Don Morrissy: Grattan Street, Healthcare, Working Life

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intro

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 2^nd 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.

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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 14^th 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.

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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. 

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Outro