Throwback Thursday: Cork school days, and exploding milk bottles

READER Pat O’Reilly has written with sincere apologies to say that the picture he sent us last week, purporting to be of the 1955 confirmation class at Glasheen School, was in fact of an earlier grouping.

“I sent you the wrong one! The photo shown is the 1952 Communion Class with its teacher Miss Murphy,” said Pat.

“The photograph was taken in the field behind the Old School. One of those guys in the photograph texted it to me and asked ‘Is that you in the second row?’ The names given were the correct ones for 1955, but not the picture.”

Not to worry, Pat, accidents happen in the best regulated households, or, as my mother used to say placidly, “Could happen a bishop!”

Here, then, is that 1955 Confirmation class on the facing page, with Mr Holly standing at the back on the right.

“Some of the 1952 gang come up again in the 1955 class,” says Pat.

Mike English was entertained by last week’s discussion of Glasheen NS and teacher Joe Holly, and from his own considerable archives he sends a few pictures which he thinks might be of interest.

He includes a Confirmation photo from 1953 with Mr Holly and the following pupils.

Back row: Martin Mannion, Michael Beamish, Sean O’Sullivan, Eamonn Casey, Pat Duggan, Paddy Tracey.

Second row from back. Tommy Lonergan, Dan O’Connor, Paudie Murphy, Jack Matson, Michael Dillane, Billy Murphy, Jack O’Herlihy, Donal Cronin, Richard Dineen, John O’Lehan, Noel Dooley.

Third row from back: Anthony O’Connell, Jim Quinn, Gerry Mohally, Con Harrington, Jim Dineen, John Fraher, Michael English, Eddie Finn, Finbarr O’Donovan.

Sitting. Michael Bogue, Kieran O’Regan, Hugh Devlin, Noel Daly, Barry Ahern, Denis O’Donovan, Michael O’Mahony, Barry Roche, Finbarr Desmond, Connie Forde.

Kneeling: Charlie Coughlan, Con Murphy Alec Rea.

Mike himself is in that confirmation picture and says: “I left around 1954 and always had a lot of respect for Joe Holly. He was just ‘different,’ though the other teachers were good too.

Those I remember were Mr O’Brien, headmaster, who was replaced by Mr John Crowley. Miss Murphy, Miss Ahern, Mr O’Tuama, Dick Donegan (of guitar and concert fame), and Bernie Coughlan.

Mike also sent a picture of the unveiling of a plaque in 2019 on the site of the original school.

In the picture with Lord Mayor Cllr Mick Finn are the now past principals of the girls’ and boys’ schools, Angela Lynch and Michael Daly, with Joe Holly’s daughters, Mary and Margaret.

John Barry was also delighted to see Mr Holly mentioned last week.

“He was indeed a great teacher and a nice man. If I remember correctly, he taught in the ‘New School’ up the hill.

“When I started in Glasheen we were in the old school, which was located on Glasheen Road, opposite where Clashduv Road is now. It was a very old building. The toilet in the yard consisted of walls only. A small square building with no roof. We only had about three teachers there.”

John says that he was one of what was called ‘the country boys’.

“When I started, I lived in Model Farm Road which was countryside in the early 1950s, but soon we moved out to the Ballinhassig region.

“Myself and some neighbours got the bus to Wilton Cross and walked down.

“Us country boys were always reminded about midday to put our milk bottles by the open fire behind the teacher to heat the milk. Many a time someone forgot to loosen the cork of the bottle and after a while at the fire the cork flew like a rocket!”

At that time, John recalls, each week they spent a few hours bundling old newspaper “as the Bishop had come up with a scheme to sell old paper to raise money”.

By the way, he adds, “I bought my first pair of wheels from your brother, Tommy. We were classmates at the Crawford and I saw your father Joey daily, but was never in his class, more’s the pity!”

But the wheels, John, the wheels? What were they?

“An Austrian-made moped, a 50cc Puch. I sold a transistor radio to a cousin to fund the bike. I cannot recall what it cost.”

John continues: “I was often in the bike shed with Tommy on Summerhill, and I used to see this tall schoolgirl in, I seem to remember, a green St Angela’s uniform, pass down to the house. It was you of course.

I really enjoy the Throwback Thursday articles. If you ever decide to put them together in a book it would be great. Keep ’er lit!

And then John remembered an old photo he had which he thought would interest readers, and are we glad he sent it on! It’s an utterly marvellous panorama of Merchants Quay as she used to be in all her historic charm (admittedly a little ravaged by age but still wonderful) before progress cruelly swept all that history away and replaced it with bulging red anonymity.

Look at it! You can even see the side lanes leading down to Merchant Street which ran behind. That street has been obliterated, and no trace remains on the Patrick Street side, where the famous Tivoli shop and restaurant used to stand. (You can still see its first few yards on Parnell Square, though, just to the side of what was once Roches Stores car park, and its name plaque is still in place. Go look before that disappears too.)

And the forgotten connecting lanes and alleyways are part of history too.

Thomas Street ran down from the quay between a garage and Sheehan & Sullivan coal merchants, and North Street ran from the quay via Fish Lane, also to Merchant Street.

Are the echoes still there, beneath all that red brick and concrete, of older footfalls and voices? Listen out for them.

John also managed, after some searching, to find an image of part of an article which showed that original quayside at the top, with the new anonymous monster that stands there now, at the bottom.

There was no date or other identification on the partial news cutting, so we called in our features editor, John Dolan, who immediately identified it as having appeared as a centre spread in the Holly Bough a decade or so ago.

What was fascinating about that article was the list it gave of the businesses and industries which once thrived along Merchants Quay (indeed giving it its proud name.)

Starting from Parnell Place, it lists Queen’s Hotel on the corner, followed by Jack Kelleher’s pub, Bogan’s undertakers, Wm McBride’s hardware, Meehan’s tailors, Wickham’s tinsmiths, the legendary Crowley’s music shop (where Rory Gallagher bought that Stratocaster in 1963), St Vincent’s Hostel, Foreman & Sons, a confectioner’s, Automotive Services, Kilgrew’s, McGregor’s electrical, Riordan’s pub (with restaurant overhead), Triumph garage (with Moriarty barber overhead), Sheehan & Sullivan coal merchants, Sayers forage and electrical, the main Kilgrews, O’Sullivan’s brush manufacturers, the Universal pub, the Pig & Whistle pub, Mrs Leahy’s restaurant, the Bull’s Head pub, and Cork Gas Co.

The men’s public convenience on the quay near here was still standing when the picture was taken; wasn’t there one for women across on Lavitt’s Quay?

John Barry adds that the woman who owned the Queens Hotel was Hanna Connolly, “and she also owned the Southern Hotel which was on the Grand Parade near the back entrance to St Augustine’s”.

So many businesses and well known names, so many providers of the basics of everyday life. The many pubs are evidence of the work that went on along this quay for over a century and a half, with boats being loaded or unloaded, fishermen bringing in their catch, sailors searching for a peaceful pint - all the crowded activity of a living breathing quayside. And our city fathers wiped it all away.

Back then - and this is important - everything faced on to the quay, looked out at the Lee and its constant activities. Now everything looks inward. Why should that be? Cork wouldn’t be here if it were not for our great river.

A Norwegian friend visiting was surprised to see life had almost departed from the quay side (apart from multitudes hurrying past from one enclave to another), whereas in their river cities it congregates there, constituting the chief attraction of the area. Isn’t it time we tried to recapture some of the beauty and charm of old Cork?

Michael Ryan writes to say he was browsing through The Echo the other evening and noted a story about the plight of publicans, as excise duty was going up again.

  The number of pubs that closed in the last 12 months is frightening. And Cork was the worst! We had 54 out of the 108 that closed across the whole country.

He realises that the cost of living is affecting everyone, but when you lose one of those venerable houses, you lose so much in the way of companionship, history, and neighbourliness.

We agree, Michael. So many of the legendary pubs of Cork city alone have disappeared.

Many will remember Kealy’s on Faulkener’s Lane (for heaven’s sake, even the lane has gone, where once the lorries loaded up with that evening’s edition of the Echo), and who recalls The Grand Circle, on Emmet Place? That one down off Coburg Street where the owner used to go in and restrain the greyhounds in the gents when anyone wanted to use the facilities? Mrs Hyde’s establishment on the Lower Glanmire Road, near the Harbour Commissioners, where the lady herself would sit on the steep enclosed wooden staircase and bump herself down at night to deal with customers?

As Jimmy Crowley sang in one version of The Boys Of Fair Hill:

If you want to join our club,

Come right down to Hyde’s pub...

I’m sure you all remember many more and the stories that went with them.

Email your memories to jokerrigan1@gmail. com or leave a comment on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/echolivecork.