Throwback Thursday: Swinging ’50s in Cork, with conkers all the rage

READER John Barry was delighted with last week’s Throwback Thursday. 

“A great read, as usual, and I loved seeing the photos,” he said of the Glaheen NS pictures we ran.

I do recall a picture of myself and a few others appearing in the Echo, taken as we played conkers in the school yard. Unfortunately I have no idea where I put it.

Well, we managed to find the original picture, which was actually taken in 1955.

“I’m second on the right in that,” said Mr Barry. “One of my brothers thinks the lad on the left is Ger Coakley, who was from Model Farm Road. His father built and ran the pub at The Lough and I think Ger’s sister runs it now.”

Anyone recognise the other conker-playing kids here? Email jokerrigan1@gmail.com or leave a comment on our Facebook page.

John well remembers some of the teachers at Glasheen school mentioned last week. “Mr Crowley became the headmaster, there was Mr Holly of course, and Mr Bernie Coughlan. A Miss O’Leary taught me in the early years. I remember she lived near the Rugby Club, behind the CUH.”

With regard to the owner of The Queen’s Hotel, on the corner of Parnell Place and Merchant Quay, also mentioned last week, he writes: “Hanna Connolly was her maiden name. Her married name was Quirke, but she was better known as Connolly. One of her brothers had a pub in North Main Street. The better-known brother was Paddy Connolly who owned the hotel in Owenahincha. Anyone who ever asked in the bar ‘What time do you close?’ usually got the reply, ‘about October…’

“Paddy also owned a Ford garage in Skibbereen, while Paddy’s wife had the Motor Arms pub in Anglesey Street. That place was like a sub office to the Munster Motorcycle and Car Club at Vernon Mount as it was frequented by a lot of club members.”

John’s anecdote about the Owenahincha pub reminds this writer of the great old pub at Loo Bridge, once a stop on the Kenmare railway line (you can still see the line of the tracks running through the woods in that valley, and they DO say you can hear the ghost train at night, especially around Halloween…)

One October in the 1960s, a gang of us had just checked into the youth hostel there (now alas also gone) in the early afternoon, and went over to the pub to see whether they did food at night (a vain hope back then, but you never knew your luck). They were just putting up the shutters. Afternoon break, we thought, but then checked for safety. 

“When do you open again?” A pause from the elderly lady cleaning the counter. “About May, I suppose…”

Crisis! A swift call to a friend in Ballyvourney saved our bacon (and our pints) as the great old Mills Inn stayed open ALL the year! Sixty years on, thanks Jim!

Fintan Bloss was also interested in the story on Merchant’s Quay last week, and thoughtfully sent us a page from a 1941 Cork directory which he thought might be of interest. And it certainly will be, Fintan.

What fascinating detail it gives on who lived or carried on a business there, where exactly, and what they did.

These old directories are wonderful mines of information. Mr Bloss is fortunate enough to own a copy of this particular tome, but you can look up many of them online at the city or county libraries.

Just look at what is represented there at Merchants Quay in days gone by. Shipping agents, a shipsmith (very necessary in a busy port), ironmongers, sheet metal workers, harness makers, plumbers and gas fitters, all reflecting local services for local needs.

Also, entertainment, sustenance and cultural life too - a great many vintners, tea merchants, and fruit stores.

There was also The Central Lending Library (prop Mrs Lynch) where busy workers could presumably pop in to change their novels. (Hey, does anyone remember a tiny lending library on the corner of Patrick Street and Daunt’s Square/Grand Parade? Opposite side to Woodford Bourne’s? In the 1950s, it would lend out books from its scant supply at 2d or 3d a time. The decorative red brick tiny corner structure is still there.)

Also on that list of old traders, Mrs Long’s Refreshment Rooms, where she was assisted in dealing out the plates of stew by Mrs O’Neill and Miss O’Connor.

Magahy’s organ factory appears too. This was the renowned T. W. Magahy, who in 1889 undertook the mammoth task of moving the huge and splendid instrument at St Fin Barre’s Cathedral from the west gallery where it had originally been placed (but where it was badly situated for accompanying the choir in the east gallery), to a specially dug 14’ pit in the north transept, so that only the tops of the tallest pipes now showed.

Moving a big organ was no easy task - remember the kerfuffle that surrounded the removal of the great old Hammond at the Savoy, where Fred Bridgeman delighted audiences for so long?

Even the legendary Crowley’s musical instrument shop was here on Merchants Quay in 1941, listed, interestingly, as a bagpipe maker! Now, we wonder if that was for the Scottish blowing type or the more traditional Irish uileann pipe?

Sheena, daughter of Michael Crowley, and now the proud proprietor of the reopened Crowley’s in the new location of Friar Street - do you have any of the old records which might show the creation of bagpipes? Do tell us, please!

And the Lee Hotel on the corner of Parnell Place is listed as being owned or run by a Mary O’Connor. Now was that a misprint for Hannah Connolly (mentioned higher up the page) or did one take over from the other?

So many fun questions, sending the avid researcher into local history off on yet another winding laneway!

Incidentally, we have been wondering for some time whether ‘Merchant Quay’ or ‘Merchants’ Quay’ is the correct nomenclature.

According to that directory, the street behind was Merchant Street, but the quay itself was Merchants (no apostrophe). But then, those names probably changed many times over the centuries that Cork carried on its business by the river. After all, Merchant Street was formerly Fish Street (can’t you visualise the barrels of herrings and sprats, the water flowing down the cobbled gutter, the raucous cries of the women selling “Fresh fish, caught today!”?)

And Merchants Quay ran from Patrick Street to Warren Place, not Parnell Place. We did know Parnell Place was called something else in earlier times - what was it now? Oh yes - Cold Harbour originally, echoing what must have been a tidal fact of life, followed by Nelson’s Quay, commemorating a British hero (we were the biggest victualling harbour for the English fleet at the time), and then Warren’s Place.

Any clues to the identity of Warren out there ? Do let us know!

On the topic of schooling, and particularly the Christian Brothers, who have had a less than positive airing at times in these pages, Tim Morley has written to balance the scales a little.

“Just a thought which you might think worth passing on. I went to ‘The Quay’ (Sullivan’s Quay CBS), and ended up thinking quite benevolently about the brothers. Then the scandals started coming in, and the response of their heads was not very skilled, I have to say.

“But I got to thinking about them and my time there, and realised that, apart from a disastrous small percentage (par for the course, I would think, where forced celibacy exists?) they have in fact done a great job for Ireland (and myself).

“For my part, I think the Christian Brothers have been hard done by historically. In particular some of their teachers were brilliant.

“In Pres, they claimed that Freddy Holland was the best Maths teacher in Ireland.

“For my part, I would have said that a Bro McInerney was the best general secondary teacher in Ireland. George Duncan might want to throw in his comments, Denis O Sullivan was a lecturer in Education at UCC, an academic source on the subject, (Also, Joe Lee, that great and celebrated historian, was contemporaneous, at Synge Street CBS, the top CB school.)”

Tim makes some very valid points and we would like to know if others feel strongly that they got an excellent education from the Christian Brothers. It is only fair to put both sides of the discussion on the page, and we would very much like to hear from you.

And, finally, once more we are back to that popular theme of the street photographers of the ’40s and ’50s, with a charming picture sent in by Pat Kelly.

“Hello Jo.,” he writes, “I thought you might be interested in a photo of my brother and I, taken by a street photographer at the Victoria Hotel in Patrick Street in 1947. I am on the right, and, just at my brother’s head is the 50 Shilling Tailors, frequented by many men of the city. I think it later became Porters, a newsagents and card shop.” (Well, that too is now gone, Pat.)

Pat tells us that he had a head of blond curls at the time, “and I hated them, as women would coo over me and pretend to take a curl!”

Well, we have to admit you do look adorable in the photo, Pat, and you can’t blame the ladies for stopping to stroke your head. (Although, in today’s over-sensitive society, that would probably cause trouble!)

And hey, Pat, we’ve just noticed, your brother has one sock up and the other down!

Keeping your socks up was always a problem. Remember the Just William books, where boys still wore garters for that purpose, but the bold hero was always taking them off to use as catapults or other far more important projects?

You all have memories of those golden days of childhood, whether it was pulling your socks up or dodging the caresses of doting ladies, sitting in a classroom or wandering down the old lanes of our fabled city.

Please share them with us! Others will love to read them and recapture their own younger days.

Email jokerrigan1@gmail.com. Or leave a comment on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/echolivecork.