Archive (1372 life histories found)
'To get a mortgage was difficult; you needed a long history of saving in one of the building societies '
A year later we bought 16 Rowanbyrn in Blackrock for £9,800. We got the maximum mortgage of £7,000 (you were only allowed 70% of purchase price and also the husband's salary was only considered in calculating what repayments would be possible). At…
'It was almost obligatory then to have a child quickly, otherwise there might be a suggestion of caution or prevention.'
Family life started on Bloody Monday 1972 (day after Bloody Sunday) at 39 Mount Merrion Avenue. We had rented an unfurnished apartment on the top floor of this very cold and draughty house. It was carpeted (cheaply) and an open fire fireplace. The…
Tags: children, contraception, family, family planning, sex
'It was hard work. We learned it all together through life, never read 'the manual '
We had no sexual relationship before marriage and on our wedding day one of her married brothers took me aside and told me not to rush sex, to leave it for a day or two until we were both ready. We were married in Donnybrook Church on 15th January…
'Even budding professors were as innocent as I was.'
Still involved in youth clubs I went to a weekend conference in Red Island holiday camp in Skerries. It was for the youth leaders from all the Dublin youth clubs. At that time all youth leadership was voluntary, the idea of being paid was…
'Living in the flat in Dublin, usually 4 or 5 of us was the University of my Life'
I moved out of the uncle's house in September 1962 and into a flat with four pals, all studying in UCD. This flat existed with all of us coming and going until 1972 at various addresses mostly in Rathmines. Although my formal education stopped at…
Tags: development, Education, Learning
'I spent about 10 years in youth work like this and it was there I developed'
Since business was so static and challenges so few I got involved socially in a boys' club run by Past Castleknock Men in Benburb Street. This was in the model of Belvedere Newsboys and several others and was a place where the boys from Benburb St…
Tags: boxing, boy's club, development, Learning, summer camp
'... you had to get the operator to get you through and this was both to get a line and also to rouse the Lifford post office.'
My position on being sent to the Dublin sales office was Gopher. I had to go for the uncle's car and bring it to the door, I had to deliver all the Dublin sales and always have a gallon of paraffin to light the smelly paraffin stoves in the two…
Tags: communication, employment, phone, telephones, work
'...if you touched anything that 'didn't belong to you ' you went straight to Hell'
I fancied a bird in Macroom (Cork) just after this, not the most convenient place as I was working in Donegal. She was eldest of a large family (7), both parents dead, the family being looked after by 'Aunt Agnes' from Cork. Aunt Agnes was from…
'This was before any knowledge of contraception.'
When I was perhaps 27/28 I met a girl who was more sexually advanced. She would let you put your hand up her frock. I had never experienced this and the consequences were quite a shock to me. I decided after several bouts of this that perhaps I…
Tags: contraception, sex, sexual relationships, sexuality
'You might get to hold hands and possibly a kiss on the cheek in extenuating circumstances'
Finding a wife was a difficult business for me. I was super-sensitive and a denial hurt greatly. So pre-occupied were we all between the Boys' Club and the flat where we lived, talked, and partied, however innocently. I couldn't be frivolous,…