J M: Oh yeah, yeah, the old Mangle Field was, was, I think the Mangle Field was a huge part in my life. You know there was so many things happened there. Like it was the centre of my life, really. You know it was just a dirty old -- there was nettles at the side of it, a big hole in the middle, but we just were there day and night, whatever sport was in, rugby, cycling whatever like. The Mangle Field was huge. They would be huge. I mean all the, all the right-hand side of Gurranabraher like, which is all houses now, they were all fields. There was, opposite my house was a place called the dump. There was a flat field on top of it and then going up then in stages, tiered, there were two or three em fields which where -- everybody was playing football and hurling all the time. Now Leary’s Field is still there, that’s up further in the top of Fairhill, like the right-hand side of Churchfield, eh that’s still there, yeah. The Fairfield is there still, yeah. That, that was always there, because that’s how obviously Fairhill got its name. ‘Twas a huge hill, on up the Fairfield. Eh it’s not used that often really. The other ones would be em [pause] it’s hard to say. The only other thing with all the boxing clubs and things like that, they’re all gone now a long, long time, you know? Em, the only other thing that we missed was em, we called it Bonty’s, ‘twas kind of a big bog, boggish field. Eh where Valley Drive is now, past where my house was, there was all em plots. Em we were all given plots by the corporation, you’d have a little plot you know and you grew spuds there. ‘Twas a very -- it has come back in again now actually. And I remember on a Saturday, I would bring up a em, what they -- a gally, a billy can of tea to my father and a couple of slices of bread, and he’d be, he’d be digging the spuds or, or I’d be helping him you know. But they were all em, that’s all plot land and there was all water seeping, it’s still seeping down there, coming up along the side of the road, because that stream was coming all the way down. The stream, the same stream, well it came out where we learnt to swim and where all the rats and bottles and dead pups were, you know? It flows all the way down underneath Fairhill, down onto the Watercourse Road and out under by the, by the, by the Opera House. It comes out there and that joins up with the Watercourse Road then coming in from Blackpool. Eh with the Watercourse Road again, that’s why ‘twas named em -- that’s all completely gone now like, all Churchfield, all the right-hand side of Gurranabraher, Columcille Road, all em, all em -- I’m saying new houses, the new houses are probably there fifty years, you know? That’s all gone. There was a lot of playing fields around the place, the North Monastery is still there, I think anyway. Although I, I have a feeling those fields are gone now, they’re taken up by, by clubs like St Vincents and, and eh Maybe Father O Leary’s and em Castleview soccer team, I think they’re all taken up. ‘Cause they were belong to the North Monastery. There was maybe eight or ten hurling pitches.
G M Right.
J M I’ve a feeling they’re all gone, you know? So like I mean, it was, where I lived was practically out in the country. ‘Twas on the verge of the country anyway, you know when you come up to Wolfe Tone Street there, the start of Fairhill, there was fields all over the place you know that’s -- F-Fairhill ended the city if you know what I mean.