Tom Sweeney Reminisces

My Days in Lyreacrompane and some Memories

Tom Sweeney Mrs. Sheehy was my teacher. She lived in Cloghane and would collect me in her pony and trap on her way to school. We lived in the cottage just before Doran’s Cross. In later years Mrs. Sheehy had a Volkswagen Beetle and her daughter, Kathleen, used to drive us in style to school. My school friends were the Dorans at the cross, (their mother fondly referred to them as Joan Theresa Darling and Nora Rose Dear), Patrick O’Connor from the butt of the Branner, Patsy Canty and his sister, Catherine. We’d pass the creamery on our way to school. It was busy those times. It gave all the locals a chance to chat about the affairs of the day and the gossip that was doing the rounds. My uncle, Andy, used to work there. How impressed we were with his ability to handle what seemed then to be complex technology. John Neville used to call to our home and the talk was of football. Sometimes he’d drink all the Andrews Liver Salts in the house. As a child I remember Dan Canty killing ‘the pig’ and playing the accordion - not at the same time. My favourite tune was ‘The Kerry Slide’. Helping to bring in the hay with Bill Patie at the butt of the Branner is another memory. Those were happy times. We mover to Cill Dara (Kildare) in the late fifties. My father worked at Bord ná Móna. Like many others of my age I went to England in the sixties for work and adventure. I stayed with my uncle, Tim Sweeney. I came back home in 1969 and went to Belfast. It was a rough place to live for anyone from the ‘Free State’. I got married in Belfast to a girl from Ardoyne, Gemma Delaney, I had a few close calls while living there. I was working for a ford dealer as I was a mechanic. On one occasion I was given a car to repair and when they discovered it was for Mrs. Paisley I was quickly moved to another job in the garage. The boss said, “If Ian found out some Fenian, from the Free State, was repairing his wife’s car he would close the place down”. Subsequently I left that job because I was advised to. All the workers there were Loyalist. I recall John Neville telling me about the time they went north to Belfast for a football game. They stayed in the Belfast Europa Hotel. While there they decided to head out for a pint. Coming out of the hotel they turned right instead of left for the Falls Road. They went into a pub in Sandy Row – a loyalist stronghold and not the place to be. While they were having their drink the Barman, fair play to him, advised them to “Drink up boys. You’re in the wrong place”. They quilted back to the hotel and were afraid to leave their rooms after it. It was never admitted but it is believed they pushed the wardrobes against the doors - just in case.

Sandy Row as it looked when John Neville accidently visited there. One day while I was working in the Belfast shipyard I was told “Don’t come back tomorrow” or I would be shot as a Free State Fenian. It was time to leave Belfast. We went to Australia in 1974. We stayed there for six years. When we came back, we settled in Leixlip until we retired to Lyreacrompane. Those were very happy times. Gemma passed away in 2012 and a few years after I sold up and moved to Dunmore East in Waterford. I’ve enjoyed my life and I’ve travelled a lot but I’m back in Lyreacrompane every chance I get.

Tom Sweeney tries his hand at broadcasting from the Glen.