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Tommy Rooney: Second City Jazzband, Cork Academy School of Music

Tommy Rooney was born in 1931. He was reared in Crosshaven and was the eldest of nine. His father’s family were from Dublin. He joined the army in 1945 at the age of 14 and remained in the service for 12 years. He played music during some of that…

Tom Jones: Shandon Street, Emigration, Childhood

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

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

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

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

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

Sean Lucey, Terry McCarthy: Blackpool, Dixies Showband

Seán Lucy was born in 1936. Seán is from a family of four. He started work as a radio and television repairman in 1950, before becoming a professional musician in 1960. He played the clarinet. He played with the Butter Exchange Band, a brass and reed…

Pete Newman: Shandon Street, Unemployment, Machoness,

Pete Newman (also known as Pete Duffy) was born in 1945. He grew up in Orrery Road off Cathedral Road. His relatives came from Broad Lane and moved up to Gurranabraher.
Cyclists going up Shandon Street used to hold on to the back of buses, which…

Tags: 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, Allotments, Bonfire Night, Disability, Hiberno-English, Pete Duffy, Pete Newman, Shandon Street, Slang, Slogging Apples, Steering Cars, Steernas, Unemployment

Patricia McCarthy: Shandon Street, War of Independence, Trades

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

Padraig O’Horgain: Church Street, Funeral Customs, Republicanism,

Padraig O’Horgain (Pat Horgan) was born in Church Street in 1951. His father was a Republican and was interned in Britain between 1939 and 1946. His father later worked at Cork Harbour.
O’Gorman’s hat factory and other businesses were cited in the…

Noel Magnier: Gerald Griffin Street, Shops, Box Cars,

Noel has written a book about growing up in Cork in the 1940s and 1950s, called Is That You, Boy? He was born (1939) and reared in Gerald Griffin Street. He has 4 siblings. He recalls the shops and businesses on the street.
Denny’s cellar was a…

Michael Murphy: Worklife; Murphy's Brewery; Childhood

Michael was born in 1941. He was born in Francis Street. He had 6 brothers and 5 sisters. His earliest memory is of his grandfather’s funeral, with a hearse pulled by two horses, in 1945. His mother’s pregnancies and the arrival of newborn children…

Tags: 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Childhood, Funeral Customs, Funerals, Jews, Murphy’s Bacon Factory, Murphy’s Brewery, Shandon Street, Working life

Margaret Farmer & Eileen O’Sullivan: Toys, Christmas, Nosey Keefe’s

Margaret Farmer was born in 1914 and talks very briefly about Christmas. and Nosey Keefe’s shop.
Eileen O’Sullivan also talks Christmas and about Woollams’ toy shop, and about Hadji Bey, an Armenian who sold Turkish Delight on McCurtain St.

Tags: Hadji Bey, MacCurtain Street, Margaret Farmer, Nosey Keefe’s, Shandon Street, Woollams

Helen Goulding: Shandon, Catholic Church, Childhood

Helen, nee Bourke was born and reared in Barrack View near the North Cathedral. Her family later moved to Leitrim Street.
She talks about her childhood. People had little but shared a lot. Boiled eggs were eaten at Easter time. Everyone was involved…

Tags: 1950s, 1960s, Andy Gaw, Barrack View, Bonfire Night, Cinema, Cold Storage, Dancehalls, Dancing, Helen Bourke, Helen Goulding, Pawn Shops, Picky, Shandon Street, Squeezy Lemon, Sunbeam, Youghal

Erin O'Brien: Historic Spine

Erin O’Brien is originally from Nebraska but has lived in Ireland since 1993. She is a planner at the Planning Department at City Hall and she also lives on North Main Street. In this interview, she takes an in-depth look mostly at North Main Street,…

Tags: Barrack Street, Beamish and Crawford, Castle Street, City Centre Strategy, Coal Quay, Cork City Hall, Erin O’Brien, Historic Spine, Living Above the Shops Scheme, MacCurtain Street, Medieval, Munster Furniture, North Main Street, Oliver Plunkett Street, Patrick Street, Shandon Street, South Main Street, Vision Centre, Washington Street

Eileen Jones: Blackpool, Shawlies, Sunbeam,

Eileen Jones (b. 1931) was born in Millfield Cottages. When she was 4 years old her family moved to Welsh’s Lane in Blackpool; members of her extended family lived nearby. Her mother was born in 1896. Her father was a builder’s labourer.
There was…

Creena O’Connell: Gurranabraher, Shawls, Allotments

Creena was born in 1932. Her family were one of the first to get a house in Gurranabraher, an estate built in 1934. Her father was able to get part-time employment with Cork Corporation working on the roads; he died when he was 58.
She recalls a…

Tags: 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Allotments, Creena O’Connell, Gurranabraher, Milk and Cake Shops, Shandon Street, Shawls

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