Rory & Ita Read online

  He remembers the Centenary of Catholic Emancipation, in 1929. ‘The bunting and yellow and white papal flags all over the place, and that kind of a general air of excitement. And the badge. There were two kinds, two levels of badge. There was a bronze-coloured one, the cheaper one, and then one with enamel. And it had a broken bell with Saoirse Eireann* on it.’

  He remembers his Uncle Jem, his mother’s brother, Jem Mullally, visiting the house. ‘He worked in Boland’s bakery and he’d arrive now and again with a little sack of bread. And my memory is that there was always a caraway seed cake in that load of bread. The caraway seeds had a special taste.’ He remembers eating bread and jam and eating Post Toasties for breakfast. ‘They were an American cereal thing, in a packet, like the kids eat now.’ He got the Tiger Tim comic every week.

  He travelled on his father’s steam tram to Tallaght, to visit his grandfather, his mother’s father, Johnny Mullally. ‘He was a big man with a hat, in the back yard, in the hay shed. I remember him pushing us into the hay and breaking his heart laughing. He had no teeth. He’d be laughing, a big man, and he’d take delight in knocking us down into the hay, and us getting back up again. That’s my vague memory of him.’ And he went further on his father’s tram, with his mother and Breda and, later, sisters Aileen and Nancy, all the way to the terminus at Poulaphouca. They’d have a picnic there. ‘There was a lady there who ran a tea rooms. We called her Aunty Pinchie. The place is still there but, I daresay, she’s not. But that was the highlight, the tea rooms.’

  His first school was the Presentation Convent, on Terenure Road West. He doesn’t remember his first day and he doesn’t remember the teachers. ‘Just people walking in and out and green paint on the walls and drawings, on brown copybook covers, on the walls of the classroom.’

  There are stories that he associates with that house in Terenure. He heard them years later, from his mother. ‘When I’d go to visit her, she’d start talking, and I learnt more in those hours than I did when I was living there. But she told me about how I’d come home and tell her about this bold boy and he was frightening the sheep and annoying the men and it was terrible. So, she said, “One day, I don’t know what put it into my head to go up and meet you coming from school. And there I saw you with your coat over your head and you making flapping noises and the sheep scattered all over Terenure.” Of course, there was little or no traffic then, you know, the odd electric tram. The sheep were all over the street and the drovers were using bad language and calling me all sorts of names. But I was the culprit and she found me out.’ And there was the story about his mother looking for turf. ‘There was a coal strike. You absolutely depended on coal, for heating, cooking, and there was no coal available. Now, I don’t know why my grandfather in Tallaght, who was a coal merchant, couldn’t get coal, and the landlord was a coal merchant, so it must have been a general shortage of coal. And she said she’d have to get turf, and she knew there was a turf accountant up the street and she didn’t know what a turf accountant was, nothing about betting or bookies. She thought a turf accountant was some kind of a country turf merchant. So she went in and asked for a sack of turf, and cost, to great merriment among the locals who knew my father.’ His father loved horses and greyhounds. ‘He was an expert, a very shrewd operator. Small bets, and that was how he got into trouble over the Grand National. In 1929 it was, I think. My mother saw the name of the horse, Tipperary Tim, and because my father’s name was Tim she decided to go wild and she bet a shilling, and she gave it to my father and told him to put it on Tipperary Tim. Now, he knew all about horses and he knew that Tipperary Tim, at 100–1, wouldn’t be there. So he put it on another horse; he knew better. And the only horse that finished the Grand National that year was Tipperary Tim, at 100–1. And my mother was waiting for the five pounds. When my mother lamented her lamentations were loud. She called my father all the names.’

  There is one more Terenure memory. He remembers dismantling, ‘very expertly, the alarm clock. Now, alarm clocks were a luxury item in those days. An awful lot of people depended on the neighbours to be banging on the window or the door, so you were high up on the ladder with an alarm clock of your own. My father had to be up to go to work, and there was a bit of noise generated when it was found dismantled, so all I said was, I was mending it. All around me, I can still see the bits and pieces; I think I did it with a knife – I was able to undo all the screws.’

  In 1929, his Grandfather Mullally died. ‘I remember his funeral. That was high drama. My older cousins were distraught. They made more noise, hullabalooing and screeching for my grandfather who had looked after them and they were very fond of.’ The Doyles moved from their house in Terenure to Tallaght, so that his mother could run the family coal business. ‘We were a self-contained family in Terenure. There was only my mother, my father, myself and my sisters. When we moved to the house in Tallaght there was the six of us, and more to come, and Aunt Lil, and Uncle Bob, and my cousins, the two Kellys, Jack and Hugh, and, eventually, four more cousins, the Poyntons. I don’t know where we all slept. I do know that only a couple of years ago I started laughing; I was in the bedroom here, and I suddenly realised that this was the first time I could point at the bed and say, “That’s my bed.”’

  * Rory O’Connor (1883–1922): born in Dublin; wounded in the 1916 Rising; interned; IRA Director of Engineering, 1919–21; rejected the Treaty, 1921; took a leading part in establishing an anti-Treaty Republican garrison at the Four Courts, April 1922; surrendered, June 1922; executed, December the 8th, 1922.

  * The cottage was behind what is today Cheeverstown Convalescent Home.

  † She died in 1952.

  * Army barracks and prison camp.

  * Royal Irish Constabulary.

  † Today, the house is the Tallaght Credit Union.

  * The cottage was a few hundred yards from Ita’s home in Brighton Gardens.

  * Freedom of Ireland.

  Chapter Three – Ita

  ‘There was a lady at the corner of the street, a widow, and, now and again, she’d go mad and she’d throw statues, always religious statues, out through the window and they’d land at the path opposite and smash, and nobody paid any heed to this. She’d come out the next day and everyone would say “Good morning,” or “Good evening,” and nobody would say, “What happened to you that you threw the statues out?”’

  She loved the street. ‘I don’t think the winter kept me in. We just wrapped up and went out; the weather meant nothing to us.’ Her great friends were Doris and Marie Sullivan, who lived next door, in No. 26, and her best friend was Noeleen Hingerty, who lived opposite, in No. 4. There were other children from up and down the street, the Kerrigans and the Fays and the Murphys. They all grew up together. They played with wooden hoops, and sticks. They could beat the hoops up and down the street with no traffic to get in their way, only the odd milk float or coal cart. And there was hopscotch. ‘We drew what we used to call a piggy bed on the path and made numbers in the boxes. Then you had a piggy. It was usually a stone but we devised a thing; you put a stone in a shoe polish tin and it slid better. And I can remember once, there was a girl who lived in the street parallel to us, Oaklands Terrace, and she was forever whining. And my brother, Joe – who, I must admit, was a bit of a brat – he took the stone from her, and she set off away, “Joe Bolger took my piggy! He took my little piggy!” She ran home screaming, so somebody ran after her with the piggy because we didn’t want to get into trouble. And, of course, we had skipping ropes which we could stretch right across the street. Some could barely jump but others had dazzling performances. I was a good skipper.’

  The milkman came around on a horse-drawn float. ‘In those days you got your milk into a jug. You’d bring out your jug or he’d come in and fill it, whatever it was, a pint, two pints, and he’d always put in an extra bit which was known as the tilly,* and sometimes the tilly varied. But the churns were beautifully polished – everything was beautifully polished, absolutely spotles
s.

  ‘And then there was the coalman, Mr Nolan.* The Nolans lived in Terenure. Quite a big house they had, beside the police barracks. They actually had a ballroom in their house and we used to go up there for dancing lessons; Lillie Comerford was the dancing teacher.’ The Tontine Society also met in the ballroom, every Sunday morning. ‘The Tontine was, really, to bury people. You’d see men going in there every Sunday and paying into the Tontine, and then, when anyone died – people didn’t have spare cash and it was very important to have money to bury people and it would be a matter of pride to bury them properly. So, it was its own form of insurance.

  ‘Mr Nolan was a great big man and he was black, black and he always had a sack around his shoulders, and I don’t know why or what it was there to preserve, because underneath it was black too. Our house had no back entrance, so he used to carry the coal right through the house and on the coal day they used to put newspaper for him to step on. I don’t know what it cost; they’d pay him there and then. The milkman would be paid once a week.’

  She remembers the neighbours with great affection. ‘Such a mixture of people, all types, all religions and, I suppose, all social classes. There were two Garda sergeants, one right opposite, and one beside us, Mr Sullivan. There were Church of Ireland people, the Wilkinsons, on the other side of us, in No. 24, and every Sunday morning their window was open wide and hymns came soaring out. They had a loganberry which used to grow beside the wall and Mr Wilkinson used to put a branch over the wall, for us to take the berries, but sometimes his wife would come out and take it back. She was a very nice lady but she obviously didn’t want to share the loganberries. Mr Wilkinson’s sister was married to a man whose parents lived opposite, and they were Presbyterians. Carmichael was their name, and then further down the road there was the Holmes family and Mrs Holmes was Mr Wilkinson’s sister as well, and they were Church of Ireland. He was in Guinness. And then there was a Jewish couple past him, a Mr and Mrs Matofsky, and they had some kind of a furniture factory. And two doors from them there was another Jewish family, Mr and Mrs Morris, and then back down the road, Mrs Morris’s sister lived and she was Mrs Silverman.’ The vegetable man called once to the Silvermans and young Sammy Silverman was sent out to get the vegetables and fruit, including a pound of plums. ‘So the vegetable man weighed the plums and he gave them to Sammy and Sammy went in, and Mrs Silverman weighed them and they were light-weight, and she ran after the vegetable man and she told him that she’d weighed them and they were light-weight, and he just kept going and he shouted back, “Weigh Sammy.” Mrs Silverman used to seek refuge in Mrs Morris, her sister’s house, and I don’t know whether Mr Silverman went and got violent, or whether he just went peculiar, but they always said that it was the full moon that affected him. It could have been anything, but the moon was blamed. He came down to Mrs Morris’s house, shouting that he wanted his wife back. She always went back but, whether there was violence in it or not, I never did know. He always seemed an exceptionally quiet man to me.

  ‘There were a mother and daughter who lived down the road. They were lovely people and they were always beautifully dressed and they always appeared to have plenty of money, and there was an elegance about them. But they just disappeared overnight. Nobody knew why, and then it was discovered that they owed rent. They owed everybody, and where they went, nobody knew. They just disappeared.

  ‘And there was a lady opposite called Miss McGuirk and she had a maid, and the maid was in full regalia, and a cap with lace. Mary – I never knew her surname – was the “little maid”. Maids were often referred to as “little maids,” even when they were quite hefty lassies. Mary was small and thin. Miss McGuirk was a really nice woman, a gentle lady. Ladies did not keep lodgers; ladies had “friends,” who visited for a few days, a week, or longer. Hence the need for Mary to help out. Then Mary decided that she was going to Australia, to live with relatives who were already settled there, and Miss McGuirk decided to give a little tea party, to say goodbye to Mary. Tea parties were invariably “little”. Myself and my sister were invited. We enjoyed our tea, and handed over some small gifts and Mary told us about her proposed journey. She was very young, she was only fifteen or sixteen, and she told us that it would take her six months to get there – she was going by boat, to England and then on to Australia. And then, when Mary went, no new maid appeared.’ After Mary’s departure, there were no more lodgers. ‘But what I didn’t know was that when Miss McGuirk died, she actually died from malnutrition.

  ‘There was another couple, just the husband and wife, the Dees. They were very nice. He worked in a shop on Camden Street called Gorevan’s. It was a fine big shop and he was in the shoe department and Joe always referred to him as “the Head of the Boots”.

  ‘Joe had a satirical streak in him; there were always remarks. I always referred to him as a brat, although I got on very well with him. But he was kind of wild. He was very much the favourite. He went everywhere with my father. The funny thing is, while myself and Máire felt this, we kind of accepted it: Joe was the pet, and that was it. Anything that Daddy was going to, Joe went with him; they’d go to football matches together. But he had lots of his own friends. He wouldn’t have played in our group, except for the odd time to torment us. There was a group of boys he used to play with and I remember once they got up a soccer team and they called themselves Oakland Rovers. And my father, being such a staunch GAA man, I think he’d have dropped dead on the spot if he’d known that his son was playing soccer. But they managed to get jerseys – how Joe managed it, money-wise, I don’t know. They were green with a yellow stripe, and Joe’s jersey was hidden under his mattress and my father never found out. Now, where they played I don’t know, except that it was only on the street. One of them was Tom Hingerty, my friend Noeleen’s brother. In those days boys wore short trousers until they were in their teens and even late teens. And, for some reason, Tommy Hingerty had the nickname “Pot” Hingerty – I don’t know why. But they had a back door leading into the garden and when Pot Hingerty got his long trousers somebody drew a saucepan on the door with the long trousers coming out of it.

  ‘My sister Máire was very quiet. She was very studious; she played on the road to a certain degree but not to the extent that I played. She was more sedate and always very quiet, and her head in books from a very early age.’

  After their mother’s death, the children were looked after by a housekeeper, Miss Dunne. ‘She arrived very soon after my mother died. I thought at the time she was old but she was probably only about forty, not much more. And we also had a maid – we were spoiled. The maids came with amazing regularity but they were all lovely and they were all very nice to us.

  ‘Miss Dunne’s name was Mary Teresa but she was “Miss” Dunne. And she really did look after the four of us. She taught me lots of music hall songs, and I still remember them. Her favourite was always [sings] Joshua, Joshua, why don’t you come and see my ma, She’ll be pleased to know that you’re my best beau. Joshua, Joshua, sweet as lemon squash you are. Yes, by gosh you are – Joshua, Joshua, Joshua. And then there was another one: [sings] I’m a hoity-toity girl, A high and mighty girl. My old stick-in-the-mud took me for a wife. Fancy me wearing bags, riding bikes and smoking fags, Showing off my bits of rags at my time of life.

  ‘Miss Dunne told us that she only had one brother, Willie, and Willie was killed in the War and she hadn’t another relation in the world. And she had a boyfriend, and the boyfriend was Tom Dunning, and he lived in what was called the Hospital for the Incurables, in Donnybrook. And every Wednesday, which was her half-day, she went to visit Tom Dunning, and sometimes she’d take us with her. He had a small room and we’d go in and say hello to him. He always wore a cap – I don’t know why; I never knew if he was bald. I believe it was arthritis he had and he was very crippled, and quite a youngish face but, always, the cap. He used to lever himself out of the bed. And along the corridor there were alcoves and fires in them, and seats. We’d sit away from t
hem, so I never knew what they spoke about. But he was a very nice man, very kind and nice in every way. It was very sad, really. I remember he smoked a pipe and every Christmas my father used to send him plug tobacco, even after Miss Dunne died. She died before him. She had a heart condition. I remember her coming home one day; somebody was helping her, holding her arm – I can’t remember who. Her lips were blue and she was shaking. I didn’t understand at the time, but she’d had a heart attack. I was three when she came, and I was ten when she left. She retired. She lived in a flat further up the street. She was in hospital when she died, very soon after. I remember somebody saying, “She reached out to get a glass of water and fell dead.”’

  Dottie Mulhall was one of the maids. Unlike most of the others, Dottie wasn’t very young. ‘She would have been in her thirties. Her mother lived in a little white cottage off Terenure Road North. She was a lovely old lady, and she had a canary and we were very fond of it. We used to pick groundsel – it’s a small summer plant, a small form of dandelion – but the canary used to love the groundsel and we’d pick the groundsel just for an excuse to go in and see Mrs Mulhall. She always had lovely scones or biscuits. Joe was very fond of Dottie and Dottie spoiled him – which we were always delighted about afterwards, because when he got the arthritis he suffered so much. But at least he’d had a spoiled childhood.