Throwback Thursday: Doors left unlocked, familiar faces on the streets... my childhood in Youghal

Recent Throwback Thursday pages about Barley Cove, Crookhaven, Duke Strand, caravanning and camping, brought back a few more memories. Richard Mills recalls accidentally dropping his reading glasses overboard in Crookhaven bay, and my own father, who just happened to be swimming happily around the harbour with his oxygen tank and wetsuit, obligingly diving for them.

“Joey” was always trying out new activities (with the emphasis on the “active” since he couldn’t bear sitting still for longer than ten seconds), and at the time underwater was definitely the way to go. This writer still shudders at the memory of his finding an old style diving suit, complete with heavy helmet, down the Coal Quay, and actually trying it out off a West Cork beach with several friends turning the handle on the machine which supplied air to the diver. 

We simply couldn’t watch it without experiencing a tightness in the chest, a frantic gasping, while he of course serenely pottered around in 20 ft or so of sea water. 

His long-time ambition, however, having tried flying, gliding, canoeing, diving, sand-yachting, hang-gliding, was to find a hobby that didn’t involve hours or days of preparation with lots of other people, but could be practised on your own, freely, wherever you might happen to be. Hang-gliding came the closest, he said, but that was put paid to when the Cork club refused to let him jump any more when he reached his 80s, because of insurance… He actually found several bottles of brandy in an ancient wreck on the bottom of Crookhaven bay at the time of that incident with Richard’s reading glasses, and duly brought them up to be admired.

 However, he was a strict teetotaller and although we kids might not have minded sampling the stuff (strictly in the interests of science, to see if it had survived a couple of centuries), he was having none of that. The aged green bottles got given away to anyone interested (and plenty were!) One bottle, however, did get broken in the boot of our old Rover. That was where the dog of the time, a mixum-gatherum springer spaniel, Kip by name, found it when she was investigating for anything interesting, and decided to lap up the strange puddle. She ran around wildly for hours afterwards, barking at the sky and chasing her own tail! (Yes, she survived.)

And my sister, Frances, has revealed that she and a friend had taught themselves to drive after a fashion at Duke Strand when my father was off doing something else (probably diving).

“We had a Volkswagen that summer, if I remember right, and we would bumpily drive it up to the edge of the dunes, and then try to reverse it back. Never dared to go out of the caravan site, of course!”

Then there was the unforgettable night when a whole group of French yachts sailed into the harbour just as the sun was setting. There was a crowd outside O’Sullivan’s pub, sitting on the wall and enjoying the view, when the boats came creaking and billowing round into port and dropped their anchors with a great rattle of chains. Suddenly everybody was singing Yellow Submarine – the French, the Irish, the English, anyone who was there. (The song was a No 1 hit for the Beatles that summer.) To hear it sung by so many voices, and echoing across the water as the dusk crept over Crookhaven was something you remember for the rest of your life.

Somebody else who remembers quieter simpler times is Dorothy Heaphy (nee McGrath) who was born and bred on Cork Hill in Youghal, and still lives in the town she loves so well. She remembers it as being the most friendly and neighbourly of places to grow up, with everyone’s door open to you, and acquaintances on every corner.

“That’s what I remember most, the friendly open atmosphere. You knew everybody on your street, naturally, and they knew you. You could be running down the pavement and someone would call a greeting, or if you remembered something, you could just pop into one of their houses to ask about it. That’s another thing – all the front doors were open back then. Nobody locked them, you were free to call in at any time.”

Nowadays, she says regretfully, she can walk through the town and not see a face she recognises, whereas back in childhood she would meet friends and neighbours everywhere.

“They are still Youghal people, after all they live there, but nobody seems to know anybody else in the street,” she said.

Dorothy went to Youghal Presentation Convent (Bunscoile Mhuire) on Front Strand as soon as she was old enough, and enjoyed her time there.

“No, the nuns weren’t fierce or unkind, they were lovely. I kept up a friendship with one of them for years afterwards.”

She had a choice between there and the Loreto Convent, which also had a primary school, since the town supported both, but firmly chose the Presentation.

Indeed, it was only last summer that the remaining Presentation nuns regretfully left their long-time home in Youghal after 189 years, and moved to the Midleton convent. During their time in Youghal they had done an enormous amount of good for the people there, including introducing and teaching the craft of Youghal Lace, a beautiful form of needlework, so that girls could earn a living by their handwork. It is a long time since the skill was taught to students (one can hear the shocked whispers of eyestrain and sweated workshops) but this beautiful craft has recently been revived by enthusiasts in the town, and a display can be seen in the local library, while it is hoped to set up a permanent exhibition on the art form in a shop on the main street.

Dorothy was always a bit of a tomboy, she admits.

“My two brothers, Dominic and Noel, were much older than me, and I hung round with the kids of my own age who mostly happened to be boys, so I was very much into their games.

“One year, I remember, I won a huge and beautiful doll in a raffle, and I couldn’t think what to do with such a thing! I would far rather have got a plastic machine gun! That doll hung around for years until we gave it to another raffle. Hopefully the final recipient appreciated it more than I did!”

She also used to run with the athletic club, organised by a Mr Drake, collected butterflies, and went birdwatching with a friend, Jerry.

“My dad bought me binoculars for my 13th birthday, and I’ve been a keen birdwatcher and photographer of wildlife ever since.”

When she was just about ready to move on into secondary school, the Powers that Be decided to make the Presentation school all primary, and turn the Loreto convent on the Cork road into the town’s secondary school.

“But I decided that I had had enough of that sort of education and said I wanted to go to the Tech, and get a wider outlook.” Now known as Cork College of FET Youghal Campus, this technical school was built in the Sixties and offered a very wide range of subjects and courses, which was much to Dorothy’s liking.

“Oh we had all the usual subjects, but they also taught shorthand and typing, practical things like that, so it gave you an excellent grounding in preparation for life.”

It was (still is) sited at the top of one of Youghal’s many hills, with a splendid view out over the bay and the Blackwater river.

“When I finally got a bicycle, I would give my best friend a ‘crosser’ to and from school. We would go home in the middle of the day for dinner and then race back again. How we didn’t get indigestion, or fall asleep during the afternoon, I will never know!”

We hear you on that, Dorothy. Many of us grew up with the tradition of rushing home for a substantial dinner in the middle of the day, only to have to return to school for a long afternoon’s work afterwards. Tea, which followed at 5pm or 6pm, was a much lighter affair (unless of course your household went for “high tea” which had things like bacon and eggs added in, but that was usually when the man of the house had returned from his day’s work, in need of sustenance).

One of the biggest events in the Youghal of the 1960s, recalls Dorothy, was the Eucharistic Procession.

“This was a huge occasion, with everyone taking part, every club and group, band and organisation, and it would take a full hour to pass your standpoint.”

Youghal, she reveals, was one of the very few towns in the country to practise the custom of “strewing”, that is, throwing scented rose petals in front of the canopied monstrance held aloft by a clergyman. Helpers (usually teachers) accompanied the procession, refilling the petal baskets as required.

“All the schoolgirls – and later on, boys too – participated in that ceremony at the right age, and you were rehearsed for months beforehand. You would be taken out along the route of the procession and had to count the steps, know every corner, every bend, because you would be walking backwards, you see. You wore your Confirmation dress and veil, and it was such an important day. You’d be exhausted at the end of it, but it was wonderful.”

Youghal was much more self-sufficient back in the day, Dorothy remembers.

“We even had our own gas company, but now there is no gas in the town, other than Calor gas canisters. The railway and its connections to Cork – now alas also lost - was an essential part of life, although I always think they made a mistake by not laying on a permanent bus link right into town. If they had, we would never have lost it. Having to walk all that way up to the station, and perhaps back again in the rain with all your shopping, was no fun at all.”

She muses, gazing out over the familiar waters of the bay.

“Yes, what I remember most is the friendly neighbourly atmosphere, and everyone’s door left open all day. They were different times, back then.”

Now listen up, any of you who enjoyed going to the Opera House back in the day. Who remembers The Summer Revels of the 70s? We are asking because this year’s big July-August show at the same Opera House is a nostalgic-but-new rendering of Summer Revels, and we wonder who remembers those older ones, masterminded by that incredible powerhouse, the late great Michael Twomey. 22 incredible sell-out seasons, that show had – surely a record. Billa O’Connell, Paddy Comerford, Cha and Miah, Marie Twomey, Dave McInerney, Hugh Moynihan, Deirdre White, Pat Sullivan and Noel Barrett; the list goes on…

And if your mind goes further back, how about The Swans of the Lee, by Paudie Harris, which ran twice a year for five hugely popular years from 1967 to 1971? Besides introducing the now legendary Montforts, all the old Cork-isms were in there, all the local sayings, jokes, the things that make our beloved city so special. If you can recall those heady days when Cork theatre was king, then do let us know!

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