UL: But the people who stayed at the house, the Bed and Breakfast that my mother ran, were mostly what she called Dublin drivers, they were men coming out of Dublin, driving these huge lorries with goods from televisions to chocolates to signage to lots of different things. And they were the people mostly who stayed in the house, the drivers.
TD: They were bringing goods down to Cork and then going or were they just transporting stuff back and forth or?
UL: Yeah, they’d come down on deliveries so we, I remember we had Bush television and the man was called Barry from Bush television and I remember he had a bald head and big bushy hair at the side [laughs] I thought that was why he was working for Bush television and we had Gaelite signs they stayed with us and we had a man from Nestle chocolates and at that time there was a lovely confectioners called Milroy, Milroy sweets, they used to do Macaroon bars and Calypso bars and they used to give us bags of sweets so you’d be very popular with the other kids. And my mother with her sense of humour, used to call them after the company so she’d say Oh Mr Bush and Mr, we’d Lamb’s jams, Oh Mr Lamb, you know for the craic. And the man who drove from Milroy’s sweets, she used call Mr Milroy and he really enjoyed that.
TD: That’s very funny if, it was just her particular way of making them feel at home, I suppose.
UL: Yeah and having a bit of a craic with them but the joke was while the other lads all knew that it was a joke this man was delighted to be called Mr Milroy. [laughs] He was all delighted with himself. And he had a young lad with him in the van called Andy and Andy was only a young boy at the time but we stayed very good friends with him and when he got married he came to Cork for his honeymoon and they stayed in the house which was lovely. And then years later, we had our first dog and we were trying to come up with a name for the dog and he happened to be in Cork and he called in to see us and we were reminiscing about the old days and Mr Milroy, we liked to think that Milroy lifted his head up at that point and Andy said what about calling him ‘Milroy’ so we had this famous dog called Milroy as well named after the old days.
Yeah. And there was, could I tell you another point about it, I was just telling a friend yesterday that there was another guest house up the road from us, it was a hairdresser with a guest house as well and where the drivers would get one rasher, one sausage, one egg, my mother would give them three rashers, three sausages, two eggs [laughs] but we had an interesting experience happened one night, we, there was a knock on the door and I answered it as a small child and there was this African man standing there. And he said ‘can I, is your mum at home can I speak to her?’ and I said ‘Yes, of course’ so went and got my mother. She came out and she brought the man in and it turned out that he had, he was over from Africa, had lived, I think he was living in London and had come to Cork. And nobody in Cork would give him bed and breakfast. He did the whole length of Cork and no one would put him up. And he ended up with Fitzgerald’s and the woman said ‘well I won’t take you in but I know a woman who probably will’ and that was my mother. And not only was he brought in but he was brought in to the front room where the family were, a big blazing fire and Saturday dinner and sat down at the table and welcomed as a family member and.
TD: This was because she had lived in Africa, I presume, she’d have a broader understanding.
UL: Yeah, I mean she. Yeah, very cosmopolitan outlook. And my dad was the same, my dad was in the Merchant Navy during the war and they had all travelled and met different people. And completely different outlook from the very narrow-minded Irish view at that time. And I remember him sitting at the table with us and Daktari which was a programme at the time came on and he was explaining all about Africa and the Bush and the scorpions. He was just fascinating. So I think that’s a kind of poignant story in the sense it just shows you how much Ireland has moved on, has changed.
C O C: How did kick the can work?
T J: Kick the can was a – I believe someone threw the can and whoever called out the name, he had to stand there with the can and guard it and then everybody hid and he had to go looking for them. So if somebody – if he didn’t find somebody closer that were closer and they ran and kicked the can I guess he had to do it all over again. It was something like that, I’m not sure if I remember eh perfectly.
C O C: We used to do something called like called tip the can but we used to use a lamp post as the can and again it was you had to run in and if you tipped it while they were gone again, it started all over again or something.
T J: I’m sure somebody else mentioned it was the gambling game it was eh playing feck. where you throw h’appennies.
C O C: Oh, no I don’t know that.
T J: Well what it was was that you know first of all the eh – to determine who tossed first, meaning toss was to flip them in the air, there was a jack meaning a piece of a stick or a stone and you pitched and the nearest, the nearer one to that stone got there between the two.
C O C: And what were you throwing to the stone?
T J: Again, it would be I think it was eh I think H’appennies were still around. The farthings were gone in my time but the h’appennies were still there and it would be h’appennies that you pitched towards this eh stone or whatever and then the first one who – the nearest to that, what was called a jack em had a choice to pitch and how a winner was was that you had eh flick them in the ear and it had to come up two heads. If it came up two tails or two harps you eh lost, if it was a head and a harp or a head and tails then of course it was null and void. So then the other kids would, would bet again on his heads or his tails.
C O C: Right.
T J: Because when was the tails we were betting on – and of course that created some troubles throughout that. I’m sure there’s other people that have told you what the ways; when somebody dived in and grabbed the pot. If there was money on the ground and somebody was losing he would shout ‘all away’ and I think that was the word, which encouraged everybody to jump in, maybe grab what was there at their own, at their own risk obviously because at that time there was [word unintelligible] legs, everything else you know you just kick the thing and got a bit wild. But they were the basic things you know..
S H: In the context of that with the civil rights situation hotting up in the north. How would they have related to that, would they have eh, we’ll say fancied themselves left-wing and rebellious but would they really have extended that to any sort of engagement. What was going on there like in protests about the vote?
J F: Well yeah, that came into it and one or two of the more radical ones would have gone to down after school to join with the peoples democracy protests at Queens University and in our debating society and other groups. I remember vividly we invited Austin Curry who was a Stormont MP at the time to come and speak to us. And, that was rather a shameful meeting because there was also a very more vociferous Paisleyite element. Not probably most of the students were a political or would have voted Unionists or their parents certainly would have voted Unionists. But, there was a small left-wing element and there was also a small maybe slightly larger Paisleyite element and when Austin Curry came some of the Paisleyite students were or pupils were rather bad-mannered and displayed a Union Jack and asked rather aggressive questions.
S H: How did he cope with it?
J F: Well he coped with it well enough but I mean the teachers afterwards have us to understand that this had not been one of the more glorious days of the school's liberal reputation. And, I think they were right.
S H: Was he already into the Socialist Democratic and Labour Party then?
J F: He was a Nationalist MP I think, SDLP hadn’t quite been formed but he was known for his involvement in civil rights. Yeah, and I think that’s my one main memory of the rioting 68 – 69. But, I mean this is a selfish thing to say, I’m thankful that by the time I left school the real bad violence hadn’t started in Belfast. I mean it did affect the next generation of students. Bomb scares or tape on the windowpanes.
S H: Would you have been--
J F: Threatening or it was -- the next generation of students found it difficult wearing the school uniform going if they went home certain ways they were a target. That would be quite painful to live through.
S H: Would you have been a bit insulated from it in your area say more so then somebody with class difference?
J F: To some degree, to some degree, yes but I mean eh, Belfast is still quite a small place. So, even though my earlier movement was unrestricted you know once the bombs stated I’m talking about a little bit later that became something that involved everybody and you couldn’t escape it. Well thankfully I did escape it, you know you knew it was going on. And, yeah, I mean Belfast through the troubles it's funny because people from my background middle class Protestants would often say oh, you could live in Belfast and not know there was trouble going on. And, I know what they mean but certainly in the 70s when the bombing campaign was on you certainly knew there was mayhem, trouble, terrorism whatever you want to call it. And, one could hear gunfire in, I remember hearing that one night in 1970, you know you couldn’t live in Belfast in the 70s and not know that blood was being shed and lives were being destroyed.
S H: Sitting here and reality to all that to be living in essentially sharing the same supply station that we have in London or Paris or something and yet have all this craziness going on and not being able to stop it?
J F: Well you just you adapted to it, people do and I remember coming back as a student from England I’d see the difference. Soldiers on the streets with loaded weapons, one presumed they were loaded. I’m sure they were, and then being searched going into shops and all of this minor inconvenience. You go back over the water to England, a society that knew nothing about this at that time. That made me as a young man quite angry, upset but you know?
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.
NC: Mr Ray, that’s right. Mr Ray. He cleaned. He fixed our shoes for us and then the Firkin Crane. The Firkin Crane was part of the Butter Factory, I’d say because that was the Butter Factory and I remember they’d come then with a big lorry and a thing coming out, like a pipe coming out of it and they’d put in all the stock what we used call the butter and there’d be murder then because if they spilt any of it, we’d skite, you know, we’d skite so em the Butter Factory was there years and years like we had O’Gormans which I worked in.
GH: Could you tell me a little bit about that?
NC: Sewing the peeks of the caps in O’Gormans and Mr O’Gorman himself was the boss. Then all the men were down and what fascinated me more when I was in there first. They were all drinking out of jam jars and water or they made tea or anything, they’d be the lot out of jam jars. I used be fascinated. You see I was very young going to O’Gormans.
GH: What age were you at that time?
NC: Fifteen only I’d say. My sister worked there as well on a machine.
GH: It was all hats were made there?
NC: All hats and caps because the cap came in, you’d have peek caps where it had to be stitched. They usen’t be stitched but then they got a new thing stitching so I was one of the stitchers that’s how I came a very good stitcher I think, stitching all the caps in O’Gormans and one little mistake and t’would be brought back to you.
GH: Did it burn down in the end?
NC: It burned down there only a few years ago and I don’t think it ever re-opened anymore.
C OC: So, just to kick off there, you might tell me your name.
M OC Michael O’Callaghan. I’m from Togher. My mother, my father and myself left Cork in 1960. I was only three. To go to London. Big adventure. I have strong memories of sailing on the old black and white Inishfallen from the quays below because it seemed a very very sad thing. Not like today, travelling. As the ship was leaving all the people would start singing, and the song still haunts me. They sing the song ‘now is the hour when we must say goodbye’. So, you could have a couple of hundred people because a lot of people getting on that boat weren’t going away for a weekend. They might never come back. And there used to be people wailing and crying on the ship. And my mother and me father, me mother especially, would be crying a lot. But the ship would go slowly down, and you could drive down Low Road in both directions, and there’d be cars following it down all the way. And then you had a long sea journey to Fishguard. You’d leave. I’d memories of leaving Cork about six o’clock in the evening, arriving in Fishguard in the middle of the night. A long wait then in the cold, and the smell of fish in Fishguard and someone told me it’s dead mullet. I know now, and also Bovril. If you mention to a lot of people Bovril, it seemed it was all you could get there. And I still to this day can’t. If I smell Bovril I can’t take it. Then you’d have a five or six hour journey by train from Fishguard to Paddington. And the other way round then, we’d come home every summer. My Grandmother lived in Glenabbey Street, and she hadn’t electric light. This was in the sixties. She actually hadn’t electricity, and I can still remember the gas lamps, the lamps would be lit. She’d cook on the fire. And I can still remember the food, and at night they’d just sit there talking for hours. I’d have been seven, eight, nine or ten. But I used to love it. With my grandfather and my grandmother. The house is still in Glenabbey Street. Now it’s rented accommodation. There’s students in there. But that black Inisfallen. I bought a photograph of it from The Examiner. It was a memory I’ll never forget that song and the smell of Bovril.
C OC That’s so vivid. Do you remember how the song went.
M OC No. You can get it on the internet if you Google it. Now is the hour when we must say goodbye. Soon you will be sailing far across the sea. If you google it you’ll get the words. I don’t know. It’s an American/Irish singer but if you play that song I guarantee to anyone in their fifties and older, they’ll think of that. But then I can also remember we’d come home in the summer, the long train journey from Paddington to Fishguard, then you’d get on the ship but in the morning she’d pass Roche’s Point about seven o’clock in the morning, and I can remember coming up the river. I can remember passing the marina, in the morning, and people waving at the boat. That was a happy time. My mother would be up doing her make up, I can remember and all that. And the boat would come up to where the river splits there by, I don’t know the name of the quay there
C OC The Port of Cork.
M OC The Cork building. Just before that the boat would actually do a turn to be facing out to sea again. If I remember rightly we used to arrive on a Sunday morning but then she’d sail Sunday evening again. But it was a long slow journey. The boat stank as far as I was concerned. It was a floating pub. But they used to keep cattle underneath as well. And I’d be sick the day before we travelled with worry, and I’d be sick the day after we arrived having travelled. But the memories of that ship and that song. Get the song from Google, ‘Now is the hour when we have to say goodbye’. But it was like a coffin ship going off. And also arriving. When you arrived the Customs would go through your case. And a big lump of chalk would be plastered on the case, that was to get you through the security. If the chalk was on your case you were OK. So that’s me.
C OC Wow. Jeepers. Thanks for that. That’s really vivid.
M OC It was a long way away at that stage. We used to ring home, now me mother used to write letters to my grandfather. And he’d write back and the letters would come religiously every week from him. Maybe once a fortnight from my mother. Not as quick. Things got a bit better then, we’d ring from a phone box to a phone box on the North side to my aunt, via operators. We’d be shoving in two bob bits and all the rest of it. I can remember he’d ring on a Friday night. There could be a queue at the phone box, or there could be a queue at the phone box in Farranree. So they’d be waiting at both ends. You’d ring and someone else would pick up the phone. London was a long way away then.
C OC Can you remember the first time that you came back for the summer and your impressions of Cork then after having been in London?
M OC Yeah. I didn’t want to go back to London. Cause we were playing with relations in the North side and relations in Ballyphehane. In London it was a rather built up area where we lived. So we came back here. And I’d be gone in the morning and dragged in late at night, having been out playing football, kick the can, which I’d never heard of, and all those things. So I used to be depressed going back to London. It was just outdoor, always sunny. Red lemonade, I’d never seen. White vinegar I’d never seen. And Taytos. Rasa was a phrase. My Grandad used to take me to the pub. I didn’t realise he was getting it for nothing. You know, it was for half nothing that I’d be drinking Rasa. Also getting I’d be hanging my parents now [inaudible phrase], getting the bus to Crosshaven. We’d go to Crosshaven with my cousins. They’d go into the pub and myself and my cousins clung to the wall outside the pub, in the corner of Crosshaven for hours. We set our DNAs on that wall definitely. And then we’d come home in the evening and for years we used to talk about Crosshaven. And I’d say ‘sure there’s nothing there’. I didn’t think there was anything in Crosshaven. I just thought it was a square. Honestly. So in later years I brought my own children down there. I found Graball Bay [sounds like], and all those. But the bus to Crosshaven for the pub. Everyone did it. Stayed in the pub all day, and then got the bus back. That was the adventure. Also when I used to come I was the rich person from England. Choc Ices. My cousins still joke about Mick coming home with the Choc Ices. We’d go to the shop and I’d have money for Choc Ices, which they wouldn’t have got. We had some money but the lads here didn’t have as much. And two other things, I’ll bore you to tears. My aunts had televisions with slot machines in them. You’d put money in and that’s how they paid the rental on the television. The television shops in town. They couldn’t afford the rent on the telly. So there was a slot machine on the telly same as a ESB machine. So you’d be watching it, and the next thing the money would go and the telly would go. So someone would run looking for a shilling or two bob to put into it. You’d get an hour or two hours out of it. And the last one was they used to put blue plastic over the television trying to pretend it was colour. Honestly.
C OC Brilliant!
M OC I thought it was a wind up. But they did. But the slot machines for the television, I remember that now, just come back to me there. You might get an hour for a shilling or something. But in the middle of something it would go. I thought it was prehistoric. I’d colour telly in London at this stage. I thought it was totally prehistoric. And always one channel or two channels. But I loved it back here. I didn’t want to go home. We came home for good in ’74. Thank God. I was seventeen.
C OC What was that like now, arriving back from London at seventeen?
M OC That was a little bit of a shocker because I’d settled down in London. I’d lots of friends there, but I settled down very quickly. And I took my father, [pause], we’d a big birthday recently. My daughter was twenty. I was fifty and my dad was eighty and I took him back to London for the first time since ’74. And we stayed near where we lived. Where we lived now is in the Kensington area. At the time it was a little bit run down, now it’s all millionaires there. It was just amazing to see it. But I had it for a few days. And I took my children there a few years before that to see where I went to school. School in London. It was nice to see it. It was nice to come home. London is grand for a week. But, everywhere we went in London was Irish, Irish, Irish. We’d often have Cork people staying in our house for a night or two, that had come over. And the Irish clubs, the Irish pubs full of Cork people. Everywhere. They were everywhere. That’s my memories of London now.
C OC Well, thank you very much. Excellent.
End of Interview
TD: We might talk a bit about what you remember about Kyle Street and the Coal Quay and the people you remember.
MS: Oh my God. I’m telling ye boy. You go down there of a Saturday. It’d be a lovely sunny day, some Saturday’s anyway. And, you know if you’re mother made a good few pound, she’d say to me. “Go over there to the corner shop, and get a wafer”. Now you’d get two wafers maybe that time for tuppence and we’d be standing at the wall eating our wafers, the ice cream. And she’d say to me “In’t that lovely?” and I’d say “sure Jaysus, that’s gorgeous”. And then this Farmer then might come around, and Jaysus she used to make me laugh. This farmer would come around and she would have two pairs of 11 size boots and the farmer would say to her - always of a Tuesday it was farmer’s day - and the farmer would say to her, “How much are the boots missus?” and she’d turn round, she’d say “Seven pound for one pair boy, but I’ll tell ye what now look. I’ll give you the two pair for nine”, that kind of way and the bloody well stupid eejit would hand her a tenner. He’d say to her “Sure that’s grand now missus”. Now it was seven pound for the two pair. And she’d say to him “But I’ll give you the two for nine”. He’d hand her a tenner. Now ten pound that time was a lot, a lot of money and you’d be saying to yourself, “Oh my God, me day’s made anyway”. Y’know. That’s it. And she’d say to me “’Mere, G’wan bundle up all the stuff there now girl. We’re finished. We’re going. That’s it.” And I’d be saying. “Nah, mam, sure today’s Farmer’s Day now, there’ll be another crowd coming round now in a minute” - and there would be another crowd coming around. And God help us, this woman, she was a lovely woman now, I can’t bring up her name now a’tall. But there was this lovely woman. She used to the train up from Cobh. You’d see her running up Kyle Street, beautiful woman. And she’d say “Oh my God, Thank God Mary is here. Have you any stuff left?” Because my mam used to keep the stuff for her. She’d sell that down in Cobh. But God she was killed by the train so. Not sure I should say that or not, like. But, y’know, but me mam always used to give to her and she used to say “Erra for God’s sake, I’ve made enough now, that’s it”. And she’d go off. And I’d take the pram then off up Blarney Street, and she’d give me five shillings.
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
0.00.00 - 0.04.01 |
Background information, House on Friars Walk, Doyle Road and eventually Ballyphehane. Father did not want to return to the house he built on Doyle Rd after Marie's Mother Died, instead choosing to be housed in new corporation house in Ballyphehane even though that meant paying rent. Mother was from Middleton, Father born and raised on Friar’s walk. He went to the model School on Anglesea St. Like to hunt with dogs. Marie went to the South Presentation convent till she was eleven when she move to Guildford, England to her aunties for three month, returned to Ballyphehane but grandmother sick so Marie never returned to school. |
0.04.01 - 0.06.35 |
Ballyphehane in her childhood. All country, spent her days out in the Well Field by the snotty bridge. Pack jam sandwiches, going swimming in the stream and a well for drinking water. Her child hood house on Friars road was the last house on the road. After that it was all dirt road. It would have been across form where the Marian Pharmacy is now. Across the road was tory top lane (not to be confused with Tory top road). The other street (now Reendowny Place) they called ‘the lane’ but when her friend’s boyfriend the captain of the Innisfallen came looking for her one day he called it First Avenue which subsequently stuck. When her friend married the captain they got VIP treatment on the Innisfallen. |
0.06.35 - 0.09.27 |
The Layout of Lower Friars walk. Market Gardens, all of Ballyphehane was market gardens. First house in lower friars walk lived in By a guard by the name of Kearney, he rented from Gerry Coughlan. Next house John Barrett the builder rented from Michael Halloran. The house Marie lived in was Tim Hurley’s, he had a market garden all around the house. He had four daughters, three became Nuns. One got married. There was hill view which was three houses, one was grandmother of Hurley’s, one was Horgan’s, and the other was another Hurley which had nine of them living in it. The next family was the Scannell’s who had a market garden. Then Hosford’s a protestant family who had an orchard. Next was Cotter, the last house on left hand side was Coughlan’s. On the Right hand side of Lwr Friars walk. Jim Barrett and Joe Barrett, then you an O’Connor. The next was William Halloran Marie’s Grandmothers brother. His daughter was married to Paddy Foley and they lived in the house below, also market gardeners. Next was Halloran’s orchard where the church is now. |
0.09.28 - 0.10.18 |
Halloran’s orchard. Small gate through to a small house, Marie’s aunt lived in. Halloran’s (Marie’s great Grandparents) reared her. Marie’s grandmother had six daughters and one son. Further in was the Halloran house, they had a daughter that never married called Katie and she was in another house. Nat the back of the orchard you had Crowley’s and they had an orchard too. |
0.10.18 - 0.11.57 |
After the Halloran’s Orchard you had Riordan who was involved in the I.R.A. Marie is unsure of the exact details but remembers prisoners being released from England came looking for Riordan, Marie’s grandmother sent them to another Riordan who lived in the big house. Then sent word to the real O’Riordan to get out. |
0.11.57 - 0.13.33 |
After his house there was a lane way to Pouladuff Road. Donovan lived there, they called him ‘Murder the Loaf’ and his son ‘slice pan’. Then the next family was Daly’s on Tramore road in a cottage and that was the end of Friars Walk going down. They Called Tramore road Tramore road, but was also known as Hangdog road. Marie’s Grandmothers brother lived where Healy’s cleaners is which was called low lands, In a big house. Marie was caught kissing her Husband Gerry (her then boyfriend) in the ‘Confessional boxes’ (concrete cubicles) by the priest, Who asked if they ‘had anything better to do?’ |
0.13.34 - 0.15.14 |
Halloran’s Orchard. Marie doesn’t remember her great grandparents having it, it was her uncle paddy who ran it. Massive orchard went all the way to Pouladuff rd., with many people employed to pick apples. After Marie’s grandmother got married first she work in the orchard, her husband was a plaster. Originally grandmother was meant to marry a farmer from Ballygarvan, but she was already going out with what would turn out to be her husband and had no intention of marrying famer her parents had matched her with. Great-grandfather told her that all she would get from him in that case is a pair of grey horses to pull her carriage on the wedding day and nothing else. Never got her dowry. So she was the poor one of the family. But it came to her later, one of the Halloran’s that lived by the park died without a will, he was never married, to sell his property every member had to sign, grandmother told not to sign but said ‘what my father never gave me I don’t want’ and she signed it. |
0.15.14 - 0.17.08 |
The city was a million miles away to them, only went in to get shoes and they mostly came from England or hand-me-downs. England had better way of getting things even though it wasn’t too much different there. Marie’s grandaunt was a very holy person, the night Cork city burned they left the animals from the mart loose, which led to a bull going own Friars walk with its chains hanging and rattle, Marie’s Grandaunt thought it was the devil coming out of hell. |
0.17.09 - 0.22.40 |
There was loads of children on Friars walk, they all played down Friary gardens. The Davis’ had nine girls and for boys, the Duggan’s had ten. All big massive families all Marie’s age, all played together. Games they played: Gobs a game with stones, flick stones/pebbles in the air and catch them on back of hand, the gobs had names ska one and ska two, Marbles or glassy alleys, Picky, and skipping. Recites some skipping rhymes. Loads of rhymes like that. I the summer they would be in their bare feet. Marie thinks they had better childhood than today, better memories than looking at a phones and tablets. Marie thinks Those devices aren’t good for kids, but they need to use them for school. They would play with twine and make pattern from twisting, like the gate and baby’s cradle. Her uncle in Midleton was a tailor, he saved all the reels for her, she would put four tack in them and put thread around and keep flicking them over the tacks and you would have a big rope. Collecting scraps was also big. There would be murder over them, robbing them and everything. |
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Marie had two older brothers, Teddy died of cancer at forty three, and the other is still alive and is eighty, he thought out in C.I.T |
0.23.01 - 0.00.00 |
Food growing up. They saw meat on Sunday, maybe a shoulder of bacon. Plenty of potatoes, vegetables and rice. They could make rice pudding some days. They would have porridge in the morning. You would have to be sick top get an egg. They would eye up the top of the fathers boiled egg and fight over it. Mother would get the bones out of the butcher on Saturday, boil them with vegetables and make a big pot of soup, which would last a few days. Back bones, her husband was never given back bones or bodice because they were country people, so when Marie married her father told her to get back bone with tail, Gerry came in from work he turned his nose up at it. He came round. Bought pigs head convinced husband to eat it, not too convinced, her father kept saying the ear is crispy. Tongue was delicious. Tripe and Drisseen, tripe cooked in milk and onions for a long time, drissenn on the other hand cooked very fast. It’s very good for your stomach. Children wouldn’t touch it. |
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Marie’s Husband, was from Ballincollaig out the country side in a cottage. He moved to Blackrock and they met in the boat club at a new year’s eve dance. Liam went to school with Marie’s husband Gerry in St. Joseph’s. Gerry’s mother wouldn’t send him to Blackrock because she would see the pupils smoking over the wall by the house and see said ‘you’re not going down there, you’ll only learn to smoke down there’ so he had to go to the mardyke all the way from Blackrock. They had to be left off early for lunch so they could get home on the 12.15 bus and back in to school after lunch at 1.30(7km each way). . |
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Friars Walk cont. Tory top lane ran at the side of the where the Marian chemist is now. The ex-servicemen’s cottages were in friary gardens. At the end where the bungalows are is where the lane turned off. Johnny Crowley had a market garden there and fed pigs. Bella Dunne her mother Kitty Paul and their donkey was so hungry that it ate the door of the shed. Where Connolly road side of the park was called the field, they played there. Barbed wire divvied it from the graveyard, little bit down was McCloughan’s cottage, then Neville’s slaughter house next to another Halloran. By the front of the graveyard there was a big red brick building with toilets and a water font. All countryside, no house after that. Barrett’s on friars walk off Derrynane Rd? Big house in playing field (tory top park) Catharine Mahoney called Catherine ‘snowballs’. And Noel ‘the goat’ and his wife’s mother nanny Callaghan they used to sit her out in a chair Marie thought she was ‘dotie’ thinking about it now she had dementia, they used light paper and put it in the chute to torment them (they called it thunder up the alley), he would come out in his long johns, and they used to call him the ‘devil out of hell’. There was a pump outside their house. House in the park was used as community centre. Then was ‘First Avenue’(now Reendowny Place) at the end of the houses you crossed a field to pouladuff, Noel Halloran lived in the first house, he was killed down in Dunlop’s, a man Meaney, Callaghan’s, Leary, Fitzgerald’s Harris’. They used to call this area the cross, friars walk with ‘first avenue’ and tory top lane being the other roads. Mrs Harris had teeth that were always coming out, Marie’s brother told Marie that they were the father’s teeth. Paddy the milk man , the grandmother used to make Marie get a sup for the cat off him. CMP dairy not on tramore road at time it was a big house. And where Vita Cortex factory is was Ballyphehane House, which was used a school while Coláiste Chríost Rí on Capwell was being built. The woman who lived by there used to wash the football teams jerseys she was call Mag ‘the Whalloper’ she moved to murphy’s lane , they called her husband ‘Hollywood’ because of his immaculate dressing. All bog down there by Mercier park. Turners cross pitch was all bog. The train line ran passed it. Also the Tramore river from the ESB pitch and putt was all open but no a lot is piped over. |
0.36.25 - 0.39.55 |
The Building of Ballyphehane. Marie’s brother worked on it. Big change, her house was taken to they could build houses. Brother was sent to Skerry’s college (civil service training) but after 2 months it was discovered that her brother was just hanging out in Fitzgerald’s park and not attending college. So he was marched to Leaders for a bib and brace sent to Ballyphehane and learnt his trade on the house facing the graveyard. Marie was thirteen when the development started, she loved it, it modernised her life and luxuries such as Lennox’s Chipper and everything else, very positive. On the cross they would have a huge Bonfire every year and put new potatoes in the corner of fire and all eat spuds. No traffic, only horse and carts, they used to ‘lang on’ (hang on) the back of the ‘floats’ (flatbed carts) that brought the men back from the docks. She wouldn’t say she made friends with the new people moving in, but she was at the age where she was chasing fellas so she welcomed the new arrivals. |
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Haunted house or scary stories. . Scanlon’s house where one of them hung himself, another then was put in to the mental home on the Lee road. They had that kind of tendency in the family. Marie used to go to graveyard where Fr Matthew’s grave was a you could see a coffin in a sarcophagus that made them run away. |
0.41.00 - 0.42.50 |
Say’s she had a fabulous upbringing in her youth, freedom, not like now. On her school holidays they used leave the house go to the well field with their togs, no towel and stay out till five in the evening, no worries. Couldn’t do that today. That house Marie lives in now on Doyle rd was built entirely by her father 80 years ago. All the tradesmen help each out. Marie’s daughter lives on Derrynane rd and was brought in to the neighbour’s house to be shown signatures of the tradesmen that worked on the house and Marie’s fathers was there. |
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Revised the Black and Tans story, all names of people living in house was written behind door and they’d check if it matched. INTERVIEW ENDS |
LOH: But regards to the, the Marsh area or the city as ‘twas called, I mean there’s several marshes there. You have the western marshes and you have the eastern marshes, Dunscombe’s Marsh now would be around Patrick Street and all these places but the marsh that we grew up would be, you had Pike’s Marsh which came up the side of Bachelor’s Quay. You had Hammond’s Marsh then which would be around by the Mercy Hospital there in Henry Street, Peter Street, Moore Street and then you had Fenn’s Marsh which would be where Sheares Street is and you go over further then where Clarke’s Bridge is and you have Clarke’s Marsh. So I mean people say they lived in the Marsh but no one would think of asking them what Marsh did they live in. You know I mean, well most people just call it the Marsh area, you know, they don’t put names on it but me being a local historian, I’m supposed to know all these things. When people are talking to me they want to know, you know what part was Pike’s Marsh you know and all this business. Now they were all called after Merchant Princes’ if you like, they were all well to do Quakers and things like that now and em like Pike’s they had, the Pike family, they had a boat building place in Water Street. They had a timber yard. They had a bank in Adelaide Street, you know that just give you an idea of the type of person, people, the families I’m talking about and they actually lived eventually, they moved, when the city expanded and the city walls were demolished and things like that, they moved to Bessboro in Blackrock, now if you are ever in Bessboro and to see the size of house and the lands all round it, you will know the type of family I was talking about. They were big, big merchant princes. So that would have been the Pike family. There’s not much information on the Hammond family and you know Hammond’s Marsh and why they’re called, why they’re called, how they got their names were when the city walls were demolished after the siege in 1690, the city council as we call ‘em, the corporation decided to lease out the Marshes outside the city walls. Now in actual fact by reading about it, I don’t think they were marshes at all, there was just waterways with islands, you know that the water went around the islands because I mean you’d be asking yourself if there were marshes how did they build on them. That’s just my own interpretation of it now but they filled in all the waterways anyway and they built big houses on the outskirts of the old city walls.