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A Williamson registering bell punch, the type once used in the Steam Packet office in Patrick Street, Cork city, as an easy way of accounting for the cash collected<\/p>\nThis writer was giving a talk in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, last week (on fairy forts, in case you were wondering).<\/p>\n
I met a perfectly lovely lady, born and bred in Cork but now living up there, who avowed that she simply loves Throwback Thursday and reads it online every single week, \u201cas I can\u2019t get The Echo up here!\u201d<\/p>\n
That was really nice to hear, and I hope said lady gets in touch with us on this page right away, to share her own memories of growing up by the Lee.<\/p>\n
Isn\u2019t it great to know this column is enjoyed everywhere?<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Throwback Thursday reader Cyril McIntyre has written to add to M\u00edche\u00e1l Kenefick\u2019s memories of the \u2018all-in\u2019 special trains from Cork to rugby matches in Dublin, and the great days of dining cars.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis recollections reminded me of the late John Connolly, the doyen of the team of railway catering services attendants, who sadly passed away in November of last year,\u201d recalled Cyril.<\/p>\n
\u201cJohn was an institution on the Cork to Dublin trains, and became a legend in his own lifetime.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had a warm, welcoming demeanour, greeting every passenger in the dining car. He served business people, families on shopping trips, and \u2018emigrants\u2019 from Cork like myself commuting home at weekends, with care and courtesy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cyril adds: \u201cI always felt that I was already at home when I heard John\u2019s distinctive voice taking orders for \u2018high tea\u2019 or the \u2018mixed grill\u2019 as the 18.45 from Heuston sped across the Curragh plains.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter he retired from Irish Rail, John joined the staff of the Kingsley Hotel as concierge. His daughter Fiona continues the transport tradition; she works in Bus \u00c9ireann at Capwell, where I started my own transport career in the summer of 1959.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cyril remembers the names of some of John\u2019s colleagues on the trains – Connie O\u2019Leary, Paddy Russell, Mick Brehony, and Christy Maher.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe buffet in Kent Station was managed by Mary Cahill,\u201d he said, \u201cwho later moved to Dublin to manage the mezzanine restaurant in Bus\u00e1ras.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cyril then moves on to memories of another mode of transport – ferries.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mentioned the extra ticket which had to be bought at busy times when travelling on the Innisfallen to Fishguard and also on the Liverpool boat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was officially termed a \u2018Sailing Ticket\u2019, priced in the 1950s at one shilling. Only the number of tickets equal to the seating accommodation were printed for each sailing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember that in the Steam Packet office in Patrick Street, these tickets were punched on issue by a Williamson registering bell punch, mounted on the wall behind the counter, of the same type as used on the country buses; this was an easy way of accounting for the cash collected.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Williamson registering bell punch, the type once used in the Steam Packet office in Patrick Street, Cork city, as an easy way of accounting for the cash collected<\/p>\n
Bless you, Cyril! Great detail.<\/p>\n
Gosh, Kent Station was such a familiar part of my growing up on Summerhill, right above, looking down on the big yard where in those days you actually could park quite easily.<\/p>\n
The big gates labelled Isteach and Amach. The sounds of the trains arriving, departing, shunting, whistling (later hooting), were an integral part of our everyday life, like the sounds of the city itself spread out below. (We always used to say that we could hear the city \u2018breathing\u2019 from our eyrie on Summerhill.)<\/p>\n
Many\u2019s the time I nipped down to the station at teatime to buy the Echo. And as children, often we would go down there later in the evening, just to wander around, admire the splendid vintage locomotive still on display, and maybe expend a penny on the machine that printed out metal names and addresses, presumably for parcels being posted.<\/p>\n
And the late evening train to Dublin had a special letter box on the side where, if you added an extra halfpenny stamp, it would be sorted en route, and delivered in the metropolis next morning.<\/p>\n
You could also use a halfpenny stamp on a letter for local delivery dropped in the box at the sorting office in Brian Boru Street in the morning, and it would arrive with the afternoon post.<\/p>\n
Oh, can you remember the glory days of two postal deliveries?<\/p>\n
And thank-you so much, Cyril, for identifying those all-important sailing tickets for the Innisfallen! Now if you could just remember the fare…<\/p>\n
Cyril was quick to reply.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cAh yes… I remember that machine in the station, and also a weighing machine which printed your weight on a card the same size as a railway ticket!\n <\/p>\n
\u201cGoing through some old guide books passed down from my father, I found a Ward Lock Guide To South West Ireland dated 1947. It quotes the following return fares from London Paddington to Cork, via Fishguard and the Innisfallen to Cork.<\/p>\n
\u201cI suspect that the single fares would have been about two-thirds of the return fares, as return fares were often calculated at single fares plus 50%.\u201d<\/p>\n
First Class throughout \u00a35<\/p>\n
Third Class throughout \u00a32\/19\/10<\/p>\n
Third Class Rail & First Class Boat \u00a33\/15\/7<\/p>\n
\u201cIncidentally,\u201d points out Cyril, \u201cthe same guide book quotes 9\/6 for bed & breakfast in the Metropole.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the years, unfortunately, compilers of guide books ceased to include details of fares, hotel rates, etc, as they were subject to increases and could not be kept up to date.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Pauline Pithon (nee Buckley) who lives in Wales, but came to visit relatives here every year in her childhood, wrote to us too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI shall be interested to see if anyone can come up with those Innisfallen fares,\u201d said Pauline.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe sailed annually from summer, 1948, to 1966 (I received my A level results at my grandmother\u2019s house in Monkstown), but I have no idea of the cost. I know my mother used to book early as she needed those extra tickets you mentioned \u2013 they were called sailing tickets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pauline has other memories too, related to recent topics in Throwback Thursday.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cAll the stuff about the dances strikes a chord too. I had much the same experience with my cousins in Askeaton.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were local dances every weekend but we also used to go all the way to Ballybunion when we could get a lift.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur driver was a neighbour\u2019s daughter – around the same age as us, i.e, late teens. She used to borrow her father\u2019s enormous Mercedes and cram several of us into it before setting off along the winding country roads.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt must have taken about a hour or so to get there. That\u2019s where we would see the showbands. In Askeaton, it was often the ceilidh which we all loved too.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cA big contrast for me, coming over from the discos in London where the boys were much more interested in their image and did you a big favour dancing with you!\n <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen my cousin and her college friends came over to London to earn money in the summer holidays, they used to take me to the famous Galtymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Love the images you create with your memories, Pauline. Especially the London boys who were more interested in their own image than in the girls!<\/p>\n
Cyril McIntyre has also been doing some thinking about our traditional Irish dances and where they came from.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour reference to the origins of the Walls of Limerick, etc, reminded me that The Gaelic League banned the traditional set dances, which had always been a feature of house dances, from their c\u00e9il\u00eds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember my mother, who grew up in the West Waterford Breach-Ghaeltacht in the 1920s, telling me that they were not allowed to dance the set dances at Gaelic League functions.<\/p>\n
\u201cOld time waltzes were also banned. It was the same in An R\u00e9alt… when we had the R\u00e9alt week in Br\u00fa na Gr\u00e1ige we learned and danced the Kerry Sets, but on returning home we were not allowed to dance them at the R\u00e9alt c\u00e9il\u00eds!!<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking back, it seems to me that some people\u2019s definitions of Irish culture were somewhat restrictive and indeed divisive. Thankfully, the set dances have enjoyed a revival in popularity in more recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really have no idea what motivated these \u2018bans\u2019! It seems something similar to the old GAA ban on \u2018foreign games\u2019 which again was divisive. The set dances were part and parcel of the traditional culture of rural Ireland going back for generations, but it seems that some of the people involved in the Gaelic League had a very narrow view of what constituted Irish culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cPossibly the influence of the clergy had something to do with it as well… remember the \u2018no dances during Lent\u2019 rule?\u201d<\/p>\n
And we have heard again from that great local historian Pat Kelly in Blackrock.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Throwback Thursday feature on our trains, and especially that picture of Clontarf Bridge, where the West Cork trains crossed to Albert Quay, brought back so many memories \u2013 especially when the ship The City of Cork rammed it, and caused so much damage that traffic chaos ensued for many years. Was that in 1965?<\/p>\n
\u201cThose train tracks across the bridge caused me to be a regular customer of Jack Healy in MacCurtain Street! Many\u2019s the wet morning I remember where the back wheel of my bike would slip on the iron rail and get buckled. Jack Healy would replace the wheel in his bike shop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who remembers the advertising jingle used by Healy\u2019s back when McCurtain Street was a wonderful Mecca of different shops?<\/p>\n
\n When I was a lad\n <\/p>\n
\n I went with my dad\n <\/p>\n
\n To buy a bike\n <\/p>\n
\n From Jack Healy\u2019s.\n <\/p>\n
\n Now I\u2019m a dad,\n <\/p>\n
\n And I take my little lad\n <\/p>\n
\n To buy a bike\n <\/p>\n
\n From Jack Healy\u2019s!\n <\/p>\n
\u201cYou also mentioned our Taoiseach\u2019s father, Paddy Martin, a heavyweight boxer,\u201d adds Pat. \u201cPaddy was in the army boxing team of heavyweights, middleweights and welterweights. My dad, Jack Kelly, also boxed on the sane team as a welterweight and amassed many trophies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thank-you for those recollections Pat, more power to your memories!<\/p>\n
You will recall that a week or so ago we were talking about the Cavern club on Leitrim Street, and all the groups who played there, especially Rory Gallagher and The Taste. Kieran Madden found that this reminded him of a visit to the rather more famous place across the water in Liverpool:<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 1963, my insurance company employer in Cork sent me on an eight-week course to Hoylake near Liverpool, six weeks till around end of July, and two weeks in September. The Cavern is the stand-out memory of that time.<\/p>\n
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The Beatles in Liverpool\u2019s Cavern Club around 1961, with Pete Best then on drums. A Cork man recalls visiting the city in1963, and narrowly missing seeing the band play the venue for the last time<\/p>\n
\u201cThe impact of the location itself on that first visit with the beautiful wham of hot sweaty air and deafening sound coming up the steps leading down on reaching the entrance, was just mighty. Great groups – The Mersey Beats, the Nomads, etc.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe Beatles last played there on August 3, 1963. I was there on July 27, but had to return to Cork, getting back on August 3, their last Cavern date. It still kills me that I missed them by just a week. I was back for the couple of weeks in September and the Cavern was still rocking. What a venue!\u201d\n <\/p>\n
Well, at least you experienced the place, Kieran, and you are to be envied for that. Almost compares with Johnny Campbell sharing living quarters underneath the stage of a club in Hamburg with Rory Gallagher a year or two later! What was it like, we onlookers ask breathlessly. What were those places really like? Hot and sweaty, according to Kieran Madden. Fairly dark and crowded, as Johnny recalls. But when you\u2019re young and life is all there before you, who cares!<\/p>\n