SHARED MEMORIES

The beautiful portraits and text of ‘Shared Memories’ show members of the Westgate Foundation Social Club.

Project Participants:

• Michael Kiely

• Michael Barrett

• Maura Butler

• Phil Lynch

• Pauline Carroll

• Denis O’Flaherty

• Kathleen Desmond

• Carol McElhinney

• Patricia Ryan

• Brendan Collins

• John Lynch

• Marie Kiely

• Breda Murphy

Workshop Facilitators:

Carmel Creaner and Anne Kiely

Photographer:

Artem Trofimenko

I was born and reared on the Commons Road, near Blackpool on the North side of Cork. Ours was a little small house opening directly onto the footpath. We had a small back garden at the bottom of which was a stream below a wall. The stream had a huge influence on my life. We blocked this stream to make our own swimming pool and we learned to swim in it. We fished in it, we raced our little home-made boats, we walked every mile of it, we threw stones at the rats, and listened to the otters whistling at night. It flowed in di erent colours depending on whatever dyes the woollen factory upstream were using on a particular day. We saw the shoals of eels as they departed on their way to the Saragossa across the Atlantic to breed.

In our small village, Newtown Sands in North Kerry when I was growing up, the blacksmith was a man named Jack Murphy, a very witty and good-humoured man. The parish priest asked the blacksmith to make a small fire grate for a bedroom fireplace in the presbytery and a larger one for his own sitting room. The priest came to ask how much he owed for the two grates. “A bargain price for you, Father. I’ll only charge you five bob for the material, five bob for doing the job, and five bob for knowing how to do the job, making a total of fifteen bob, Father.”

“You seem to be charging the same price for making the small grate as you’re charging for the bigger one. That can’t be right, surely?”

“Well, it’s like this Father. When I was born, I was a very small baby. But Big Bill, the farmer there, was a much bigger baby than me. Do you think, Father, that, when our mothers brought us to be christened at the church – the priest charged my mother less for baptising a small baby than he charged Bill’s mother for much bigger baby?” The parish priest knew when he was beaten. He paid the bill!

Butler

I was born in Carlow and one of 5 children. I went to St Leo’s College in Carlow and then went to England to train to be a nurse at Guys Hospital in London and qualified as an SRN (State Registered Nurse) . When I returned to Ireland I continued nursing and during that time met Jim Butler from Bagenalstown(Muine Bheag). We married in the early 60’s and moved to Bishopstown Cork before moving to Inniscarra where I was the Post Mistress. When living in Inniscarra I had time to use my fishing skills which I had learned from my father on the River Barrow.

In Dripsey during the summertime when the farmers were bringing in the harvest, families helped each other. Everyone knew where the threshing was taking place. All neighbours were involved. I catered for people, made sandwiches, made gallons of tea and we had barrels of porter. We even had a little drop ourselves. They were great days. As younger children we would play in the shaft that came from the machines. We followed the threshers around. You would be up early in the morning and have to have your jobs done. We would draw water and milk for the house first. As a young child I carried water a quarter of a mile from the pump - two buckets that were mostly splashed out by the time you got home. Everybody did it so it didn’t matter we didn’t feel that it was hard work. After that we were allowed to go to the threshing which would be on all day long and we enjoyed every minute of it.

I worked in both mills in Douglas. I started when I was 14 in Morrogh’s mill. There was a ‘one-day a week’ school which I went to. We made worsted wool as well as white cloth for the Dominican priests. It was the finest of wool. I was a “hander in” and I was under the warp threads that made the cloth, it was 60 inches wide. The “drawer” took the threads from me one at a time. There was up to two thousand threads required. There were two sheds one housing the broad loom and the narrow loom. I remember the machines very well. I was there until I was 19. I then went to England and came back and worked in O’Brien’s or Murphy Blacks as it was called. In the automatic machine room they called it “the greyhound track” everyone needed to work so fast. They introduced “dollys” to every thread which would indicate a break if it occurred.

I knew about sustainable living and the circular economy before they ever became the buzz words that they are today. When I was a child we recycled and reused everything. There wasn’t much we could reduce as we lived with the bare minimum. There was no waste. Clothes were patched and mended, school books tied with a strap. My grandfather grew his own veg in the tiny garden of a small terraced house. We collected horse manure for his garden in a small wooden box car that my brother and I built ourselves. There were no cars and plenty of manure on the city streets. The neighbours’ doors were always open. People shared what little they had, a cup of sugar until the rations were due again. We walked everywhere and played hurling using a long branch from a tree. There was no TV so we made our own entertainment, plays in the back garden, sing songs and parties in each others’ houses. We were poor but we didn’t know it. But there were always people, company, community. We had organic food, physical exercise and love. Isn’t that what mental health experts are recommending today? We had it in spades in Cork city during a world war. Imagine that!

This story took place in 1957 when myself and my school pal Noreen were about ten years old.

Plans had been made in the schoolyard, the date and time were fixed. Noreen kept telling me about the bantam fowl her mother had in the hen house. Me being a curious ten year old longed to see this rare species. It was agreed we would meet on Saturday at the 12 o’clock Confessions in the Parish Church. I was in the Southern Men’s Aisle awaiting Fr.Jerome, the local curate, to arrive for Confessions when Noreen arrived complete with a jute sack. She placed it on the floor and every now and again the bag would bound around the floor to the horror of others present in the church. After Confession we tied the sack to the carrier of my bike and hurried home anxiously. To my delight I had now become the proud owner of one bantam cock and two bantam hens.

I have many happy memories of my holidays with my parents and brother when we were small. We went to Wexford between Gorey and Courtown to a guest house called Ballymoney. This was an old Victorian house at the end of a long drive. Every morning the men would put their shoes outside the door to be polished. At meal times a gong called us in!

It was around Easter time when I remember that there was great interest in the Grand National. I was the lucky one who backed Red Rum on that occasion!!

My brother Charlie was a notorious trickster. He was well known in Ballincollig for his great love of theatre. He was always full of fun and devilment. One day he was giving me a spin from our home in Ovens to Ballincollig where I live now and he was driving an old Ford van. I worked on the South Mall in a solicitor’s o ce at the time and was fairly knowledgeable on the law. I quoted the law frequently and of course Charlie was going to take full advantage of this!! We were driving along by Classes Lake (Tanners Pond) which is the Rugby Club now where there was a very bad bend. We passed a car coming from the opposite direction. I then heard a loud bang. Charlie said nothing but I said “What was that!” I was sure that Charlie must have hit something. He realized that I was alerted to the something. He said “look out the back window and check if the car is still moving or stopping” and of course the car had almost disappeared. Charlie said “ah sure I’ll keep going and I’ll get away I think I hit him!”. Of course I got the fright of my life when he said that, thinking we were going to jail I said “Oh my God Charlie you can’t leave the scene of an accident you must stop immediately”. Charlie was delighted at this point to see how nervous I was!! It wasn’t until we reached home when he admitted and told me that he was only tricking all along. Brothers love to torture their only sisters!!!!!

I spent my working life in Cork city from 1947-1957 in Tom Murphy’s and from 1957 to 1996 in Roches Stores. I sold many sti collars to the gentlemen of Cork. The collars cost 1 and 6 to 2 and 6 (2 shillings and 6 pence), depending on the quality. Shirts were sold without collars in those days. A man could wear a shirt for a week and simply change the collar and he always looked good.

John Lynch

I have very fond memories of working in Prior’s when I was only a young boy. Pryor’s had a bar and a farm. It is long gone now but was located on the road to Macroom where Dan Sheahan’s is today. I worked on the farm in the 50’s where I both milked the cows every day with Mrs.Pryor and also worked in the bar. I started when I was 15 years old and worked seven days a week. I needed to be flexible and do whatever was needed. I remember the customers who would come in to me in particular in the bar as they knew that I would serve them. The blacksmith who was an alcoholic would even come in the morning and he knew that I was a soft touch! Mr. Pryor was an ex-policeman and was very strict. He refused to serve him.

I remember this time in my life very clearly and with great fondness.

Marie Kiely

One of my fondest memories as a young girl was the great excitement in our house around the Cork Film Festival. Back in the 1950’s the festival was a glamorous heyday and my mum and dad always had their tickets. They would look forward to donning their finery and strolling arm-in-arm down along Patrick’s Street to their final destination, the grand Savoy cinema. The city would come to a standstill as hundreds of Corkonians lined the streets in the hopes of catching a glimpse of cinema’s brightest stars. The red carpet was rolled out for Hollywood royalty such as Rock Hudson, John Wayne, Jane Mansfield and Doris Day, while the crowd waited anxiously with pens and notebooks hoping for an autograph from stars of the silver screen. If you were lucky, they would politely oblige. It was such an exciting time for Cork, where for one week of the year, the glamour of Hollywood found its way to this little Leeside city of ours and my parents were part of the magic.

I lived all my life in Dripsey. A more recent event that took place in 1999 that has put Dripsey on the map was the Shortest St.Patrick’s Day Parade to take place in Ireland. One night, a lad in the pub decided to have a parade. Thinking of how he might make this extra special, he decided to start the parade in one pub back yard, cross the road and end up in the yard of the pub on the far side of the street. They decided on the di erent floats that they would have including men, women, children, donkeys, horses, dogs, dancers, musicians and of course St.Patrick himself. This was not a problem as the distance was so short. As it was the end of the century, they wanted to make the Guinness Book of Records and put Dripsey on the map. The RTE camera man was a native of Dripsey. As a matter of fact, I can recall that particular day at 230C was one of the finest St.Patrick’s days of the whole century.