Archive (186 life histories found)
'Another entertainment popular with our contemporaries was the new craze of Ballad Singing '
We got engaged on 24th August 1965 and celebrated with dinner in the Metropole restaurant. The Metropole was an entertainment complex with Ballroom, Restaurant and Cinema all under one roof. The engagement ring cost ԣ120.00, as small fortune in…
'The flats in Dublin at that time had to be experienced to be believed '
When I first met her Sheila was living in 'digs' in Mountjoy Street, very close to the City centre. She was working in Bailey Gibson on the South Circular Road. Later she moved to a flat in Stamer street on the South Circular Road. In none of these…
'Dates involved a trip to 'The Pictures' or going dancing in one of the many venues around the city '
Dating was a complicated business in those days. In the first place the meeting place said a lot about the people involved. Country people or Culchies as they were known met at Nelson's Pillar or under the clock at Clery's department store. This was…
'Arriving home in the early morning I noticed that the blinds in the front room were pulled down. This was a common sign of a death in the house '
I had, until this period, no direct experience of the death of a close family member. At the age of seven my baby brother Brendan died, but we were protected by our parents from detailed knowledge of this tragic affair. Family lore has it that my…
Tags: cemetery, cowboy, death, father, Television
'Asking a girl out on a date was a tricky proposition if you did not know where she lived '
Dating was a much more innocent affair in those days. No 'Good' girl would allow even the most chaste kiss on a first date and sex, a word which was not allowed in decent company, was reserved for after marriage. All the expenses in relation to the…
Tags: Courting, Dance, dance steps, Dating, sex
'I now had money enough to go to the pictures on a regular basis and I also took to dancing in the various dance halls '
Arriving in Cathal Brugha Street for the first time we came into close contact with girls who were not related to us or from our immediate neighbourhood. The effect was astonishing. There was one of the cooks who hailed from the Aran Islands and as…
Tags: cinema, Dance, Showband, social life
'Petty thievery was endemic on the docks as containers did not exist then and all goods which arrived were essentially unpacked '
The metalwork teacher at one point told me that I should not plan on making my living out of metalwork. It's ironic that for many years in later life I made a good living out of making, selling and designing aluminium window systems. I often wonder…
Tags: cargo, Docklands, Emigration, ships, thievery
'This dangerous practice continued until a school mate had three fingers blown off '
Around this time a new street game gained popularity. Somebody discovered that if you mixed Sodium Chloride (at that time a common weed killer) and sugar and placed it in a lead pipe with both ends hammered shut, then built a small fire around it you…
Tags: bomb, explosion, friends, IRA, secondary school
'But nothing daunted I pulled up my trouser legs and leaving my shoes and socks on the bank ventured into the canal '
My second experience in the canal was not so much a swim as a wading exercise. I was in North Strand Technical School. The journey from my house to the school took me along the banks of the canal from Jones Road to North Strand. One day in early…
Tags: bag, canal, secondary school
'My family circumstances, as I said earlier, were better than most of my contemporaries so I was not obliged to join the workforce '
Leaving primary school age was twelve and a half or thirteen years, some went on to secondary school, others went straight into the work force. Economic necessity in many families in the middle 1950s dictated that all who could, contributed to the…
Tags: scholar, secondary school, technical school