Throwback Thursday: The smells and tastes of Cork city

The blackberries are ripening apace all over Cork, and John O’Leary has written to share his memories of childhood days gathering the fruit.

“Hi Jo. I went blackberry picking with my dad on what was then the old West Cork railway line in the late ’60s. We accessed the disused rail line at Railway Place, just off High Street. The blackberries went into Roches Stores’ plastic shopping bags, and the contents of these bags were weighed in Mrs Corcoran’s shop on High Street to see how much sugar was needed to make the jam. My mother would then make the blackberry jam and put it into jam jars. Happy days indeed.”

Oh, was there anything more satisfying than to see those shining, fat, little jam jars up on the kitchen shelves, waiting for hungry, young hands to slather their contents onto thick doorsteps of bread? Many sensible housewives still made their own jams and bottled fruit back then. Very few do now, we fear.

This writer’s mother would marshal us all out to known groves of crabapple trees each autumn and make us collect sackfuls, which she then boiled up, strained through muslin, and added sugar to make clear, shining apple jelly. Hands up any of you who remember your own mothers doing this! Even better marks if you can say, hand on heart, that you still do this yourself. Nature provides so lavishly here in Ireland, it behoves us to take advantage of her generosity.

Now, remember that nice piece from Catherine Walker a couple of weeks back, talking of the Rock Steps and also her class’s triumph at the Choral Festival? Well, we’ve heard from another Catherine (Garrett) this time in response:

“Just a note to say how much I enjoy your Throwback Thursday column every week. The Rock Steps article brought back many memories of my childhood, as did the piece on old Blackpool. The reason I’m contacting you is because I’m actually in the photo of St Vincent’s Secondary School Choir from 1975, which featured in your article last Thursday.

“I’m in the back row, 3rd from the left. I was doing the Leaving Cert that year. I remember Catherine Walker, and I could still name a few of the girls in the choir.

“Keep up the great work, Jo, it’s lovely to look back on our lovely childhoods!

Catherine (Garrett) Kennefick.”

Well, isn’t that great? We’ve got two of you identified in that photo now! Anybody else remember singing their hearts out at the Festival in 1975? Speak up!

Maura Harrington writes to say she really enjoys reading our very interesting Throwback Thursday every week in The Echo.

“I’m learning so much about buildings and streets in Cork and who resided there. I am wondering if you could tell me if there is a book of Cork street names?”

Well, not as such, Maura. You can certainly find a great many street names in the old Directories of Cork, such as that published each year by Guys in times gone by, and I personally know of a delightful book by Gina Johnson on the laneways of medieval Cork, but to find a collection which fully included both the old ‘lost’ streets, and also the newer thoroughfares, would be difficult, since the newer often overlaps the older. Also, many street names were changed over time (MacCurtain St for example, called Strand St and then King St before it got its present name), to allow for different perceptions and attitudes. Those who make welcome contributions to these pages on such a topic have often spent their whole lives learning of our older history. Try looking up older maps of our city, and always, but always, look up to check the identity of the street through which you are walking, and ask why. Cove St? Coach Lane? There is history everywhere.

Tim Cagney found it most interesting to read our account of the ‘soil-men’ in relation to a hidden passageway on Wellington Road.

“It does seem the most likely explanation for that mysterious slitted wall. Regarding smells, my own most vivid memories of same are of the ‘vapours’ rising from Murphy’s Brewery, which competed vigorously with those of a less palatable nature, emanating from the tannery, further along the road. I had always blamed the Denny meat-processing plant for this - I was unaware of the existence of the tannery until reading about it in your column last week.

“My maternal Granny owned a small shop, right opposite Bell’s Field. She lived at the adjacent Rathmore Place, where I spent many happy childhood days. Indifferent to the aforementioned odours, the Shandon Bells would frequently grace the air with their lovely tones. Perhaps they were, in some way, hoping to mingle the emissions into what might have been an acceptable olfactory experience for the local nostril?

“On the subject of soaps and perfumes, I’m afraid the word Palmolive was banned in the Cagney residence. My Dad, you see, worked at Ryan’s of Popes Quay, where they made soap and candles. Out of loyalty, we were condemned to (forever) use their own brand of soap, known as Buttermilk. This concoction was devoid of both scent and lathering properties, but was infinitely preferable to buying ‘that other stuff!’”

Tom Jones says he heartily enjoyed last week’s edition relating to the scents, smells, whiffs, aromas, and pongs in olden days of Cork.

“If I may just mention one more. The aroma arising from the Denny’s factory adjacent to Murphy’s Brewery added to the olfactory senses permeating the northside. I recall it always being referred to as Denny’s Cellar, although I don’t know why.

“On soaps, etc, yes, I recall some of them - wasn’t Lux one? But then again, as a male child of the 1950s, what would I know of such products? Or fully accrediting the hard graft exerted by the women of the zeitgeist in keeping things clean? Perhaps they were never fully appreciated for their trojan work in doing so. But it’s never too late to say thank you, so well done!

“Your line of ‘Before daily showers became the norm’ made me laugh in remembrance.

“A popular expression when I lived for some years in Ventura and Los Angeles was ‘As If…’ And indeed, a shower or taking a bath was much less frequent back in the day. In particular, for the male species. As Cork witticism once went, thank God Christmas is over, and now we can put the coal back in the bathtub until next year!

“Speaking of a time when enterprise, industrial, commercial, or otherwise was interspersed among residential housing, in my time there was a slaughterhouse, now euphemistically more commonly expressed as an abattoir, on Glen Ryan Rd. When on my way home from Blarney Street School, I used to watch through an open gate, fascinated, I suppose, by the carcasses of cows suspended by their hooves on a conveyor belt as they were bled and gutted for further process.

“In the late 1950s, as I recall, in between that gate and what is now the Glen Ryan Tavern, there was an entrance or lane leading to a manor house of some description, occupied by an older lady. I believe we used to call her Mona Lisa.

“So, my query is, how many kids of my era remember not just that house but playing or roaming in its grounds before it was demolished? Or to the more enlightened of your readers, any of its history as they recall.

“I am always interested in others’ recollections of these days of yore. Perhaps more so when they validate my personal recall, as regardless of my voyage in life, I am still a child of Shandon Street, Spangle Hill, and the Northside in general. Always was and always will be Cork to the core.”

Lovely, Tom. Let’s hear from those of you who remember that old manor house and its inhabitant!

And finally, to that wonderful topic of which readers never tire, the old Innisfallen that used to sail up the river past Blackrock Castle and dock on Horgan’s Quay. Nobody who travelled on it will ever forget the experience. Katie O’Brien says she must have been one of the last so to do, as she went over to work in London for the summer of 1968.

“It was my second year at UCC and I had a friend there who lived in London and told me how easy it was to get work as a ‘temp’ during the summer as they were crying out for them. So I got on the old Innisfallen one evening and even had a cabin to myself, thanks to my mother’s thoughtfulness. It was all polished wood and brass, I remember, and delightfully old-fashioned. When I woke in the wee small hours (about 3am) we were just coming into Fishguard, and I was fascinated by all the lights and cranes and things. The train was waiting, and we were whisked along past the fiery furnaces of Wales into England and finally to Paddington, where my friend, Pauline, was waiting to welcome me. Today that trip would exhaust me, but back then, you thought it was all part of the fun.

“And wasn’t she right about the demand for temp secretaries? The very first agency I went to – Josephine Sammons – shrieked with delight, sat me down, told me not to move, gave me a quick test on my skills, and sent me off straight away!

“I worked all summer and made more than most of my male college pals who were in Walls or on the buses. I never felt so useful or important or wanted before!

“And I had the most marvellous time there. Got a bedsit in Earl’s Court for £4.75 a week, and spent the weekends seeing everything I’d read about. Dickens’ house, Madame Tussauds, the Old Curiosity Shop, Biba’s boutique in Kensington, Carnaby Street… On Saturday afternoons, I would walk all the way down to King’s Road through little lanes and mews – I remember one was called Thistle Grove, and I wished I could live there. King’s Road was amazing – all those boutiques like Granny Takes a Trip, posers driving up and down in open-top pink Cadillacs, so much trendiness. For someone from Cork, it was eye-opening.

“My only regret is that I didn’t come back on the old Innisfallen. Took a trip to France and Spain from London at the end of the summer (my first venture into Europe!) and flew back instead.

“The following year, the grand elderly boat was replaced by the newer one, which docked down at Tivoli. Took that many times afterwards. But I will never forget the old one, which still had that atmosphere of travel in a more romantic age.”

Let’s hear more of your memories about travelling on the old Innisfallen.

Do you remember the cars being lifted off by cranes with nets?

Did you go down to welcome friends or relatives coming over for the summer? Tell the rest of us!

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