the patients and saves the HSE money. No shelves have been put in to stock the shoes. St Mary’s will have a space for storing shoes, there will be a workshop, a state-of-the-art sterilisation room and four clinical rooms. They are also going paperless. They will have a new computer system. This is possible because they are such a small unit. There are 8 filing cabinets in podiatry in Grattan Street and there will not be space in St Mary’s for these. Hopes that the camaraderie of Grattan Street will continue in St Mary’s, although she has heard the canteen is small and it’s hard to get to the kettle. |
1.15.30 - 1.21.12 |
Grattan Street, Attitudes to Migrants and Refugees Imelda started in Grattan Street in 1999 there had been a brain drain going on in Ireland with people leaving. Since there was no school of podiatry in Ireland they were relying on people from the UK coming to fill positions. One of Imelda’s first patients was very angry that an Irish person couldn’t be found to do her job. She told him not someone as good as she was! This patient had had a few children who had to leave to get work and he couldn’t understand how Imelda came in and got a job and they weren’t able to. Around this time refugees started to come into Ireland. Imelda was surprised by the racism of the over mainly 65 year old patients and what they thought it was acceptable to say. Imelda thinks it would be worse if she were black. She heard a lot of hatred towards immigrants because so many people had to leave Ireland to get work. Imelda pointed out that Irish people had to be accepted in places that they went to. People were suspicious of her coming into the country possibly because they weren’t used to people coming into the country. People would say things about immigrants taking “our jobs”. Wouldn’t expect to hear people say that so openly in Glasgow as a much more diverse city. Imelda doesn’t hear those kinds of comments now. She thinks that new graduates get a hard time from patients at first, because they are new, younger and it is almost a rite of passage. It can be hard for patients having been used to one clinician to switch to a new one. |
1.21.12 - 1.23.50 |
Change in Patients Imelda knows of a woman from Africa whose foot was put into a fire. She survived but the deformity she has is horrific. [1:22:23 phone rings and Imelda says she has to move her car] Woman was only 13 when this happened to her. Many similar stories and stories from older people of sexual abuse. Imelda feels ill-equipped to deal with it. If Imelda hears of it she has to report it, but the patients don’t want her to report it and just want to tell her in confidence. They have maybe never spoken to anyone about it before. They tend to open up as they see the same person repeatedly so they build up trust. [Pause Interview for Imelda to move her Car] |
1.23.50 - 1.25.20 |
[Interview Restarts] Refers people to counselling services which are free in North and South Lee. For sexual abuse, deaths etc. Quite a few patients do take that help but you have to almost make the phone call for them. |
1.25.20 - 1.28.45 |
Future of Grattan Street Imelda doesn’t know exactly what is happening with Grattan Street but thinks other services are moving in. Thinks work will have to be done on the building if it is to keep functioning for the HSE. There was bucket in canteen collecting water every time it rained for a years. No one should have to work in an environment like that Imelda thinks. Imelda just feels that about Grattan Street that she will “close the door” and “put it behind me”. Hates the canteen and the building thinks it’s horrible, dirty and filthy. Thinks people like it because it’s small and lots of people know each other from having worked there together for a long time. She thinks that people will miss the people not the building. The building used to be the Dispensary which provided free healthcare she thinks. Her patients when she started used to tell her that. They told her the doctors were in the dispensary, she thinks it was free health care. They used to come to get medicine. Quaker meeting house before that, and they left it to the HSE. Marriage registry is also in Grattan Street but Imelda doesn’t know why anyone would want to get married there- thinks it’s horrendous! Sees people getting married and taking photographs while she is working and has to wait for them to finish. |
1.28.45 - 1.29.15 |
Grandmother “Drinking her tears” grand mother’s saying. |
1.29.15 - 1.32.23 |
State of Podiatry in Ireland and the Option of Private Practice Services need to be expanded. They could retain staff if there was more scope- unless someone is interested in wound care they will enter private practice rather than staying in Grattan Street. Imelda has been tempted to enter private practice. Imelda has done private practice as well in the past. Imelda is now a manager and misses being a clinician because she thinks that is what she does best. There was a podiatrist in Grattan Street while a patient had a cardiac arrest and the podiatrist got an ambulance and he/she was in such a flap and gave the patient’s home address and not the address for Grattan Street! Patient survived thankfully. And Grattan street now has an AED (Automated External Defibrillator). |
1.32.23 - 1.33.10 |
What makes a good podiatrist. Have to be a good people person and be able to do a bit of social work. Have to be versatile. So many diverse different kinds of people come in. You have to adapt and try to relate to them as best you can. Good communication skills. |
1.33.10 - 1.37.21 |
Would Imelda choose podiatry again? Thinks she would but then doubts herself. Has enjoyed being a podiatrist. Doesn’t think there is anything that she would prefer to do. Podiatry takes a toll on your back partly due to poor posture and not having the correct equipment. Remembers some of her old patients who were great characters. There was a man who lived across the road and was washed out of his house. During the flood Imelda was in Neptune inoculating children against swine flu. Fiona Kelly was the secretary at the time and her husband’s car was swept away. People in the houses nearby had to live in a hotel for a while. One of the patients would call her Miss Imelda and the other clinician Miss Vicky. Learned that this area was the Middle Parish and funny that her great grandparents were born just up the road in James Street. [Interviewer does the final outro here but there is another part to the interview which follows] |
1.37.21 - 1.43.03 |
Past Diseases and Vaccines Imelda didn’t see rickets in Cork even though she had seen a lot of it in Glasgow. “every second person who came into you had the wee bandy legs”. Lack of sunshine in Glasgow due to tenements and high rise. Polio and TB were big in Cork. But TB was a bit comparable to Glasgow. Her dad had TB and her uncle in Dublin had TB as well. People don’t remember what some of the diseases that can now be vaccinated for were actually like. Polio can have long term effects such as deformity, muscle wastage, smaller limbs, leg length difference which requires large platform shoes to make up the difference in the leg length. Debilitating diseases so important to get vaccinations as a child. Especially for TB which Cork did not do regularly you had to request it which she did with her own children. Her dad talks about when he got TB a lot because he missed a year of school due to it. He had to go to an asylum but his siblings didn’t get it. Imelda still has patients who had polio. Shoe adaptations or splints are needed for them. It is debilitating and unnecessary. Imelda thinks that some of her colleagues would have a different view to vaccinations than she would have. Thinks that to encourage people to get vaccinated they could be shown pictures of things that can happen as a result of not getting your child vaccinated. If that’s the choice between a small chance there might be side effect versus an epidemic of children getting polio. It’s no contest. Some colleagues might have sort of anti-vax [anti-vaccination] views. They may focus on the side-effects but not on the effects of getting the disease. She thinks it’s reasonable to weight up the facts and see that inoculation is safer. Thinks people have their free choice, although points out that there is talk of making it compulsory. Not certain that she agrees with whether it should be made compulsory or not. But thinks that new mothers have not seen any of these diseases and that they need to see them in action to realise that they do not want their children to have the disease. Doesn’t agree with taking away freedom of choice. Cannot operate as a dictatorship. [Interview Ends] |
Describes the family home and routine chores. Speaks about the importance of sport especially tennis in her family upbringing.
Recalls her school days including instances of corporal punishment and the negative effects it had on people. Went home for lunch, mother prepared their dinner using meat from their butcher shop.
Describes secondary boarding school in Loreto Fermoy, especially the structure it imposed.
Speaks of how she had always intended to become a nurse. May have learned traits and habits useful for her career from her mother’s work ethic. Describes her nursing training in the Mercy Hospital and how the rosary was said there every night.
Describes her path to Public Health Nurse training in Dublin. Talks about her desire to work in the community rather than in the constraints of a hospital. Describes the wide range of PHN duties from pregnancies, births, infants, acute injury support, addiction, disability, older adults to dying and palliative care.
Discusses her current role as Assistant Director of Public Health Nursing where she advocates for early intervention to prevent behavioural issues in children. Mentions the large staff turnover due to the difficulties of the work. Much of the work involves building relationships.
Speaks about how poverty, social disadvantage, addiction, alcoholism affect children’s health and create a negative cycle which PHNs have a role in breaking. Speaks of how difficult it is for someone who hasn’t had parental role model to function as a parent themselves.
Talks about the move from Grattan Street to St. Mary’s Primary Care Centre and how she misses the other medical teams.
Describes Grattan Street as happy place to work, enjoyed the building and its quirks such as the gallery which facilitated casual conversation and the rattling windows. Believes people enjoyed working there because they got something positive from the building. Mentions the difficulties with parking there and its impact on the wider community. Feels that the building owned them.
Speaks of her hopes for the future of Grattan Street building once services move out.
Discusses caring for and moving vaccines as a School Nurse.
States that Grattan Street was a special place.
]]>Eileen grew up in Tallow in west Waterford in a family of seven. Her father ran the family butcher business attached to the house. She recalls him singing and whistling, and the sawdust on the shop floor. Recalls meat and tripe being sold and drisheen being made by her mother, explains this process.
Describes the family home and routine chores. Speaks about the importance of sport especially tennis in her family upbringing.
Recalls her school days including instances of corporal punishment and the negative effects it had on people. Went home for lunch, mother prepared their dinner using meat from their butcher shop.
Describes secondary boarding school in Loreto Fermoy, especially the structure it imposed.
Speaks of how she had always intended to become a nurse. May have learned traits and habits useful for her career from her mother’s work ethic. Describes her nursing training in the Mercy Hospital and how the rosary was said there every night.
Describes her path to Public Health Nurse training in Dublin. Talks about her desire to work in the community rather than in the constraints of a hospital. Describes the wide range of PHN duties from pregnancies, births, infants, acute injury support, addiction, disability, older adults to dying and palliative care.
Discusses her current role as Assistant Director of Public Health Nursing where she advocates for early intervention to prevent behavioural issues in children. Mentions the large staff turnover due to the difficulties of the work. Much of the work involves building relationships.
Speaks about how poverty, social disadvantage, addiction, alcoholism affect children’s health and create a negative cycle which PHNs have a role in breaking. Speaks of how difficult it is for someone who hasn’t had parental role model to function as a parent themselves.
Talks about the move from Grattan Street to St. Mary’s Primary Care Centre and how she misses the other medical teams.
Describes Grattan Street as happy place to work, enjoyed the building and its quirks such as the gallery which facilitated casual conversation and the rattling windows. Believes people enjoyed working there because they got something positive from the building. Mentions the difficulties with parking there and its impact on the wider community. Feels that the building owned them.
Speaks of her hopes for the future of Grattan Street building once services move out.
Discusses caring for and moving vaccines as a School Nurse.
States that Grattan Street was a special place.
0.00.00 - 0.00.25 |
Intro |
0.00.25- 0.02.04 |
Background Started in Grattan Street 2002 had been in different positions but haven been there full-time since 2012 as Assistant Director of Public Health Nursing. Covers the nursing staff for the City North-West area population 27,000. 10 area PHNs [Public Health Nurses] community RGN teams (Registered General Nurse). Eileen is PHN, RGN and registered mid-wife. You have to be an RGN to become a PHN. Worked as an RGN first in the community in North Cork prior Grattan Street. Then did PHN course in Dublin UCD (University College Dublin). Returned to Grattan Street, work as PHN on the ground, in schools, preschools, inspecting in nursing homes, assistant director of PHN since 2009. She was in two other sectors before that. |
0.02.04 - 0.04.21 |
Childhood in Waterford Born a long time ago! In Tallow west Waterford. From family of 7, has an older brother and four younger brothers and one younger sister. Father was a butcher, family business. Went to school in Tallow, then Loreto in Fermoy and then to the Mercy Hospital and did RGN training, then Dublin to Hollis Street for midwifery training. [Eileen’s phone rings but she mutes or turns it off and continues the interview] There were about four butchers in Tallow but now only a Supervalu. She remembers her dad singing and whistling below in the shop when she was in bed in the morning. He and his father were good singers and whistlers. Remembers sawdust in the shop and it going all over the house. Father and mother going to the marts getting sheep and animals coming to the back yard and into the slaughter house. Grew up with it so didn’t see anything unusual in it. Good happy childhood. Brothers and her all involved in sport. She and parents played tennis. “We were brought up in a tennis court” played some hockey in school. Lots of sports, golf as well. But now doesn’t have time with work. |
0.04.21 - 0.06.36 |
House at Home Growing up Two storey house on the street. Shop was attached to it. Downstairs there was a living room, a kitchen and a back kitchen and a room off the shop and four bedrooms upstairs and a bathroom, a big garden, a shed and a slaughter house. Grew up as an only girl, her sister is 14 years younger. She had gone to boarding school/secondary school by the time she was born. Had lots of friends in Tallow, still has them, still keep in touch. Did a lot of work in the house, as she tells her mother who’s now 92. They were all given jobs to do. She had to hoover the sawdust. She was involved in the weekly bath for her brothers, making sure their shoes were polished every Saturday evening. Thinks that today it is different, perhaps because of parenting. Dad died 10 years ago suddenly from a heart attack which she says was lovely for him. Siblings all alive, one in England. |
0.06.36 - 0.10.57 |
Produce in the Butchers Drisheen, Tripe, Black Pudding. And the making of them. Meat was sold in the butchers and some onions. Mother made drisheen and black pudding every Thursday to be ready for Friday and Saturday. Sometimes she would get some tripe from the market in Cork and it would be sold in their shop. They didn’t make the tripe themselves but they did the drisheen and black puddings using the serum. Serum from the blood and milk and pepper was used in it. It is supposedly good for you. And they ate that every Saturday night on top of sausages and rashers and they keep that tradition going but without the drisheen. Very mild flavour. It’s the frying that gives it a flavour. Maybe someone who wasn’t used to it might find a stronger flavour. Doesn’t remember the flavour of any herbs. It was a light grey colour in comparison to black pudding. Possibly some kind of sausage meat added to the black pudding. There was a machine where it would come from. Serum is separation from the blood when it is allowed to settle and there is a strainer. You use what floats to the top and discard the rest. Father and sister loved tripe but Eileen never “acquired the flavour for tripe” served “with boiled onions and milk”. Eileen doesn’t remember the butcher shop selling pork. But she thinks she might be wrong about that because her father kept a pig and he won a trophy for his prize pig when Eileen was about 7. |
0.10.57 - 0.15.09 |
School, Corporal Punishment, going home for Dinner School in convent in Tallow. Carmelites enclosed order still in Tallow, they didn’t teach but it was in their area. Boys had a separate school at the time but now it is co-ed: boys and girls. Enjoyed school. Reasonably well-behaved because terrified. Teachers could slap you, corporal punishment. Eileen didn’t get slapped often because she was a good girl. Remembers a small ‘roundy’ stick which would be used to hit children around the knuckles. Some teachers had less patience than others and found it difficult but the students didn’t understand that. She is glad corporal punishment is gone because it lowered self-esteem, and put you at a disadvantage. It wasn’t just the slap, it was that someone had carried it out on you. You felt brutalised. It was very common, right up to the time her children were in primary school, some of the teachers at the ends of their careers there had a reputation for corporal punishment. Would get a slap if they thought you weren’t paying attention or if you were talking to someone. Spoke about corporal punishment with her friends subsequently. And she discovered terrible things that happened to people which she wasn’t aware about at the time. Slaps across the face, pulling of ears, hit on the head. “You were an easy target. They had the power.” It was difficult. She thinks that if you were involved in sport you were treated a bit differently, though not if you were academic. They had outside toilets in primary school- “leaves and cold and wet”. Was able to go home at lunchtime and have dinner. “My wonderful mother had my dinner ready every day. For the nine of us.” |
0.15.09 - 0.15.48 |
Dinner and Types of Foods For dinner they would meat that hadn’t been sold in the butcher’s shop. They might have steak for a treat on Thursday night but usually more reasonable cuts of beef and lamb. Always meat, vegetable and potatoes. Mother was a great cook and baker so they always had something sweet to eat as well. |
0.15.48 - 0.19.01 |
Secondary School Boarding School Boarded in Loreto Fermoy, her brothers went to De la Salle in Waterford. Her parents worked hard to get them that education. Her mother had boarded but her father had left school early. Some of her friends from home went to Loreto as well and she also made new friends there. There for 5 years. Happy enough time. Initially allowed home every third weekend, eventually allowed home every weekend. As an only girl it was good to be around female company, she thinks she would have just been bossing the boys around at home. First impression was of the structure of the place: all your recreation time was spent in the one place. And you were there with your class, it was all set out for you and you had to fall into line. “I wasn’t unhappy there.” Calls by day, hockey in afternoon- sometimes go to Cork for a match. Every Saturday they were not at home they went for walks, they walked through the town, on parade in their uniforms. Had music at night in the social room listening to records. Abiding memory is of seeing Dana winning the Eurovision. Maybe she saw something about Bloody Sunday as well.” |
0.19.01 - 0.20.36 |
Career Choice. Nursing. Mother’s education. Role of Religion. Mercy Hospital “For some reason I always had nursing in my head.” Maybe because her mother said she would have done nursing if she could- she had left school after her Junior Cert and did a year in a technical school where she got her baking skills. Mom was a great worker so thinks she would have made a great matron rather than a nurse because she would have wanted everything done properly. Eileen says she may have some of those traits herself. After Eileen’s training when she went into the hospital she felt claustrophobic “for some reason it didn’t sit well on me.” She did 3 years in the Mercy. There were nuns there at the time: “Great fun, hard work.” |
0.20.36 - 0.22.07 |
Role of religion in the Mercy Hospital. The rosary was said every night on the wards. Had to go down on your knees at 6 o’clock and shout out the decades of the rosary. Biggest thing was that they had to know the joyful, glorious and sorrowful mysteries. They went to mass every morning around 7am when they stayed in the nurses home for the first year and a half. Nuns were strict. She was only 17 when she was there so she thinks it might have been good. She didn’t regret doing nursing but she didn’t take it too seriously either. |
0.22.07 - 0.23.18 |
Nursing Training in Mercy Hospital Three years training but only got a certificate. Learned anatomy, physiology and putting it into practice and managing patients/clients, eventually managing a ward. Managing night-time with patients coming in. managing a children’s ward. Dealing with everything: clinical care, surgery, people dying. Children dying. Recalls children dying in St. Anne’s Ward that will never leave me. Delighted to see the Mercy is busy and expanding. She has fond memories of it. |
0.23.18 - 0.26.55 |
Route to PHN and Grattan Street Did a little bit of work there wasn’t much work for qualified nurses at the time. Went to Fermoy Hospital, a community hospital. Worked there for a few months. Went to Hollis Street and spent a year there- very interesting. Opening into a different experience in the capital. She was madly in love at the time came home frequently. Eventually went back to Fermoy Hospital and got married at 23 in June, and by October of the following year she had her first son and so gave up nursing. Husband was self-employed and was often away and she felt one of them needed to be there they had three children. When the children got older she decided to do a course in fitness and taught exercise classes for 8 years. She had tried to get into PHN but hadn’t enough experience. She met a friend in Fermoy in 1998 and she said why not go into the community they are looking for RGNs in North Cork. She applied, got it and then “got the bug for the community” and applied twice to UCC for PHN course and they didn’t think she was suitable. She was accepted in Dublin and found it challenging. She was 47 at the time. She was up there for three week period. She came home every weekend. She came home on placement for a two week period placed in North Cork. That’s how it operated for the academic year. it was manageable and she had always wanted to do it. She was going back into a group of nurses who had been working, who knew everything, who knew computers and Eileen could barely send a text message on a phone. She was accomplished at essays by the time she was finished. She entered Grattan Street 2002. |
0.26.55 - 0.28.25 |
Public Health Nursing Eileen enjoyed the freedom of PHN, didn’t like the constraints of the hospital and the regimental nature of it. PHN suited her. Liked going into clients’ homes and fitting in with them rather than them fitting into a structure in a hospital. She wonders about the broad, complex, extended and manic nature of what is being attempted in the community now. She hasn’t been out working in 2009 but she has been working managing staff inside and supporting them in client management. |
0.28.25 - 0.33.06 |
Role of Public Health Nurse Looking after clients from the ante-natal (pregnancy period) to the end of life care. Anything and everything in between that. A huge sphere. Looking after mums to be, babies, mums after birth, young children, acute discharges who need support around wound care, clients with mental health, addictions, disabilities, older adults, dying and palliative care. Thinks it’s now too broad now because the type of discharges are very complex, almost providing a hospital type care within the community. Sláinte Care- clients being discharged into the community. Eileen doesn’t think this can happen until they had sufficient resources to match the numbers being discharged to them, she needs an increased budget. City north west is an area of great disadvantage there are 20 DEDs (Electoral Divisions) in it 15 of which are designated as disadvantaged or very disadvantaged. Lots of complexities around parenting. This leads to children with behavioural issues. Eileen is always advocating for early interventions. Role of PHN was always health promotion and illness prevention. More hands on now doing clinical, assessments, referrals, ordering supplies, reviewing things. So what was formerly the PHN’s main role is no longer their main role. Early intervention is key, it would be very beneficial. In the city northwest area there are many non-statutory bodies area-based childhood programme, (Atlantic Philanthropy was supporting this for a while now it’s Tusla) they support families, parents, teachers, childcare workers increasing capacity around infant mental health. Springboard run by Tusla which support families. “Niche” in Hollyhill a family support agencies, and Barnardos as well. Eileen is involved with all of them in child welfare and protection. Would like to get the issues resolved at child welfare stage. Everyone that comes to work here gets great experience but no one stays for very long. Lost two staff in April. 1.5 staff were on maternity leave and not replaces and another 2 going on maternity leave. |
0.33.06 - 0.35.30 |
Turnover of Staff Turnover due to the challenging work. Often chasing people, offering them appointments to bring their children, but they don’t. When you go back they won’t answer the door, or their phone, and change their phone number, or don’t tell you that they’ve moved house. Not all people they deal with are like that but a core group are because they have had no parenting themselves and the cycle continues of disadvantage, poverty, poor education and housing, unemployment. “Entitlement stage” their parents were entitled to everything. In PHN there is no entitlement which they try to get across. Eileen thinks that people born and reared in poverty and with poor parenting have no chance of catching up because they don’t realise the level they are at. Eileen doesn’t know where to break that cycle though she thinks that PHN plays some role. Places in Dublin and Limerick also have areas of disadvantage. Eileen think that sometimes her staff give people what they think the people need but it may not be what they really need and sometimes the staff can’t get that information from people. It’s all about building relationships but it’s hard to build that relationship when people don’t want what you have to offer people. |
0.35.30 - 0.40.25 |
Child Development Problems- Multiple Causes, Complex Solutions Should they ensure that all children in primary school are fed? Or is that too late? An infant mental health specialist with young Knocknaheeny area child-based programme 0 to 2 years is pivotal in nurturing and bonding and if it doesn’t happen children end up with low self-esteem or behavioural problems. These become bigger problems later as the children have not developed skills in coping because they haven’t been shown them. And if it’s not there by age two they miss out on a lot. Ante-natal period classes with Young Knocknaheeny to build a relationship with the mothers when they have their babies which they have to see until they are 5. There are a lot of services for people but sometimes they don’t want to be seen as a target for the services, they don’t want to be seen as different. Eileen was initially shocked by that attitude, someone said “another service being thrown at us” and maybe they were saturated with services and it wasn’t something they wanted at all. If Eileen knew how to break that cycle she would patent it. She read an article by someone in charge of Bessborough- how can we expect young mums to parent a child when they were never shown and they had no role model. How to build trust and build a relationship because they can be very wary and distrustful of services. Parents think that if they don’t do what the PHN says or thinks is right that there could be child protection issues involved because this happened a lot in the past and sometimes a child was removed. But for social workers the last resort is to remove a child- the child as almost always better with the parents from their point of view. Eileen thinks that approach is a bit unusual, especially if there is no bond between parents and the child. Sometimes a child is removed for a period of time, and there are health professional meetings, case conferences, families come together and everything is discussed. Sometimes it doesn’t work but you have to try. In those cases there is a health professional meeting or a case conference meeting and the children go into foster care and maybe go back to the parents after a period. |
0.40.25 - 0.45.40 |
Social and Medical Issues in North Cork Area Most of the moms are single with different partners for the different children. Housing is an issue, expenses for school, dependence on drugs, alcohol, polypharmacy, mental health, self-neglect. A number of clients are alcoholics who come home and expect the HSE to provide services. They can refer clients to the mental health services but the client has to agree to go. And there is a lot of that. Lots of young people with disabilities which she was surprised at she felt she had been very “sheltered”. When she came from North Lee so many people had disabilities or something wrong with a lot of people. The stats are quite high. North Cork is rural but North Lee is exceptional. One third fit into that category. Mental health and addiction issues are shocking. Grandparents are minding grandchildren because their children aren’t capable. She had no exposure to this until she arrived and so she was unprepared for it. Eileen could retire any time she wants but she likes the work but will retire in a few years. She tries to make a difference. |
0.45.40 - 0.49.40
|
Compares Grattan Street to new St Mary’s Primary Care Centre. Car Park issues. Get pleasure from the new building in St Mary’s so different to Grattan Street. When in Grattan Street they loved it and linking in with the team and got stuck in the car park. Eileen had a database with all the cars and numbers and if anyone was in a parking space who wasn’t registered they would get a note on their car. The car park nearly broke their hearts. Eileen was in a 7:20 every morning to get the parking space and would dread having to go anywhere because your space would be gone. When she went there as a novice PHN she didn’t like the outside of the building but once inside she felt comfortable there, and the staff were nice in there. They always knew if someone was sick or had a bereavement. When she left Grattan Street she had a room there but it is now full with other things and incontinence wear. Jokingly blames Sean Higgisson the porter for this. Some of the rooms in Grattan Street are beginning to look neglected and old. Some of the team are not looking forward to moving up to St Mary’s. They are anxious about the move. But many with Eileen were as well before they moved but at least her team are all in the one place now. She feels they are well-settled in St Mary’s now and they like it and she told Sean the porter and Celine in admin this. They’re not really missing Grattan Street. |
0.49.40 - 0.57.13
|
Typical Day in Grattan Street and Changes. Hospital Discharges. Arriving in Grattan Street first it was similar to what she had been used to in North Cork. (North Lee is from Youghal to Macroom) Was in Mayfield for a year. Was in Glanmire St Stephen’s for 2 years. 2012-2019 in Grattan Street. A typical day in Grattan Street was getting there early to park the car to be able to get out quickly. When traffic in Grattan Street became one way it really affected staff in Grattan Street- previously they were able to leave and go up Shandon Street but now they have to turn through narrow streets. Doesn’t feel they were told or consulted about that change. After getting their early she went for a walk because initially she didn’t have a key to the health centre. Walk to the quays, North Main Street into St Francis Church to pray for everyone (and for herself not to kill anyone). Back to Grattan Street, Sean would be there, have coffee, reply to emails, manage staff annual leave, sick leave professional development, pre-discharge meetings. She is on various boards and bodies which entailed various meetings. Would go St Finbarr’s [Hospital] head office once a week. Busy. Trying to find solutions to problems. Would think of something in bed at night but forget it by the time morning comes. Sometimes write a note in the phone and go back to sleep. In Grattan Street working with clients, working through correspondence, going to meetings: multi-disciplinary teams with more views, suggestions and options. Could be about a client having issues with self-neglecting, a client who deteriorated and needed extra supports. Mercy today for pre-discharge meeting for a very complicated case coming home. Previously the person had been discharge and within 36 hours he was found on the floor and the door had to be broken down- required the Gardaí, ambulance, nurse and home help. He refused to go to hospital. The following morning he was unwell again and he was sent to hospital. Now they want to send him home again. Many complexities come from not having next of kin and the nurse shouldn’t have to take on that responsibility. Capacity bill. Not always safe discharges. Reiterates connections with Young Knocknaheeny, Niche, Barnardos, Springboard. Try to link in with other groups and social work but feels they need to focus on their own work. Their cases are too big to be involved. Feels pulled and dragged a lot. As a PHN you are a manager of an area of 3,000 population which isn’t huge but the complexities make it hard. In a rural area there might be a population of about 5,000 but they wouldn’t all be active. |
0.57.13 - 1.01.40 |
Social Aspect Aoife O’Brien is great to get people together, comes up with idea, advertise, follow up, plan order things, get back to people and doesn’t force people and takes photos. Eileen takes pride in the Christmas party and restarting it. It’s the only time they really had events in Grattan Street. Allows you to have fun, eating and relaxing and speaking about plans. Someone made punch but with the change in driving laws and when that woman left they didn’t have it anymore. Lots of young people in Grattan Street now who go out after work to a bar but Eileen wouldn’t have done that. There was a lot of moving or transferring staff and they would do something for them like a lunch. Mixed well with admin, nursing, podiatry, school nurses, ophthalmology. Everyone knew where everyone was. When they came to St Mary’s first in early February (5th & 6th of February after the nurses strike) they really missed the other teams. Expected the other to follow shortly after but they haven’t. When meeting people in the corridor in St Marys there might not be eye contact and they aren’t used to that coming from St Mary’s. Now they are smiling and saying hello. They are integrating into the new building. When people finally come up from Grattan Street it might be easier for them now that Eileen’s team has managed the transition. |
1.01.40 - 1.07.10
|
Everyone loves Grattan Street Some people wanted to leave but only for parking. Grattan Street reversing out and cars double parked on both sides. Saw a lorry bringing in windows for a school extension. People in the school sometimes try to take their spaces. The lorry reversed in- surprised how good a driver he was. Teams close together in Grattan Street but separated now in St Mary’s. Podiatry will come up. Home Support Service is in St Marys. PHN have rooms for clients downstairs. While everyone is in St Mary’s they are separate. They are beginning to get used to all the space. Thinks it’s more productive in St Marys. Sector 4- City Northwest touches on the Mardyke and Western Road a bit but most of it is on the Northside. It made no sense for staff to be based in town and come up to the Northside and then back down. Grattan Street Health Centre is part of Mayfield Sector 3- City North East. So really they were in temporarily lodgings there. In St Mary’s can respond to thinks more quickly, nurses can do their calls more easily. Can’t think of negative things, maybe the room with 20 of the nurses instead of 2 to 5 people. But people are getting used to it. Some health centres have a mix of disciplines but in St Mary’s it’s all nursing which Eileen prefers. Canteen in Grattan Street was homely and functional. But in St Mary’s it’s clinical, not big and equipment is ok but it’s very loud. Eileen goes there when it’s quiet and looks out the window at the trees which has a preservation order on them. |
1.07.10 - 1.11.08
|
Interaction with Surrounding Grattan Street Community Fraught interaction with the surrounding area in Grattan Street to do with the car park. There’s 6 parking spaces for anyone. And the ones at the back wall and the other side area for HSE. There might not be enough space for residents. And HSE staff would try to get in early enough for a space. They had a good relationship with the school [Education Together] until they started taking the HSE parking spaces. Sean had a good relationship with the school and the locals because he would have more dealings with them. Only the back door of people’s houses were connected with the car park their front doors faced elsewhere. There was a hall. And the area in which Grattan Street is located isn’t covered by the PHN area that Eileen was in, it was covered by Mayfield. So Eileen feels they were a bit disconnected from the Marsh. Not much interaction with shops. Raised blood pressure due to the car parking and arguments and they nearly shot each other over it! Eileen told someone that they couldn’t park there because they weren’t working there and she was shocked at the angry verbal abuse she got after it. Sometimes arguments would start badly but in the end they would be smiling and wondering what all the fuss was about. |
1.11.08 - 1.14.18
|
Describe Grattan Street A happy place to work. Liked the building and its peculiarities, its rattling windows. Arguing to get a new window where the bottom part was falling out and tin foil was blocking the gap. In her room the wind was coming in and the window wasn’t replaced. Bars on the window. And obscure glass so you could only see out when you open the top. Thought that the two stairs going to the 2nd floor in Grattan Street was cool when she was there first and the gallery all around and the open space it created. An old quaint building being pushed into something it was never meant to house. Glad to hear that there is talk of people going in there. The gallery made things different. And you could see if someone was waiting for you and have a bit of craic. An opportunistic up and down conversation. Not as easy to catch people in St Mary’s. “We will always have happy memories of Grattan Street. Always. And I’m sure it will become even more embellished with time.” |
1.14.18 - 1.18.30 |
Why do people like Grattan Street? Eileen thinks it’s partly because of the people working there. The building lends itself to that. They got something good from the building. When you entered the building there were no lights on you had to go to the reception area to turn them on. One morning she heard something flush when she went in. She locked herself in her office. And called Sean (Higgisson the porter) who said the toilet just flushed itself- another peculiarity. Sometimes people were difficult in Grattan Street and Sean was calm and dealt with it. Being near town gave you lots of options for places to go which isn’t the case in St Marys. Someone could come in shouting and verbally abusive and demanding to see someone. Someone collapsed once and Sean had to get him to the Mercy Hospital in wheelchair. Try to diffuse the difficult person- Sean would be good at that and might get someone else to assist. Sean gives a relaxed attitude and talks to people. He would keep it from escalating. Eileen thinks she might not be so calm! |
1.18.30 - 1.20.02
|
Varying Views of Grattan Street Medical Centre Other people who came to Grattan Street may see it as shabby, or somewhere they didn’t get what they wanted. Or there was no proper queue or waiting too long for something. They might have had trouble parking. Another person might think it’s convenient in the city centre and an interesting unusual space. “But they won’t ever see it the way we saw it. We felt we owned it. Or it owned us, you know that kind of way. Sometimes it just felt like something wrapped around you.” Felt good there. “Everyone loves Grattan Street. Put that on my epitaph.” |
1.20.02 - 1.21.00
|
Definition of Patients and Clients Call people clients when working with them in the community. Patients in the hospital. Clients because they have some need but it is not always an illness. It’s always been like that in the community setting. |
1.21.00 - 1.23.15
|
Anything you would change about Grattan Street besides the carpark? Could have been painted. Paint the door. Make it more attractive people to get a better sense of the place before entering. Improve the exterior to make people aware they were going someplace nice. The building needs it. Down and outs sleep out the back of it so there is lots of rubbish out there. Some clear glass in the office and take away the bars. Improve the canteen a bit. St Marys is fresh, new and practical. Grattan Street not much can be done with it. |
1.23.15 - 1.24.28
|
Unexpected Responsibilities and Workload Eileen didn’t expect when she started out to be working so hard and carrying so many responsibilities at the age she is now. There was no reflection on where you were going at the time she started. She always wanted to work in community not hospital. |
1.24.28 - 1.26.15
|
Future of Grattan Street Would like to see it occupied and whoever was in there was happy in there and the building was looked after. Nearly better to close off the car park. Eileen thinks it can never be sold off. And she would like services to be in there because it is an ideal central location. H111 European Health Insurance Card is done in Grattan Street. There’s a box shaped reception which was thrown up and is not in keeping with the building she would like to see that changed. Plaster on the walls. Holes in the ceiling. |
1.26.15 - 1.29.13
|
Vaccines, School Nurse, Grattan Street Ghost. Vaccines- had to mind the fridges when she was a schools nurse. School nurses had to deal with AMO Area Medical Officer now called Community Medical Doctors. The room the fridges were in had no air-conditioning or coolant and sometimes the temperature would get too high. As a school nurse she would have to take the vaccines in and out and maintain the cold chain in the transfer of the vaccines. In St Mary’s there will be a cold room for those fridges. Never saw the ghost. And she had plenty of time to appear when she was there alone in the morning. Grattan Street was special. Met people with different problems. Outro. Interview ends. |
Recounts early years in the Grattan Street Dispensary building where his father was the pharmacist.
Describes growing up on the Mardyke close to St Joseph’s School and Presentation Brothers School which he attended. Talks about the violence of corporal punishment.
His mother ran a guesthouse in the family home, including preparing all the meals for the customers who were mostly university students and commercial travellers with their own cars which was rare.
Remembers summer holidays on a cousin’s farm.
Describes his time in University College Cork as the most important in his life. Discusses student societies, debating and the university grounds.
Outlines his working life in pensions, career direction, marriage as well as living accommodation.
Expresses his hopes for building developments in Cork and the emerging opportunities of remote working there.
Reflects on how his background has formed his outlook on life.
Describes cycling to collect cream from Bradleys Dairy on Sheare’s Street in an Andrews Kruschen Salts jar. Also mentions his distaste for tripe and drisheen.
Talks about a hierarchy of respectability in Cork based on types of clothing, with shawlies being the lowest rank.
Discusses Cork dancehalls in the 1960s including UCC, the Arcadia and the people who organised them.
]]>Don recalls his entrepreneurial great-aunt who owned the Grand Hotel in Fermoy.
Recounts early years in the Grattan Street Dispensary building where his father was the pharmacist.
Describes growing up on the Mardyke close to St Joseph’s School and Presentation Brothers School which he attended. Talks about the violence of corporal punishment.
His mother ran a guesthouse in the family home, including preparing all the meals for the customers who were mostly university students and commercial travellers with their own cars which was rare.
Remembers summer holidays on a cousin’s farm.
Describes his time in University College Cork as the most important in his life. Discusses student societies, debating and the university grounds.
Outlines his working life in pensions, career direction, marriage as well as living accommodation.
Expresses his hopes for building developments in Cork and the emerging opportunities of remote working there.
Reflects on how his background has formed his outlook on life.
Describes cycling to collect cream from Bradleys Dairy on Sheare’s Street in an Andrews Kruschen Salts jar. Also mentions his distaste for tripe and drisheen.
Talks about a hierarchy of respectability in Cork based on types of clothing, with shawlies being the lowest rank.
Discusses Cork dancehalls in the 1960s including UCC, the Arcadia and the people who organised them.
0.00.00 - 0.00.19 |
intro |
0.00.19 - 0.00.00 |
Earliest Memory Playing Fermoy In Fermoy about 3 years old playing under a table in a big room. His grand-aunt Julie O’Connor known as Auntie Jess owned the Grand Hotel in Fermoy. She bought the hotel. She was an entrepreneur. She was on good terms with the clergy. She didn’t like his name Donal and called him Don which stuck. She only had one eye, she wore a false eye. |
0.02.41 - 0.03.24 |
Where he lived growing up Initially grew up in Grattan Street Moved to Mardyke when mother bought house in 1949 and he stayed there until 22 when he went to Dublin. |
0.03.24 - 0.07.13 |
Living in Grattan Street Dispensary & Children’s Games Was told that he played with a girl and a pram. Played gobs with local children. Gobs: throwing stones up and caught them on the back of your hand. Remembers playing with bricks on the stairs in Grattan Street. |
0.04.40 - 0.06.27 |
Pharmacist Father House had three bedrooms. Maybe had a kitchen and at least another room downstairs. Assumes there was an indoor bathroom was unusual. Father was a pharmacist, met Don’s mother in Fermoy where he trained and they got married in Mallow. He was from Quilty in County Clare and they moved there after living for a while in Fermoy. He opened his own business in Clare- wasn’t a good businessman- he wasn’t good at getting patients to pay for their medicines and medications. He got a job as the pharmacist in Grattan Street in Cork city. |
0.06.27 - 0.07.46 |
Description of Father & Spanish Flu Vague memory of father. Not very tall. Kind man. Good singer and piano player. Father went to Rockwell College where he caught Spanish flu which stunted his growth at around 5 foot 6. His name was John or J.J and also known as Sean. |
0.07.46 - 0.10.14 |
Family & School His father stopped working in Grattan Street and there were issues between him and Don’s mother so they split up. Moved to Mardyke when mother bought house in 1949 and he stayed there until 22 when he went to Dublin Went to St Joseph’s school on the Mardyke. He is said to have run home twice from school on first day. Only knew of one person with a car, a teacher called Bob Tanner. “bob” was slang for shilling and “tanner” was slang for sixpence so he was known as “One and Sixpence”. He had an old ‘bockety’ Ford which holes in the floor through which you could see the road. Lots of children from the Marsh area- Sheare Street, Grattan Street etc. would have gone there. Don will be collecting his grandson after the interview and there will be lots of cars and no brothers teaching in the school. |
0.10.14 - 0.12.20 |
Violence & kindness of different Presentation Brothers in School Didn’t like the brothers, “they were brutes” except for a few kindly ones. He doesn’t like authority. Went to Presentation Brothers Secondary school where the lay teachers were more humane. The brothers were physically violent. Don expresses surprise that although one hears court cases about brothers sexually assaulting pupils that he hasn’t heard ones relating to physical assault. One very nice, good man was Brother Pascal who was very musical. He ran an accordion ban, a flageolet band (woodwind instrument) and a choir. Pascal ended up teaching deaf pupils in Greenmount. He didn’t like anything about school. |
0.12.20 - 0.14.40 |
Childhood Games & Local Area Got up to mischief outside school. Lots of children in the Mardyke at the time who he played with. House he grew up in was beside Fitzgerald’s Park where he could play. They played football, cowboys and Indians, Robin Hood and climbing trees. He grew up surrounded by famous sports people including Noel Cantwell who has an avenue named after him who captained Manchester United. Tommy Kiernan and Barry McGann played rugby for Ireland. He grew up near Sundays Well Tennis Club, Cork Cricket Club, university playing fields, and the public baths. And he can’t play any of those sports. |
0.14.40 - 0.19.07 |
Description of Mother & her Guesthouse Mother came from outside Youghal from a farm. Later worked with his grand aunt in Fermoy. Small lady. Ran her house as a guesthouse. She bought the house intending to keep students. Lots of commercial travellers stayed there and tourists in the summer. His 2 sisters sent to boarding school Loreto Convent Fermoy where his mother had gone. She didn’t have a great sense of humour. Her main concern was providing for them. She lived to be 97. Commercial travellers were salesmen who called on retail shops to get goods into the shop. Recalls a commercial traveller called Mackintosh for Dell Comics, and he had stacks of comics in the van and he gave one of each to Don. There was one for keys, fire alarms. Often colourful characters who had their own cars. Guests also included chauffeurs who drove rich Americans around Ireland. The Americans may have stayed in the Metropole Hotel. The cars were big Austin Princesses like a Rolls Royce and they were parked on the Mardyke and were never damaged. He got a spin in them. |
0.19.07 - 0.24.09 |
Home Life: Guests, Food & Cooking, Description of the House, Card-playing Felt like the house wasn’t theirs because there were always strangers in the house. Always 4 or 5 students staying with them. When older he got to know the students. Grew up on his own and still describes himself as a recluse. Mother cooked breakfast and tea but not a midday meal. She was a very good cook. Did all her own baking. Basic meals: eggs for breakfast. A fry in the evening. Chips were made on a Friday which were cooked in lard and put in brown paper. Whiting fish which he hated on a Friday as meat wasn’t allowed for practicing Catholics. They ate in kitchen while the guests ate in the dining room. When the guests weren’t eating it became the sitting room. Fire lighting always in the sitting room. It was like a game of whist always moving tables. His mother was a very good card player they played at Christmastime when her friends Elsie and Liam who were teacher came to visit. They used to play the card game 110. Elsie used to pick up cards from the discard pile of cards which was a form of cheating but she was never prevented from doing it. For a small house it was very busy. Don still owns the house. |
0.24.09 - 0.25.41 |
Don’s Holidays and his Mother’s Holidays Mother took a few days off around September where she stayed with an unmarried cousin Maureen Hennessey in Sandycove Dun Laoghaire. She also visited Elsie and Liam in Malahide. Describes travelling from north Dublin to South Dublin as a great distance. He was sent to an uncle and aunt during the summer for a holiday. Had cousins around his age living on the farm his mother grew up in where he stayed on holidays. His uncle had a buckrake which had spikes and was attached to the back of the tractor. His uncle put straw on it and put the children on the straw and he drove the tractor so they were swung from side to side. Don doesn’t think this was very safe. Remembers the summers as hot and sunny. |
0.25.41 - 0.29.21 |
University and Debating Went to UCC in 1963 for a 3 year Commerce degree. Worked in Cork briefly and then in a Canadian merchant bank for 3 years in Dublin. And then he came back to Cork. UCC was the most important time in his life. Gained confidence and met lots of people. Total freedom compared to school. Met his wife there. Was not a great student he says. Was involved in debating which allowed him contact with other universities. Recalls debating against Michael D. Higgins. Thinks he began university later having started working first possibly in the ESB. |
0.29.21 - 0.35.55 |
UCC: The debating Society, Study, Lecturer’s Gowns, Rules and grounds and gardens There was a Commerce Society. The Philosophical Society of “philosoph” was the big one. It had people from every faculty where they “talked rubbish”. Once won the speaker of the year award. The debates were held on Saturday night. The auditor of the philosoph was Oliver Lyons who was a teacher in Carrigtouhil later once said “I am the philosophical Society” in response to a challenge to the rules. Don had about 50 in his class. A son of his did Commerce with 300 in his class. Doesn’t think they had to study as hard back then. First lecture the dean came in late wearing a white linen jacket and panama hat, a famous economist John Busteed. He expected them to do some work but “not as hard as the little girls in Woolworths”. When you registered in UCC you met the registrar and the president. Don was called mister for the first time. The president told him to work hard. All lecturers and professors wore gowns. Recalls the nicely cut grey suit of the president. RAG week was a very tame event compared at the time. In his 2nd year a classmate said that the new first years were too pushy and they should have been more humble. There was a rule that you couldn’t walk on the grass on the Quad and that girls were not allowed to lie on the grass anywhere. The lower grounds were wild and had subtropical plants, where the Glucksman is now and it’s more tamed. He preferred it wild. |
0.35.55 - 0.38.25 |
Work, Marriage, Honeymoon Worked in Cork for 9 months then moved to Dublin. Had a flat in Clyde Rd. graduated 1966 and married his wife Deirdre on Monday 14th August 1967, went to Achill for their honeymoon. Stayed a few nights in Butler Arms Hotel in Waterville and stopped in Limerick in the Royal or the George Hotel. They didn’t realise there were any buses in Limerick! When she arrived back in the flat in Dublin there were 4 quasi-empty milk bottles in the sink! They are still married after 53 years.
|
0.38.25 - 0.41.22 |
Pensions Work in Dublin Worked with Royal Trust Company subsequently Royal Trust Bank. They were money managers. Pioneered the area of privately invested pension funds, until that time insurance companies dominated the market. Spent his life working in pensions because of that experience. They expanded to merchant banker and money market transactions. He learned a lot although only peripherally involved- much more than he learned in UCC. He didn’t like his new boss and left they job because of him- is not sure it was the best decision. Flat in Clyde Rd and also bought a house in Dublin with the aid of a company loan. Mortgage interest rates were at 8% or 9% and his was 4% or so. Paid £5,500 for the house and sold it a year later for £6,500. Ballinclea Heights in Killiney. |
0.41.22 - 0.43.15 |
Living Accommodation in Cork & Buying Houses Rented a place behind Oriel Court Hotel in Ballincollig. The big house and outhouses had been converted into flats. They rented what had been the stables. Then bought a house in the city centre of Cork on Western Road which they sold and bought another house further up Western Road which was also sold and they now live in Shanakiel where they are for 34 years. They nearly forgot the baby when they were moving house!
|
0.43.15 - 0.45.51 |
Hopes for Cork development Change in development in Cork over the years. He says he doesn’t meet people in Cork city in the way he used to. Is looking forward to the new changes in the city on the quays and docks which over the next decade will be huge he thinks. He would look to see the equivalent of Dublin’s financial centre in Cork. McCarthy from Fexco said he wouldn’t move from Killorglin to Dublin because it doesn’t have scenery. Believes it’s possible for people to work from anywhere now. Would also like to see Cork have an IT hub. |
0.45.51 - 0.49.10 |
Grattan Street Dispensary for Weddings Dispensary on Grattan Street he doesn’t know what happened to it. Although he was back in the building for a wedding. Never got to go back and look inside. He was married in Honan chapel which had more appeal to him than a room in the old dispensary. Recalls a cut-stone building facing onto Grattan Street. Never remembers being inside the dispensary. Left the dispensary when he was 3 years old. In St Josephs School he met boys from Sheares Street and Paul Street but doesn’t think they had the opportunity to go to university. |
0.49.10 - 0.50.36 |
Outlook and reflection on life Raised as an only child and glad that his own children have been raised differently. Adamant after his own childhood that he would look after his own children as best he could. Believes that his own background gave him a sense of insecurity and hunger which drove him to find security. Retired early and was involved in a number of business deals of varying success.
|
0.50.36 - 0.52.34 |
Grattan Street: Dairy, medicine and cream Recalls Grattan Street being busy and having tenement houses. There was a dairy on each end of Grattan St. Bradleys dairy at Sheares Street end and another one at the Kyle St end. It was all horse drawn carriages- few cars and lorries. The dairy sold butter. Was sent on his bicycle with an Andrews Kruschen Salts jar. His mother took the Kruschen salts every day as medicine. It was a small brown bottle half size of beer bottle with screw on top, with grease proof paper to prevent leakage. The jar was for cream which cost sixpence. They also sold butter pats but they didn’t buy butter there.
|
0.52.34 - 00.54.44 |
Tripe and Drisheen His mother never cooked tripe and drisheen. Tried them since and didn’t like. Drisheen “the most gelatinous horrible stuff”. Thinks tripe should be nice with onions and milk.
His mother told a story that after giving birth she was confined to bed for weeks in a nursing home in Fermoy and as a special treat the nun in charge gave her tripe and his mother broke down in tears because she couldn’t eat it. Don knows men who were reared on tripe and drisheen. Likes black pudding. Has eaten haggis which he liked the taste of. He asked what Haggis was and was told that he didn’t want to know! |
0.54.44 - 0.55.06 |
Pawn Shops and Lack of Money Didn’t have any dealings with pawn shops that he knew of even though there wasn’t much money around. |
0.55.06 - 0.57.36 |
Coal Quay, Shawlies Status and Respectability Recalls the Coal Quay and the shawlies, which he suggests was not a complimentary name. Discusses how he read that there were degrees of respectability or status. At the bottom were shawlies, then women who wore coats and scarves, then women with coats and hat, and above that were women who wore costumes and hats. Says he wasn’t aware of that at the time. He subsequently saw a clip of the Coal Quay on television where a women wearing a hat and coat turned her back to avoid being recorded as being in the Coal Quay Mentions Katty Barry’s pub where crubeens were sold at closing time. Though he was “wild enough” in college he didn’t drink until he left college and began to work.
|
0.57.36 -1.01.02 |
Cork Dancehalls 1960s Recalls the Main Rest in UCC which transformed into a dancehall one night a week, and everyone went to “The Rest”. Robin Power (who trained as a dentist but became an entrepreneur) started a dance in the Arcadia known as The Dinosaurs, which he thinks was on Thursday or Friday night which everyone wanted to attend if they had enough money. A typical student might have a bicycle but at the time Robin Flower had an Alfa Romeo! Brought big Irish bands there like Sandy Shaw. Arcadia was a designed ballroom with a mirrored disco ball which made it more romantic and exotic. The rest closed at 11pm and the Arcadia at 12 midnight. He met a women from Ballinlough who said she walked home from the Arcadia late at night because it was so safe back then, but she was afraid of seeing a ghost! That’s how innocent things were. The Arcadia still stands it is student accommodation now across from Kent train station. |
1.01.02 - 1.01.10 |
Outro |
Describes her grandmother who ran a shop on Churchfield Green. Her grandmother was a confidante to many locals. Her grandmother eventually moved into their family home, where Aoife describes how she cooked tripe and drisheen. Aoife also speaks about a typical Christmas day with her family and neighbours visiting.
Recalls her school days and subsequent courses and jobs before her clerical officer role in Grattan Street, taking over her sister’s role.
Remembers her first experiences of Grattan Street as a child patient wanting to get glasses. Is reluctant to leave Grattan Street as she has so many memories there.
Explains her work in administration for the schools vaccination programme. Mentions rare cases of vaccine hesitancy or refusal.
Describes the quirky character of the Grattan Street Medical Centre building and as a happy place to work despite its defects. It’s location in the centre of the city is also beneficial.
Aoife talks about her role organising social events for the medical centre staff- Christmas parties and leaving parties. Hope to maintain these traditions when the staff move to St Mary’s Health Campus Gurranabraher.
Recalls stories from Grattan Street including wasps, pigeons, floods, characters and the boiler.
]]>Aoife describes growing up on the Northside near Cathedral Road and playing games with her friends.
Describes her grandmother who ran a shop on Churchfield Green. Her grandmother was a confidante to many locals. Her grandmother eventually moved into their family home, where Aoife describes how she cooked tripe and drisheen. Aoife also speaks about a typical Christmas day with her family and neighbours visiting.
Recalls her school days and subsequent courses and jobs before her clerical officer role in Grattan Street, taking over her sister’s role.
Remembers her first experiences of Grattan Street as a child patient wanting to get glasses. Is reluctant to leave Grattan Street as she has so many memories there.
Explains her work in administration for the schools vaccination programme. Mentions rare cases of vaccine hesitancy or refusal.
Describes the quirky character of the Grattan Street Medical Centre building and as a happy place to work despite its defects. It’s location in the centre of the city is also beneficial.
Aoife talks about her role organising social events for the medical centre staff- Christmas parties and leaving parties. Hope to maintain these traditions when the staff move to St Mary’s Health Campus Gurranabraher.
Recalls stories from Grattan Street including wasps, pigeons, floods, characters and the boiler.
0.00.00 - 0.00.52
|
Role in Grattan Street Medical Centre Clerical Officer in Grattan Street Medical Centre for 18/19 years. From Cathedral Road originally. Only Northsider working in Grattan Street Medical Centre! |
0.00.52 - 0.02.44
|
Background, Childhood and Games Grew up in cul-de-sac terrace called School Avenue. Primary school: St Vincent’s. Games: “piggy”, skipping ropes. Convinced her friends that there were fairies in trees by her house. Took over older sister Sinead’s job in Grattan Street Medical Centre. They played together with Sinead as the teacher and Aoife as the student in their grandmother’s room using chalk which got on grandmother’s clothes and she never knew when it came from. Started school with boys & girls she was friends with and still friends with many of them today. |
0.02.44 - 0.03.37
|
Childhood Games: Piggy Describes the game how it’s made and its rules (also known as hopscotch or pickey) chalk on the road and use a shoe polish tin. Very popular where Aoife was from. |
0.03.37 - 0.05.06 |
Grand Mother’s shop on Churchfield Green. Grandmother’s surname was Stephens and people who know Aoife from the shop know her as Aoife Stephens. Had friends up near the shop. Shop closed 20 years ago. Her dad drove her and siblings from school to the shop after school. Her mom worked up there. Aoife and her friend Paula went to the “Pound Shop” or collected old wool from people’s houses to make ponytails in imitation of Like “Rainbow Brite Dolls”. |
0.05.06 - 0.07.37
|
Grandmother’s Shop- description, shopping notes, fun Shop was hub of activity. Customers sent up notes with the items they wanted. Children played hiding in fridges. “Light-fingered”- as children they took things from the shop. It was a grocery shop selling: milk, bread, cold meats, sweets, cigarettes. Recalls a funny incident when her cousin Leonard got a note which had “S. Towels” meaning sanitary towels but he asked his dad “what are stowels?” |
0.07.37 - 0.13.23
|
Grandmother: Description, her Funeral, Summer Holidays with her, Christmas Day, Caring for others, Cooking Tripe and Drisheen Aoife thought her grandmother wasn’t patient because she had a quick tongue. Now looking back she thinks she was very patient. Aoife’s sister went to live with their grandmother when granddad died. Used to stay in caravans down in Youghal. Eventually they rented a house from a woman called Maureen. About 13 children stayed there in Youghal with grandmother for the summer. Grandmother doted on all of them. At her funeral people had very fond memories of her. She was an agony aunt and confidante. A neighbour could chat in the shop for 3 hours with her. Family always went to grandmother’s house for Christmas Day. When grandmother sold the house she came to live with Aoife’s family and the rest of the family came to them for Christmas. She cooked tripe and drisheen for Aoife’s dad who worked nights in Irish Steel. Grandmother loved feeding people. Steak and gravy could be cooked in the morning so Aoife’s mom only had to heat it up. “The smell alone would turn me off” the tripe and drisheen. “Fairly gruesome now to be honest”. “she knew by my face not to even ask” if Aoife wanted to taste any. |
0.13.23 - 0.14.55
|
Christmas Day Start 10am. Aoife’s parents & her 3 sisters. Uncle Jim now deceased. Aunt Geraldine. Grandmother had 2 girls and 2 boys. Neighbours would call in. Everyone in a small kitchen. It was the hub of the family. Fighting over toys and batteries. |
0.14.55 - 0.16.53
|
School Enjoyed it. As admin for the vaccinations department in Grattan Street Medical Centre she has goes back to St Vincent’s twice a year for vaccines: HPV (human papillomavirus), Men C (meningitis C) and Tdap (tetanus and low dose diphtheria and low dose pertussis (whooping cough) booster). School still looks and smells the same. Saw her picture on the wall sitting next to two girls who she is still best friends with now. Liked the subjects Art, French and Business Organisation (“Biz Org”). |
0.16.53 - 0.20.11
|
After School: Courses and Jobs Did a secretarial course in Terence MacSwiney Community College and a City and Guilds Course. Work experience in solicitor’s office in Washington Street doing dictation and typing but felt a little bit like it was over her head. Worked in Dovertron Electronics in Dublin Hill which had the contract for the Sky Box where she worked for 6 months. Worked in Bourns Electronics: 8 months soldering. Saturday job in a butchers in North Main Street- she hated smell of meat lasted 3 Saturdays! Handed in CV to line manager and staff officers in HSE. Offered job 2 weeks after the interview. Feels like Grattan Street Medical Centre won’t let her go. Feels like part of the furniture. The secretarial skills course she took included: computer skills, typing, floppy disks, word processing, dictation, typing, telephone manner, |
0.20.11 - 0.22.31
|
Recalls Grattan Street when visiting her sister before working there Aoife used to call into Grattan Street Medical Centre to visit her sister who worked there. She attended Michael O’Sullivan in the eye clinic when she was in school. She was familiar with the building. It is strange to be working in the building where she had been as a patient. There was a school nurse who she was afraid of and Aoife became her secretary. Smoking: Canteen was halved at the time and smokers were on one side of it. People could smoke in their offices. She stepped into her sister’s job. She felt very welcomed. Aoife says that she doesn’t take direction very well, she prefers to do things her way. Her sister was very particular. |
0.22.31 - 0.25.00
|
Memories as a Patient- and pretending to need glasses! Dark room, waiting to be called. As a child she was desperate to get glasses and braces. She used take silver foil from cigarette packets to put around teeth to imitate braces. She wore her grandfather’s glasses which had thick lenses “like jam jars” in the hope that she herself would need to wear glasses. She told Dr (Michael) O’Sullivan that she couldn’t see much of the (eye-test) board. Later on, after a year or two working in Grattan Street Medical Centre, she discovered that she did need glasses. |
0.25.00 - 0.26.23
|
Difficult to leave Grattan Street Medical Centre Sister loved Grattan Street Medical Centre and was heartbroken to leave. Aoife has been in her office since March 2001. In facy she has been there longer than she has been in her own home. “My whole life story is been in the walls”. Leaving Grattan Street Medical Centre is tough for her and some of the others working there. |
0.26.23 - 0.32.57
|
Description of Role and duties Every child in junior infants is offered a vision check MMR, booster vaccination and senior infant child is offered hearing check. Aoife and Síle (Sheila?) in Grattan Street Medical Centre cover the North Lee area from Macroom to Youghal, not the city, Glounthaune, Carrigtwohill, Cobh, Midleton area. Aoife works from the city to east Cork, there’s a very big workload so she must be organised. It’s a very rewarding job. It requires building a rapport with primary schools and secretaries. As part of her work she needs to: send out forms to 58 primary schools and get packs ready for the schools and all the students and get the forms back by courier. The form have to be sorted based on the vaccination date schedule and people removed from the list if they refuse the vaccine. They also check that children weren’t vaccinated before eg. a “repeat student” (a student repeating a class or year) or maybe the student has lived in another country where they were vaccinated so that must be followed up. They are almost busier in the summer months because the details of every child that has been vaccinated must be inputted into the system. Aoife gets called a lot because she has been in Grattan Street Health Centre for so long that she has many answers to questions, for instance she buys all of the stationery for the building. The computer system has changed in the last few years, it’s now a national system. Previously there was one system for Cork and Kerry but a different one for Galway etc. The new system is more time consuming at present but will be easier in the long run. Cards on the database. Notes written on the cards which are kept as well. |
0.32.57 - 0.36.55
|
Vaccinations in Secondary Schools Aoife goes to secondary schools providing administrative support as part of the vaccine programme. Visits a school twice: once for 1st dose of HPV and Men C and then 2nd dose of HPV and the Tdap. Boys aren’t given HPV at present but they will next year (2020) which will make things very busy. Either Aoife brings the forms or the AMO Area Medical Officer will. Sometimes the school secretary sends 4th years (fourth year /transition year students) to help them. Checks that the students have the right consent forms. Ensures that the students get back to class after waiting 15 minutes after the vaccination. First time the students have been at an appointment or vaccination without a parent. A bit of nerves from them. Tdap is Tetannus. Men C for meningitis. HPV the cervical cancer vaccine. Aoife says that nobody wants to get a vaccine but generally it’s fine. |
0.36.55 - 0.40.30
|
Rare cases of people refusing vaccines and possible reasons why Not many people refuse the vaccinations. Some consent forms are confusing for people, especially if English is not their first languages. Aoife sees form where people sign to accept and refuse a vaccination so those have to be cleared up. When a child is vaccinated a parent has to be present. People refuse vaccines for personal reasons- don’t agree with them or have never taken them and won’t start now. Aoife mentions the controversy around the MMR but says that she cannot get involved as an admin. If she or a parent is unsure about something there is a doctor on call to answer any questions re vaccines. |
0.40.30 - 0.42.52
|
The Building itself in Grattan Street Medical Centre Aoife thinks that the Grattan Street Medical Centre building has character, it is quirky. It is not clinical like you think a medical centre might be. “There’s probably music in the walls of this building”, “It’s a happy building”. The roof leaks, door hinges break, things crack and things break. She has shared the office with the same girl for a few years and they will be separated when they leave. They know when to talk to each other or leave each other alone. Pigeon poo has come down from the ceiling onto people. |
0.42.52 - 0.46.30
|
Neighbourhood around Grattan Street Medical Centre So near town. On lunch can go to the bank. Few houses that live around them know them. Car park has been a source of hatred because so many use it and the school as well. No point in falling out with staff or neighbours over cars. A few people “fond of the drink” would come into the building there was never trouble there were always characters about the area. Could find people sleeping rough at the side of the building. Will miss the location. Know the people in the local shops and chemists with whom she’s built up relationships. Goes to the furniture shop on North Main Street, they ask when she’s leaving Grattan Street Medical Centre and she says “don’t mention the war! Just don’t talk about it because I can’t talk about it.” Feels it’s the end of an era and it’s sad. |
0.46.30 - 0.50.41
|
Moving to St Mary’s Primary Care Centre Gurranbraher Aoife’s workplace is moving to the old orthopaedic hospital now the St Mary’s Primary Care Centre in Gurranabraher. She feels institutionalised being in Grattan Street Medical Centre so long. Aoife has organised social aspect of Grattan Street Medical Centre eg. the Christmas party and lunch parties for people leaving. She even once served lunch after she had made the orders. It’s like a family away from home. There’s about 50 staff but never there at the same time. GPs, mental health, public health nursing, dental will all be up in St Mary’s. Aoife wonders about how they will keep the soul of Grattan Street Medical Centre when they move. Some people are delighted to be moving to a new building. But for Aoife it’s the people that make it. Change is good even though it’s scary. Will ensure they still do nights out, lunches, Christmas events. Wants to keep something about Grattan Street Medical Centre as well. |
0.50.41 - 0.54.30
|
Social Aspects of Grattan Street Medical Centre Tradition before Christmas breakup day bring some food to the canteen between 12:30-2:30 big lunch in canteen. A feast- people make the effort. Aoife puts Christmas music on an old CD player. Some people play instruments eg. Violin. Party night at the airport hotel, plays. You can’t please everyone- you’ll never get the date right or the venue right. Takes lots of patience and organisation to do the social events. Recommends that people pay for the meal beforehand and she gives the restaurant the money and then everyone pays for everything extra themselves. |
0.54.30 - 0.56.45
|
Organising Social Events and responsibility for money People think when you work for HSE they may think you get subsidised nights out. Mindful that she’s handling other people’s money. Bad snow one Christmas and only 2 members of staff made it to the party in Oriel House Ballincollig. There was no refund and that may have affected the turnout the next years. |
0.56.45 - 0.59.20
|
Stories from Grattan Street Wasps coming through the decorative vents in the ceiling one year. Leaks in the roof. Boiler broke down and Aoife spotted smoke on the way to work. Flooding prevented staff from getting to work in Grattan Street. Professor Drumm (Brendan Drumm) head of HSE was visiting and there was new cutlery arrived and lots of scones from Duggan’s cake shop around the corner. Aoife was giving the scones to people as they were leaving even Prof Drumm. |
0.59.20 - 1.04.00
|
Assumptions about the HSE Aoife has a pensionable job and works hard for it. And HSE is in the news a lot, eg the cervical test issues. But Aoife can only account for the work she does. Elderly people would always ask her the same two questions; can you get me a medical card and can you get me glasses? Welfare officers used to be downstairs in Grattan Street Medical Centre there could be an array of different characters. Sometimes there would be uproar with someone trying to skip the queue for the welfare officer. Gone to look at the style in weddings in the registry office in the front of the building. First gay marriage in Cork in the registry office. Everyone gets on there’s never been a major falling out between staff. Nice, friendly place to work even though shabby. Taken phone calls from elderly people who are looking for a different department and Aoife goes out of her way to help them. |
1.04.00 - 1.06.39
|
Crimes and Old Dispensary Doctor’s handbag was taken and the thief got disorientated ran into the clinic room not out front door and dropped his mobile phone. Someone covered Sean (the porter’s) duties and a laptop was stolen. Aoife’s car was broken into one day. People had a misconception that Grattan Street Medical Centre was the old dispensary that there was drugs there. Only thing they could get was head lice lotion, bandages. Says the building belonged to the Mormons [means Quakers] who gave it to HSE to help the poor of Cork. |
1.06.39 - 1.09.15
|
Accidents: Windows and Filing Cabinet Window have been here for a while. Sign on her office window which said “brrrrrr” and that was the noise the window made when it was windy! The window came away from the fitting one day while opening it. Hit her head into an open filing cabinet after answering phone once. Went to the Mercy (hospital) with the cut which wasn’t able to be stitched. |
1.09.15 - 1.11.13
|
Cars Aoife was youngest in Grattan Street Medical Centre for a long time. “The baby of Grattan Street”. Aoife has a thing for cars. Could go out at lunchtime and could come back with a new car. Went to move her car and someone told her to call her parent to move it because she looked so young. |
1.11.13 - 1.12.00
|
Ghost of Grattan Street Medical Centre Someone had a meeting and something fell and Sean the porter told them it was the ghost. Aoife says the “Ghost is actually real” heartbroken and traumatised by having to leave. |
1.12.00 - 1.12.58
|
Different Dynamics in new Primary Care Centre Dynamics will be different in St Mary’s: won’t all be meeting in the canteen or chatting |
1.12.58 - 1.13.42
|
Changes to job in new Primary Care Centre Currently all files and printer are in her office but in St Mary’s those are all centralised. Expects teething problems. |
1.13.42 - 1.16.32
|
Grattan Street can’t let go of Aoife Would still take the job if she had the time over. Even though Aoife has tried to leave her job a few times something has always happened so that she ended up staying eg. an application form she sent off was blank, once there was a mix up with a panel, another time the job she went for changed from HSE to social work, she lost 6 family members in 6 or 7 years. Always had someone to turn to, support, friendly ear and chat in Grattan Street Medical Centre. “Burning the place down so no one can have it!” |
1.16.32 - 01.18.40
|
Hopes for future of Grattan Street Medical Centre Disability services, child adolescent mental health, eating disorder clinic. Hate to see it turned into apartments. Lovely community- it should be kept. Food after Christmas parties is brought up to Edel House and food brought to Penny Dinners as well. Lots of vulnerable people in the area and lots of elderly people. Hopes podiatry can keep a room for foot care for the elderly with diabetes etc. prefer to see it remain as something that’s giving to the community. |
1.18.40 - 1.19.01
|
Reflections on Grattan Street as Workplace Quirky characters. Fun place to work. |
1.19.01 - 1.19.50
|
Fairies Aoife imagined fairies in the trees at her childhood home. Says she has a great imagination. She perhaps took the idea from The “Secret Garden”, she also loved “The Never Ending Story”. |
1.19.50 - 1.20.01
|
Outro Interview Ends |
Mentions her brother’s physical and mental disability.
Discusses how the smell of tripe and drisheen reminds of father who died when she was young
Recounts her surprise and confusion as a child learning that her mother had remarried and her new husband was to live in the family home.
Outlines the routine on farm including looking after the cows, feeding hens, making bread, and how their dinner changed with seasonal availability of produce.
Talks about her commute to school on a bicycle with sister and standing up to boys who hassled them. Learned some subjects through Irish. Recalls her sister disliking being singled out by teacher because of her attractive eyes and hair.
Remembers seeing a young JP McManus cycling.
Explains how she always considered becoming a nurse. Discusses training and hospital experiences including with nuns. Believes that nurses who had worked abroad had a broader perspective on life.
Outlines the role of the Public Health Nurse which required entering patients’ houses and assisting them with births and deaths. Other features included the need to be able to read emotions and build trust with others and managing your work largely independently.
Describes some memorable cases as a PHN. A family singing Boney M to a baby with a severely lif-limiting condition. Waiting for an ambulance for a man struggling to breathe who lived without electricity. Trying to find help for an older woman struggling with dementia who was being passed from one agency to another without resolution. Fumigating a woman’s accommodation to rid it of fleas, the poor living conditions she found there and the ambivalent reaction of the woman to this health intervention.
Discusses vaccines, their role in eliminating polio and the varying attitudes to vaccination.
Recounts the story of social welfare officers in Grattan Street providing a bed to a woman who promptly sold it on the Coal Quay.
Reflects on the mutually beneficial mix of medical disciplines in Grattan Street and the positive relations between the staff.
Outlines the problems, changes and tensions relating to the car parking situation for Grattan Street staff and others in the surrounding community.
Talks about a child welfare issue where she had to attend court as a PHN.
Speaks of the deficiencies of the Grattan Street building including plaster falling off walls, the waste of paperwork, dry rot, bars on windows and a very out-of-date photocopier. Suggests future uses for the building.
Tells the story of the 2010 floods when the vaccines had to transferred with difficulty to St Finbarr’s Hospital for safety.
Discusses the desirable feature of the new building in Gurranbraher including it having a central meeting area and parking as well as being of a manageable size, accessible and approachable.
Reflects on how she found her career of helping others rewarding.
]]>‘Mary’ grew up on a farm in county Limerick, part of which was rented to a mental hospital to be worked by patients. By interacting with these patients she quickly learned who you could trust and who you couldn’t.
Mentions her brother’s physical and mental disability.
Discusses how the smell of tripe and drisheen reminds of father who died when she was young
Recounts her surprise and confusion as a child learning that her mother had remarried and her new husband was to live in the family home.
Outlines the routine on farm including looking after the cows, feeding hens, making bread, and how their dinner changed with seasonal availability of produce.
Talks about her commute to school on a bicycle with sister and standing up to boys who hassled them. Learned some subjects through Irish. Recalls her sister disliking being singled out by teacher because of her attractive eyes and hair.
Remembers seeing a young JP McManus cycling.
Explains how she always considered becoming a nurse. Discusses training and hospital experiences including with nuns. Believes that nurses who had worked abroad had a broader perspective on life.
Outlines the role of the Public Health Nurse which required entering patients’ houses and assisting them with births and deaths. Other features included the need to be able to read emotions and build trust with others and managing your work largely independently.
Describes some memorable cases as a PHN. A family singing Boney M to a baby with a severely lif-limiting condition. Waiting for an ambulance for a man struggling to breathe who lived without electricity. Trying to find help for an older woman struggling with dementia who was being passed from one agency to another without resolution. Fumigating a woman’s accommodation to rid it of fleas, the poor living conditions she found there and the ambivalent reaction of the woman to this health intervention.
Discusses vaccines, their role in eliminating polio and the varying attitudes to vaccination.
Recounts the story of social welfare officers in Grattan Street providing a bed to a woman who promptly sold it on the Coal Quay.
Reflects on the mutually beneficial mix of medical disciplines in Grattan Street and the positive relations between the staff.
Outlines the problems, changes and tensions relating to the car parking situation for Grattan Street staff and others in the surrounding community.
Talks about a child welfare issue where she had to attend court as a PHN.
Speaks of the deficiencies of the Grattan Street building including plaster falling off walls, the waste of paperwork, dry rot, bars on windows and a very out-of-date photocopier. Suggests future uses for the building.
Tells the story of the 2010 floods when the vaccines had to transferred with difficulty to St Finbarr’s Hospital for safety.
Discusses the desirable feature of the new building in Gurranbraher including it having a central meeting area and parking as well as being of a manageable size, accessible and approachable.
Reflects on how she found her career of helping others rewarding.
0.00.00 - 0.00.25 |
Intro |
0.00.25 - 0.02.29 |
Background Grew up in County Limerick. Dad died when young. Early memory as 3 year old feeding a calf. Trained in St Johns Limerick, midwifery in Glasgow, 1975 went to Australia- Melbourne, Sidney, Brisbane. Returned after a year. Worked in Orthopaedic hospital in Croom, Limerick. Came to Cork, worked in Sarsfield’s Court [Glanmire] in the chest unit. Met a man which is why she stayed in Cork. Nursing involved night-duty and weekends, and "Mary" was thinking forward and did the Public Health Course to become PHN Public Health Nurse- first assignment was Middle Parish based in Grattan Street. |
0.02.29 - 0.05.26 |
Early Memories: Father’s Death, Family Women with tea and USA biscuits. Seeing lines of men in the hay barn and animals coming out- must have been auction of the animals. One older brother mentally & physically handicapped, 2 younger sisters. Mental Hospital St Joseph’s in Limerick rented land from their farm so there was an income coming in without the mother taking sole responsibility for running the farm. It was therapy for the patients working on the farm despite being out in all weather. "Mary" thinks that many of the male patients were there as a result of the war. One man was called Sergeant. "Mary's" family also got fresh vegetables from them. Learning process for them, learned who they could trust and who not- “heightened our awareness of mankind”. Some people were fit and healthy and others had mental issues. |
0.05.26 - 0.09.30 |
Memory of Smell of Tripe Cooking reminds of dad When in St Johns in 2nd year of training ages 19 or 20- she had a memory of a taste and smell. Walking on corridor in 1st floor she got the smell. Found her way to room 8 and a priest was having tripe and drisheen or tripe and packet as it’s called in Limerick. You could get the smell passing Shaws abattoir on the way into Limerick City. They had a hooter which would sound at 1pm and 5pm or 6pm in the evening which could be heard by "Mary" at home. Says that tripe is the lining of a sheep’s stomach. “Villi”- nooks and crannies. Still buys it in the English Market on the left hand-side when you enter from the Grand Parade- and there was someone in front of her in the queue so she wasn’t the only one buying it! Advises opening a window to let the small out! |
0.09.30 - 0.10.35 |
Typical Day on the Farm when Growing up- making bread They had a cow on the farm. Woman called May who helped out their mother on the farm. They would put on their “busy coat” or “duds” to milk cow, bring in milk, make brown soda bread. Remembers mother making bread around 10am in an earthenware crock with sour milk in it which went into the Aga oven. |
0.10.35 - 0.13.05 |
Learning about her Mother Remarrying Tom worked with the mental hospital and he would call in and there was a china cup for him. "Mary" asked her mother whether Tom slept in the house now, and previously asked May where her mother was and was told she was on holidays. Subsequently she realised that her mother had married Tom and they had been on honeymoon. Reflects on how little information she was given about this change in situation and how it applies in her nursing role and thinks that sometimes less information is better when dealing with young children who may not fully understand everything. |
0.13.05- 0.16.00 |
Typical Day on the Farm when Growing up In winter deal with the cow: hay, water, and muck out. Cow let out in the field in spring and summer. Dinner would be any time after the cake was made- ready about 12:30. Dinner usually bacon, cabbage, carrots, parsnips. As season moved on more turnips and potatoes. Seasonal. Started with Ker Pinks then Golden Wonders, didn’t like soapy Aran Banners. Then apple or rhubarb tarts. Supper at 5pm or 6pm: beans, bananas, eggs. They had hens which had to be fed. Went to bed at 8pm or 9pm. In evening have to bring the cow back down and there might be 10 or 12 bullocks following you- nightmare that they would trample you to death? Mother and May made the food. When "Mary" was 7 or 8 years old May was let go as "Mary" was considered old enough to help out. |
0.16.00- 0.17.57 |
Interaction with the Patients of the Mental Hospital Looking out the window watching them. Sheep shearing and rolling of the wool. Taking off the “daggings” and rolling the wool into fleeces. Or bringing in the hay watching them piking and the change from horses to tractors. There was an archway into their yard and it became harder to get larger machines through the arch over time. Later on it became bales of hay rather than wines of hay (in Limerick) whereas in Cork they would call it trams. |
0.17.57 - 0.19.17 |
Animals, Games and Mushrooms They prepared the animals with special soaps for the Limerick Show in August [Limerick Agricultural Show Society]. As children they would sit on the walls in the cow house (cowhouse) and use the chains as stirrups and pretend to be riding horses. Picked mushrooms in fields often along the path the cows had made where you’d find mushrooms. |
0.19.17- 0.21.36
|
Going to School and Standing up for Yourself Walk across the fields to get to the road to school which was 2 miles away, wear wellies if raining. When older cycled to school. Had the younger sister in the carrier. Fell off the bike coming down Ryan’s Hill and the sister fell into the bushes and the nettles. Mother gave out to them for falling off the bike. In 6th class coming up the hill on was home from school at cousin Mick Clancy’s hill boys thought it was fun to hold on to the carrier to hold them back. "Mary's" mother advised to throw a stone at the boys. The next time it happened she picked up a rock and the boys ran away. It was lesson for "Mary" for life to stand up for herself and that the threat was enough to work. |
0.21.36- 0.25.44
|
School 5 years old when she started school, thinks it might have been around Easter time. Small two teacher school. Mrs McAvoy the principal of the school had taught her father, and was distantly related to "Mary". "Mary's" sister was put on the teacher’s desk to be admired because of her beautiful eyes and hair- which she disliked because she was being made to feel different. 6 pupils in her class in 5th class and they were given the choice to do History and Geography through English or Irish and they chose to do it through Irish. The teacher was from Dingle and from him they learned a “love and appreciation” for Irish. Had good spoken Irish in a secondary school in Limerick City. Her knowledge of Irish helped later on as a PHN when she was assigned an area which had a Gaeltacht in it. Most Gaeltacht schools were insistent that the PHNs did use Irish. "Mary" went to Secondary School in the Presentation in Sexton Street. |
0.25.44 - 0.27.57 |
Neighbour’s House and JP McManus on a Bike A little old lady, a spinster called Noni lived in road opposite them. She had old open fireplace with bellows, and thatched roof and two dogs. "Mary" had a step-brother and a step-sister. The step brother was quiet and calm in Noni’s house but he was cross and looking for attention when he was at home. A guy in secondary school used to cycle past in a red bike and "Mary" later discovered it was JP McManus [businessman and racehorse owner] and her younger sister knew him. |
0.27.57 - 0.29.49
|
Starting in Nursing after School Always in the back of her mind to do nursing. Did leaving cert when 17 and did interview for nursing. Had started a commercial course. The Blue Nuns ran St. John’s Hospital and knew she was due to start in February. Millford House in Castletroy was run by Blue Nuns and they had a nursing home and "Mary" dropped the commercial course and worked there as a nurses aid. It was a good introduction and confidence building exercise for her. "Mary" thinks that for the nuns patient care was paramount and the written work less important but it is almost the reverse today. |
0.29.49 - 0.34.51
|
Decision to do Nursing and Other Career Options Looking at magazines and what nursing involved. Career guidance consisted of blue leaflets. Through the commercial course "Mary" heard about the Junior X course to get into the civil service and the ESB jobs which she hadn’t been aware of through school. Travel was something that she considered and nursing catered for that. The nurses who had lived abroad were easier to work with they had a broader perspective on life and “didn’t sweat the small stuff”. When you started nursing you got to see the different fields and "Mary" liked theatre work and enjoyed the labour ward when she was doing midwifery. Matron had said to her that she should considered doing the tutoring course. Thinks this is because she was questioning what her tutor was reading out of textbooks. She applied for the tutoring course. But she while she had anatomy and biology for the leaving cert but not chemistry and physics. So she did leaving cert physics and chemistry that year but dropped the physics because she had also taken on introduction to psychology. But she had already gotten the Public Health so she chose that. |
0.34.51 - 0.43.07 |
Public Health Nurse: Role and Duties PHN you are on your own to some extent you can plan your day, assess the patient. Communicate with the patient GP and hospital. You were independent to a large extent. Had continuity you could see things improving or ‘disimproving’. House visits, vaccination clinics as part of a team, coffee or lunch in Grattan Street where you met other disciplines not just nursing. A mix. Could be rostered for a dressings clinic in Grattan Street. They might have been referred after discharge from the Mercy Hospital. Now the Mercy would have its own dressings clinic. Going to schools dealing with healthy children and teachers. Originally had an admin person with them but now just a doctor and nurse when going to vaccinate in schools. HPV vaccination a big team goes to try to get the first years done in one go. Health promotion going into houses and dealing with young mums. Private houses, corporation houses built in 1950s and 1960s, apartments or flats as they called them then. Leave a note for someone who you couldn’t find in a flat. Maybe a baby that wasn’t feeding very well. Hear that the mother has moved house and start detective work to track her down asking neighbours. And the nurse in their new area would be informed. Write letters to council about the poor conditions of housing. And then neighbours would ask for letters then as well. |
0.43.07 - 0.51.42 |
Perspective & Expectations of Patients on Healthcare Most people were welcoming and giving you tea that you didn’t want. A few were trying to get the PHN to adapt too much to their own schedules. For patients the PHN came at the beginning of life and at the end of life. Would be asked “do you think it’s better today nurse?” and trying to read the emotions of the other family members. Understanding with the GP about what the family situation was. Some people would ask for everything they thought they could get other families would never ask for anything. PHN has to decide how necessary a request is or how much someone needs to be persuaded. Try to stay on side and be persistent. Older people at the time had the idea that you only left a hospital in a box. So it could be hard to persuade them to go to hospital. Fear of lack of independence as well. Reflect on how nursing training prepares PHN for these situations. "Tread wearily" and "feel the vibes" when entering a new patient environment. Privilege to be with people in their time of need because you felt that you were doing something and you were a support to the family especially in the time before morphine pumps. Even saying “I don’t think anything is going to happen tonight” might be the simple reassurance that the family wants. Fear with a bedbound patient is that they would get pressure sores. One of the ways to avoid this is to change their position. And there was some education involved in ensuring whoever was moving the patient when the PHN isn’t there was doing it correctly. Extended family would assist with a patient in a way less common today. |
0.51.42 - 0.55.45
|
Memories of mothers and their babies and music Remembers a family who lived in one of the lanes off North Main Street. “me mam” was what the family called the beautiful mother who had a lame leg, she had grey-blond hair. One of the daughters had a baby that had a life-limited condition. The whole family were supporting them. They were always well made-up and the sick baby was in the middle. The baby didn’t survive only lived for 8 or 9 months. The family used to sing “Brown Girl in the Ring” by Boney M and the baby used to recognise it and respond. Sleet and rain coming up North Main Street. Pound shop maybe called Powers Jim Reeves and Bing Crosby singing White Christmas which lifted her heart. Streets were full at Christmastime. |
0.55.45 - 1.01.36
|
Patients and Cases and conditions in the Grattan Street/ Middle Parish Area Remembers rickety stairs leading to flats above shops which you wouldn’t realise were there. Old man lived in laneway off Grattan Street in a tenement house like those in Glasgow she had seen near York Hill, with red sandstone buildings. Went to this man on a quick “social visit” and he had rasping breath. Just “kippins” or laths on the fire. No electricity. Waiting two hours for ambulance to come. Man didn’t survive. Something else in place of the building now. There may not have been a door on the house you could just walk straight in. |
0.55.45 - 0.58.18 |
Patients and Cases and conditions in the Grattan Street/ Middle Parish Area- difficulties of nursing and dealing with different agencies. Woman with dementia in 1970s one room flat in warm house. Bathroom outside. Wasn’t able to look after herself. Had the newspapers stored on top of the electric cooker. GP trying to get her somewhere. Woman would lock herself out. Half naked walking across Sheare’s Street. "Mary" put her in own car and brought her to Our Lady’s Hospital to be seen by psychiatrist. They wouldn’t take her because of her age. Arranged geriatrician appointment who wouldn’t take her because she was psychiatric. A “street woman” (homeless woman) moved in with her and was able to make sure the house wouldn’t be set on fire. Meals on Wheels or Penny Dinners sharing the one meal. "Mary's" frustration with the bureaucracy. |
0.58.18 - 1.05.20 |
Woman with Flea Bites/ Flea Marks "Mary" being polite said told her it was a rash but the woman had no qualms about calling them fleabites. "Mary" got temporary eviction order to clean out her flat. Process was traumatic for "Mary" & the woman. Woman spent her time in St Francis Church while her flat was being cleaned. The woman had collected things from bins and stored them in her house in case she might use them and they removed 57 bags of rubbish. Found a beautiful photograph album. Mounds of rubbish as high as the bed. Bucket to empty into the toilet. Candles in danger of burning the house down. The woman was upset that her stuff had been taken but they had put her things in storage in case she wanted them. As PHN you can wear your own clothes but "Mary"wore white uniform in case of infestation in the flat. Man from environmental health section sprayed the flat. "Mary" counted 57 dead fleas on her uniform when she took it off in the bath when she got home. Later with her boyfriend at the time the same woman shouted “Hello nurse!” at her. |
1.05.20 - 1.18.38
|
Vaccines, Vaccination and the anti-vaccination People were pro vaccinate after 1956 polio outbreak in Cork. Many people would have been familiar with Polio, its devastating affect and that you can be vaccinated against it. People had to come to the clinic 3 or 4 times with a baby which might be difficult for families with many children and buggies. Remembers vulnerable family in Knocknaheeney. The mother was poor with keeping appointments and she came in the pouring rain with 4 or 5 children. Cost of taxi was 11 pounds or euro even though she had to live on social welfare. The staff suggested that she could get a bus. But she pointed out that one of her children was ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and that he would be climbing on the bus stop. "Mary" says the woman deserved a medal and reflects that they as staff had been judging her for her predicament. Crowds of people and buggies. Role of extended family in assisting with child rearing. Some children may be difficult to deal with. Obstacles to families getting children vaccinated. Vaccination card files. Brought from City Hall to the place of vaccination and not locked. Vaccines were taken from a fridge in City Hall and brought in a biscuit tin along with adrenaline in case someone had a reaction. Compares this to the modern method of cold-chain. After Professor Wakefield made an association between MMR vaccine and autism the vaccination uptake reduced and it’s been an uphill battle since to reverse it. In 1970s and 1980s there was memory of measles, mumps, meningitis and polio. "Mary" worked in a school where a child refused vaccinations in junior infants in the early 1980s. That child got measles, encephalitis and was in a wheelchair by 1st class and by age 8 or 9 she was dead. HCA (Handicapped Childrens Allowance) allowance handicapped children’s allowance financial support for the extra care that was needed for the child. Thinks of the scaremongering about vaccines and the consciences of those people if they knew what the result of not getting vaccinated was. That incident happened in the early 1980s. Worked with a doctor who had difficulty walking after he had got polio in the 1950s. Young mothers in 1970s and 1980s had mothers who influenced them based on their accounts in the diseases in 1950s. Rural approach to vaccines: if you eat healthy and are healthy then you won’t contract the disease. "Mary" says that while a weaker person succumbs to a disease faster it’s not a protection against a disease. Rural culture which still exists of “I don’t believe in vaccines”. HPV vaccines. With all vaccines certain percentage of risk even though it is very rare. Weigh up the advantages versus the risk of something happening. Vaccine cold chain from manufacturer to the administering to the child is much more streamlined. Incidence of polio came down so vaccines were effective. |
1.18.38 - 1.21.46
|
Earliest Memories of Grattan Street Waiting room now it’s opened up with pillars and a balcony. When "Mary" started it had a ceiling and so was enclosed and it had a wooden floor where you could hear the “clip clop” of people walking across it echoing. They didn’t have access to the upstairs with stores and pigeons. According to Anne [a friend who worked there] there were stores of the things leftover from when Grattan Street was used as a dispensary/pharmacy/chemist. Old fashioned metal chairs with a timber seat. Queue in the mornings for the dressing, older people with big swollen legs. Mr Hart and Mr Condon were the social welfare officers and they would have clinics which had crowds of people waiting for them. People would receive bed linen or washing machines. Mr Hart advised "Mary" once that when he started out he was given a sob story and he got someone a number of beds and later he saw them being sold on the Coal Quay! Smoking was allowed at the time so there was the smell and fog of smoke. |
1.21.46 - 1.23.14
|
Repairs and Revamp/ Refurbishment of Grattan Street Transferred to the City Hall while there was revamping or refurbishing of Grattan Street. Once they returned one of the admin staff noticed that a there was some dry rot on part of the wood in the jam of the door and more repairs had to be done. Beautiful once the repairs were done. Opened up the ceiling with the balcony. The big tea room could be used for meetings and there was a fridge and kettle- luxury! |
1.23.14 - 1.27.35 |
Grattan Street as a Workplace “You could never call it glamorous!”. Bars on the windows. Hose reel for the fire. For fire drills the bars on some windows could be opened. The people to work with were fabulous. Dave in podiatry said ‘the building was crap but the people were lovely’. Building was fine, serviceable. "Mary" had a sense of history of the building and that it was privilege to work in it. Beautiful cut limestone blocks. Appreciated that and the big windows. Anne set off the alarm once when she went out the back door. There was once a mix up with the keys. The cleaners would lock up and throw the keys in the letter box and someone else would open up in the morning with another set of keys. But somehow both sets of keys were in the letter box. "Mary" climbed in through a window that was opened and was able to open the door from the inside! Sean the porter would remember this story and Pam from the eye clinic would remember it as well. |
1.27.35 - 1.30.11
|
Description of Grattan Street Historic, homely, old grandeur, comfortable but uncomfortable, people are willing to work and find solutions. Nice building at one level but primitive at another level. Staff were always lovely and gelled. Started with 3 disciplines and that expanded. People were caring and good sense of comradery, work spirit and work ethic. Old photocopier that was there for 20-30 years which was always breaking down. They used to repair it themselves. When they asked for a new one they were told “it’s not pride is making ye ask for a new one!” |
1.30.11 - 1.31.23
|
The Effect of the Mix of Disciplines Levelling effect. Nobody thought they were above anyone. Meet people from other disciples who could make exceptions or give advice- could tic-tac with one another. It was very personal. You weren’t going into someone else’s territory through some doors. They all met in the tea rom. |
1.31.23 - 1.33.08
|
Car Park No car parking when "Mary" began. Staff and outsiders could park there. There was some kind of grandfather clause which allowed non-staff to park there. There used to be agro between the staff about it until they realised they were all in the same boat. Then the Educate Together School opened up and they were trying to park their cars there too. It’s hassle. Manic at times. Compares it to Mr Bean. Residents had parking. |
1.33.08 - 1.35.46
|
Child Welfare Case Child welfare issue was brought in front of Judge Clifford. The mother had issues with alcohol and depression (those problems could affect children not getting vaccines as well). "Mary" remembers child or 4 or 5 years of age with bottle in their mouth and the bottle had whiskey in it. The fridge had one tomato in it. What should the staff wear to court- should they wear a hat? "Mary" was obliged to call to the house as a result of the case. And the child was eventually fostered. Wheelchairs and how tough it was for families and children growing up and needing bigger wheelchairs. Makes you think how lucky you are according to "Mary". |
1.35.46 - 1.37.39
|
Curiosities and Quirks of Grattan Street Building Pigeons could be heard upstairs and the exterminator came. Plaster crumbling off the walls in Grattan Street. Paperwork and records. New letterheads and they were ordered to dump things while people downstairs were looking for things but there was money being wasted on paperwork being thrown out. |
1.37.39 - 1.41.50
|
Floods 2010 and Transporting Vaccines Vaccines were stored in a special room with fridges wired directly to the mains, there was a fear the power would be lost. Water was at the door. Vaccines should be transferred to St Finbarr’s hospital. "Mary" and Sean the porter waited for a van to come to transport them. Eventually a fiesta arrived with 2 big men. They had 20-30 boxes like cool boxes. They made two trips in "Mary's" car to bring the vaccines across town through the floods. Describes herself as a determined person. Onetime borrowed waders from Meitheal Mara on Crosses Green and walked to Grattan Street in them. |
1.41.50 - 1.43.18
|
Future of Grattan Street Building Historical connection with William Penn. Would like to see Grattan Street be a visitor centre or a place for weddings. Could have a little garden or courtyard. Current waiting room could be used. Catering could be provided there as well. |
1.43.18 - 1.46.50
|
Hopes for St. Mary’s Primary Care Centre Hopes there is suitable parking. And tied up thinking from the planning department and developers. Encouraging people to go green and use bicycles etc. is fine but closing parking isn’t the place to start. There should be a place to make a cup of tea yourself. Good service for people who need it and people feel they can access it. Hope it isn’t too big, and there won’t be sections that you will never meet. A central meeting place is desirable where you could meet someone you don’t directly work with. |
1.46.50 - 1.48.40
|
Making the Building Approachable Easy access. Does there need to be a service for mothers to get up the hill to the health centre? Will there be a place for children to play in? People should be given specific individual appointments not 20 appointments sent out for 2pm. Access to water like a watercooler. |
1.48.40 - 1.52.00
|
Decision to Become a Nurse Would choose to be a nurse if she had the option over again. Has enjoyed life and had a good home life. Have had lots of opportunities. Could have become pigeonholed in one area. In one way "Mary" feels she has cut herself off from other aspects of nursing that she was interested in- clinical and theatre related work. Rewarding helping mothers and children with bed wetting issues. |
1.52.00- End |
Outro. Interview ends 1.52.13 |