Do you know what it is…if I had a penny for every time the Ma’ and Da’ walked us across this bridge I could afford to pay for my television licence. Now this is a photograph of the refurbished bridge, it’s not the original one that had the big wide spaces between the planks that you were always afraid of falling through. Wasn’t it great all the same all those years ago as kids when we were taken out to old ‘Dollyer’ for the day. Be the jakors the excitement was great altogether. There’d be a big scramble getting out of beds that morning after the Da’ had come into the bedroom roaring and shouting ‘Hello Dollymount, here we come’. That was the first hint we had that we were heading off for the day to the seaside. I remember hopping out of the bed and putting the brothers shoes on instead of my own. ‘Here, get your smelly feet out of my shoes’. ‘Da’, he’s wearing my shirt’. And of course us boys didn’t wear underpants then either. And we all didn’t have swimming nicks either, we had to wear the sisters knickers instead. Honest to God what would kids today think of us back then?

Downstairs the Ma’ and the older sisters were going like the Hammers of Hell at the sandwich making. And of course the Da’ had his ould Primas Stove all packed and ready to go. ‘There’s nothing like a good ould cup of tea at the seaside’. So the Ma’, the Da’ and nine kids headed off down Killala Road to the bus stop on Lower Carnlough. You know the one that was nearly facing Drumcliffe Road? I can still see the Da’ pacing up and down cursing under his breath at the absence of any sign of a bus. There he’d be smoking his cigarette while the Ma’ was spitting onto an old hankie and jamming it into my ear. ‘I could make candles out of all that wax in your ears’.

When the bus finally came along we all hopped on and ran upstairs but the Ma’ and Da’ always sat downstairs on the long seat at the back. Looking back on it now I think the Da’ only paid the fare for half of us kids. And then we were only on the bus and we had to get off again in town. We were like stampeding cattle out of a John Wayne film as we charged along to the bus for Dollymount. Imagine the excitement of getting two buses to the seaside in one day. With our little faces pushed up against the glass of the bus window we eagerly awaited in excited anticipation for the first glimpse of water as the bus trundled along Clontarf Road. Good God I’m even getting excited writing this…‘Come on gang, last to the bridge is a monkey’. Oh what great memories. With all of our little feet running across the old wooden bridge we sounded like an old locomotive train coming out of Amiens Street station on its way to Bray.

I think my family must have been in Clontarf with Brian Boru chasing the Vikings into the water because we’ve been going there ever since. The Ma’ and Da’ went there when they were chiselers as did their parents before them and so on. Sure I’m nearly sure that half of Cabra was there along with King Brian too. And didn’t we take that battle up to Cardiffsbridge to fight the Vikings from Finglas. You see, these are all the kind of things that go through my head anytime I walk across the old wooden bridge to Dollyer. I’d be even talking to myself when I’m walking across it and people would be looking at me kinda quare, you know what I mean? Sure half of them are only ‘Blow Ins’. Ah yes, God be with the days alright. I think I’ll have another sambo and a cup of tea now and close my eyes and pretend I’m in Dollyer…

The School Hall.

This is the school hall in Saint Finbar’s School, Cabra West. The first time I was ever in this hall I was about four years of age. My older brother brought me to see a film of Abbott and Costello meets the Mummy. The hall was crammed with millions of other children, most of whom where screaming and shouting to each other. Some adults too where shouting even louder at the children to ‘shut up and sit down or you’ll be barred’. I had no idea what they meant by this as I took a tighter grip on my brother’s hand. I was afraid of getting lost in the crowd. Eventually the lights were dimmed and the steady humming noise from the film projector silenced the mob. Everyone settled back to enjoy the film. I think the first film to come on the big screen was called The Masked Rider, a silent film with a piano music soundtrack. I was mesmerised by the big screen hanging on the wall over the entrance doors to the hall. This was my first time to see a real film. The roars and screams from the gangs of children were almost deafening when Abbott and Costello came on the screen with the Mummy coming up behind them. ‘Behind ya mister’ went up the chorus from the entire audience. The walls of the entire building shook from the screams. That film and experinece was my baptism by fire into the world of cinema. This was also the first place I had ever seen Dicke Rock from Dingle Road singing with the Blue Clavon. It was a charity concert that included the Dubliners ballad group. And of course when I graduated to Finbars from the convent the hall became a semi permanent fixture in my young life. On rainy days we played in this hall instead of going out into the school yard. In my teen years with the Cabra Tech Icame here to the Hops and dances that the priest ran each Friday night and Sunday afternoon. As a young boy the hall seemed almost as big in size as the compound on lower Killala Road. When I returned to it some years ago I was shocked at how much it had shrunk over the years. Today St Finbar’s School and hall haven’t got as many children attending as it had in the 1950′s when I was there.

The Coal Man.

At some stage of our existence my mother joined a Coal Club at 2/6 (Two shillings and six pennies) a week. A man called to the house every Friday night to collect the money. He had a certain amount of customers who made up the ‘Club’ and he would call on these each week to collect the subscription for the coal. When each of his customers had received their coal then the’Club’ would start over again. Each customer got their coal delivery in turn. My mother always seemed to go into town for something or other and on the occasion when the coal man was due she’d leave strict instructions with one of my older brothers to make sure to count all of the bags of coal as they were brought into our kitchen and emptied under the stairs in the coal hole. On a winters evening it would be quite dark and cold outside. We’d all huddle together around the fire listening to the rain lashing on the kitchen window, tap tap tapping trying to get into our nice warm kitchen. The flames from the fire would throw long black eerie shadows across the ceiling and onto the wall by the old Belfast kitchen sink. It was like a scene from Charles Dickens novel ‘Great Expectations’. Then all of a sudden a great hammering noise would shake the house and make all of our little hearts miss a beat in terror at the noise being hammered out on our hall door. The coal man had arrived. On opening the door a great giant of a man covered from head to toe in black coal dust stood humped over and stooped with a great big sack of coal on his back. We’d all sit in terror of this dark stranger as he stomped in and out of our kitchen. Under our breaths we’d all count, one bag, two bags, three bags until all eight bags of black glistening coal was emptied out. The coal dust would ever so gently drift down and settle on the gas stove, the draining board and the sink. The coal man would make a deep grunting noise to my brother who would grab a pencil and carefully write his name on the delivery docket to say that he had personally counted eight bags of coal being brought into the house. As quickly and as noisily as he came, the coal man left. The hall door slamming shut behind him. When my brother had settled back into his place by the fire we’d ask him what the coal man had said. He’d look around at each of our faces, then mimicking the coal man he’d suddenly let out a great big grunting noise and we’d all roar out laughing.

A Family Wedding.

(Click on photo to enlarge)

Michael Sheridan from Ventry Park and May Killens from Carnlough Road.

Weddings were always a great occasion in Cabra. In the weeks leading up to the big day neighbours spoke to each other of little else and especially if the couple getting married were both from the same area. There was all sorts of comings and goings in both houses in preparation for the big day. The house had to be scrubbed clean from top to bottom, the lace curtains taken down and washed by hand so they wouldn’t shrink, new wallpaper had to be put up, the window frames on the front of the house had to be painted and even the garden gate sometimes got a lick of silver paint. There was great excitement in the air on the morning of the wedding. The neighbours were often invited into the house of the bride to view her wedding presents laid out in the parlour or in one of the bedrooms. The canteen of cutlery usually took pride of place alongside a new bedspread or quilt that came with a set of matching bedsheets and pillow cases. Two or three sets of delph were proudly displayed on a sideboard next to a lamp-stand with a giant lampshade that looked like the hat the mother of the bride had borrowed for the wedding. The room was laid out like Aladdin’s Cave.

Some of the neighbours were busy helping out in the kitchen making cheese and tomato sandwiches for afterwards or looking after the great big piece of ham boiling on the gas stove. Kettles of water for the tea were constantly on the boil also. Everyone in the house had a job to do or a place to go. Children’s faces were being scrubbed clean as the Da’ stood over the kitchen sink having a shave, his voice bellowing out some song or other as memories of his own wedding came flooding back. The mother of the bride was busy upstairs helping her daughter fit into her wedding dress. The bedroom floor being litterd with toilet paper that wiped away the tears of joy of both women. ‘I’m going to miss you ma’. ‘I know love but you can always come back to visit’. There were many time when the bride and groom moved in and lived in the same house with either parent. In the grooms house the big question everyone was asking was ‘Now are you sure you’ve got the ring’? ‘Of course I’ve got the ring, I’m not stupid you know’ . ‘And don’t forget the shilling for the altar boys‘. Shoes were polished to the highest standard so that faces could be seen in them. The Da’ was in control as he gave out orders to younger children about behaving themselves in the church. He’d also make sure there was enough drink in for the neighbours. It certainly wouldn’t do to run dry of drink halfway through the day. The Ma’ was busy ironing shirts and wiping dirty faces clean with a spit and a lick.

Suddenly it was that time as everyone clambered out of the houses to the applause and cheers of neighbours and friends. Most of the guests had to walk around to the church while the bride and her father travelled in the back of a borrowed Morris Minor. Inside the church all was quiet and reverend as both families sat opposite each other. The priest standing on the altar with the groom anxiously waiting to see the face of his new bride as she solomnly walked up the aisle holding onto her father’s arm. Crowds of people and especially young children would gather outside the church. The children all waiting for the traditional ‘Grushie’ were wedding guests would throw handfuls of loose money into the air above the heads of the waiting children. What a scene that was as they dived onto the money or tried to grab it in mid air before it reached the ground. The crowds would let out a big cheer as the newly married couple emerged from the church. Everyone made their way back to the house for tea and sandwiches washed down with a drop of porter for the men and a glass of sweet sherry or babycham for the women. And so the day went on with everyone happy to see the newly married couple head off in the Morris Minor for the train to Bray and their weekend honeymoon by the sea.

Washing Day.

(Click on photo to renlarge)

How did my mother ever manage to wash the clothes before the family moved to Cabra? My father and mother along with four little children previously lived in a front room on the top floor of a tenement house in Gardiner Street. When they eventually moved to Killala Road in Cabra West the house had no bath, it was the war years and things were scarce. But they had the old Belfast sink in the kitchen which was used for washing everything. On Saturday nights it was like a sheep dip with so many Coffeys waiting to be washed and scrubbed with carbolic soap. On Sunday morning the Da’ used it for his wash and shave. All the cracked delph and odd bits of cutlery were washed in cold water during the week. When the bath was finally installed it became amongst other things the family washing machine. The Ma’ would half fill it with a mix of hot and cold water and put the bedsheets and the Da’s white shirt in to soak for a few hours. Then like an army of little ants we were marched upstairs and taking off our shoes we’d stand in the bath on top of the clothes and stomp our little feet up and down to help get the grime out of the clothes. The Ma’ loved a fine breezy day because it was ‘a good day for drying’. Because we had such a big gang in our family we had two clothes lines in our back garden. To stand in our back yard and look at the white bedsheets dancing on the clothesline was like looking at the Onedin Line on telly. They looked like great big sailing ships heading off to India and China for great big chests of tea that had the silver paper in them for the Black Babies. Our first washing machine had a mangle on the top of it that you had to turn by hand. The machine would stand in the middle of the kitchen floor and once turned on it would do a jig around the kitchen, we’d all hop on it for a jaunt, ‘Giddy up there cowboy’. The poor Ma’s hands were frozen blue with the cold and all wrinkled up from dipping them in and out of the water. We’d end up with more water on the kitchen floor than there was in the Cabra Baths. Windows and doors were flung wide open to help dry it all out. Sometimes the Ma’ would borrow space on the neighbours clothesline next door. I remember the clothes line full of football shirts and shorts belonging to a rugby team. They belonged to the Hibernian Bank rugby team, the Da’ worked in the bank as a porter and offered to have me Ma’ wash all their gear for free. To this day I still love the smell of freshly washed clothes coming off the clothesline, it brings me back all those years ago. (Thanks to Liam O’Kelly for the photo)

The School Around the Corner.

Sunday in our house was always a great day. The Da’ would be up at the crack of dawn dragging the lads out of their beds to go to Mass. Because he’d been in the army everything had to be done in military precision so as keep some kind of order with fifteen children. Everything was done in shifts. The girls were always up first on Sunday morning because they needed to use the toilet. The boys had to march out to the backyard and pee down the drain hole outside the back door. And if you weren’t quick enough whoever came behind you was likely to pee down the back of your legs. We’d have a quick duck under the cold-water tap for a wash as we passed through the kitchen on our way back upstairs. The boys back then didn’t wear underpants or anything like that. So it was a mad dive into the big wardrobe in the back bedroom for a dirty clean shirt to wear to Mass.
The Da’ was great on Sunday mornings because he’d have a fry going for us for breakfast. He’d give each of us a fried egg on fried bread and a plate of bread and dripping all washed down with a cup of tea. Most of the cups in our house were either cracked or chipped but who noticed? We certainly didn’t because if you hesitated to eat or drink anything at our table the rest of the gang jumped on it and scoffed it down before you could change your mind. After ten o’clock Mass we were thrown outside to play with our pals, regardless of the weather. Then the kitchen was in full blast with the Ma’ and Da’ getting things ready for our Sunday dinner. The smell of boiling cabbage and and cow’s tongue filled every corner of our house. On the odd Sunday the Da’ would send one of the older brothers to Cafolla’s shop window on Fassaugh Avenue for a block of ice-cream and a packet of wafers. At our dinner table we looked like ‘The Waltons’ off the television. The Ma’ and Da’ sat at the top of the table facing downwards and each of us according to our age from eldest down to youngest took our rightful place around the table. We didn’t of course have enough chairs or stools for us all to sit on so most of us had to eat our dinner standing up. Now nothing in our house ever went to waste, especially when it came to food. We all had to play our part in the clean-up after dinner.
On a fine Sunday afternoon the Da’ would take a gang of us younger ones up to the Phoenix Park for a ramble. He never brought us into the Zoo, he’d have us walk around the outside and peek in through the railings at the animals. Back home my mother was busy baking a cake or two for the Sunday tea. By the time we all returned home we’d be starving again. We’d have batch loaf sandwiches filled with meat left over from the dinner, bread and margarine and a slice of my mother’s tea brack. Our teapot was actually a big old style kettle that you needed both hands to carry it to the table. Some of us would try to be posh and use a tea strainer to catch the tea leaves in. Then the Ma’ would read my sisters’ tea leaves. According to the tea leaves they should have all married tall dark strangers.
When the tea was over we’d have to do our ecker or homework for school the next day. Then it was out to play with our pals agains until Paddy Crosbie came on the old black and white television screen with ‘The School Around the Corner’. We’d all sit on the floor in front of the telly mesmerized by the culchie accents of some of the little boys and girls on the show. I remember one time there was a young boy on it who said he’d never been to the seaside, I think now that his family was from the midlands somewhere. We all laughed at the idea because we were always brought to Dollymount, how could someone never be brought to the seaside? Paddy Crosbie was great fun with kids and their funny stories, recitations and jokes.
When that was over we watched the Black and White Minstrel Show on the BBC station. The Da’ would join in singing all the ould songs and especially if they were old army songs…’Bless them all, bless them all, the long and the short and the tall…’. In my head I can still hear the Da’ singing and the Ma’ laughing at him as her knitting needles clicked and clacked in time to the music. Yes Sundays in our house in Cabra West were some of the greatest time in my young life.

First Holy Communiion Day.

Do you remember years ago when you made your First Holy Communion? That’s my little sister on the left holding her certificate. I still have my one somewhere with the promise written on the back to always say my prayers before going to bed. It was the first time in my life that I actually got to wear something that my brothers or sisters hadn’t already worn. Do you remember the kind of questions the Nun’s drilled into us?…’Who made the world’? ‘God made the world, Sister’. ‘Can God do all things’? ‘Eh yeah’. ‘What do you mean “Eh Yeah. well? With the hair standing up on the back of your neck and the pee heading south down your spindley little legs you froze in terror. Out came the brown leather strap and twice as quick out came the answer ‘God can do all things, he is almighty’.Phew, that was close. In preparation for our big day the Nun put a small piece of an ice-cream wafer on our tongues and told us to pretend it was actual Holy Communion. Well that brought the leather strap out again as some of the lads began chewing on it. God but we were innocent. We were marched in single file to the little chapel in the convent grounds to have our Confession heard. The Nun had told us that we would hear the voice of God in the confession box but to our little ears God sounded awfully like the Priest who came into our classroom to test us out with more questions. And do you remember the morning of your Communion? We were scrubbed spotless clean from head to toe and warned not to get ourselves dirty. The little young one from next door looking angelic in her white dress and new overcoat. She had a veil on her head that reminded me of all the weddings in our neighbourhood. I was only hoping to God that we weren’t getting married because she had one of those plaster patches over one eye of her glasses. The Mammy and Daddy were all spruced up and of course Granny had to come along as well. It was great because everyone kept putting money in my pockets. ‘Here you are love, there’s a little something for yourself’. Another threepenny bit would slip and slide down in my pocket and snuggle up to the pennies and halfpennies that were already there. Heading off to the convent chapel my stomach was rumbling for food. ‘Shut up moaning or you’ll get a belt’ says Granny. Then I couldn’t wait to get another piece of ice-cream wafer. All of the boys sat on one side of the chapel and the girls all sat on the other. I remember looking around to see where the Ma’ was and there she was smiling up at me like an angel from heaven. Then again we moved in single file up to the altar rail with out tongues hanging out to receive for the very first time the Body and Blood of Christ. It was white and round and didn’t look anything like the ice-cream wafer. It was also much bigger than I thought it would be. It actually filled my whole mouth and I couldn’t swallow it. Panic sets in as I begin to imagine myself having a martyrs death choking on my first piece of Holy Communion. I began to feel faint when one of the nuns gave me a shove and landed me back in my seat. Suddenly it was all over and we were outside getting photographs taken beside the little grotto with the statue of Our Lady. The Da’ was dying for a cigarette and me Granny wanted a cup of tea. I remember my mother bending down to fix my little white ankle socks that she had bought in Clery’s. The rest of the day went by in a blurr of aunties, uncles, neighbours, tea, cakes, lemonade and the back of my new shoes tearing the skin from the heel of my left foot. I don’t remember seeing much of my new suit after that but I remember my mother saying something about going to my ‘Uncle’ with it, so maybe one of my cousins got the suit. Well it’s that time of year again as my little seven year old nephew is making his First Holy Communion today. I hope he has as many memories of this special occasion as I have of mine. What was your special day like?