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

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

Life History:

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 piggery that gave much local employment.
He recalls sports such as bowl playing.
He remembers the various shops and businesses of Shandon Street. Every house had a ‘box car’, a wheeled cart for carrying provisions home.
Shops sold kindling wood in bundles, and coal was sold by the peck, and carried home on one’s back. Families put medals into gas meters instead of coins; people also made sawdust fires using old barrels.
Noel talks a little about some of the characters he knew. Men who returned from working in England were called Dagenham Yanks.
He talks about the Lido cinema and the serial films shown there.
He recalls the milk and cake shops of Cork; and the food they used to eat every day, including sheep’s head soup.
Noel recalls Wren festivities on St Stephen’s Day and later, and sings a verse from a song they sang. He recalls some of the popular songs of his youth, such as “Saint Teresa of the Roses”. They used to eat Pickle: pigs’ blood and water.

26 August 2010

CFP_SR00400_magnier_2010

Cork, Ireland, 1940s-2000s

Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive

Cork Folklore Project

English

Sound

1 .wav File

61min 10sec

Mayfield, Cork.

.wav

24bit / 48kHz

The following is a short extract from the interview transcript, copyright of the Cork Folklore Project. If you wish to access further archival material for this interview or other interviews please contact CFP, folklorearchive@gmail.com

T.D: You mentioned Peacock Lane there. Is that lane still there?

N.M: It is indeed and as a matter of fact, it’s amazing how many of the old lanes are still there right in this part of the city that I’m speaking about which is the Northside and specifically alright in Gerald Griffin Street which as I said commences above in, by the North Cathedral junction and goes down to the junction at O’Connell Street. But there is a myriad of lanes there as a matter of fact when they, the film Angela’s Ashes was being made alright, I mean like the filmmakers came up there to Peacock Lane and to surrounding lanes there, Patrick’s Arch and so forth to film because Limerick had been modernised if you like and where the writer of Angela’s Ashes was grown up sort of no longer existed so they came up here to Gerald Griffin Street and Peacock Lane and Patrick's Arch in particular. So I guess there’s a lot of those lanes still left.