Throwback Thursday: Bon voyage! Trips on board the Innisfallen

Our mention of the Innisfallen last week brought back some vivid memories for Throwback Thursday reader Cyril McIntyre:

“I never got to travel ‘The Innisfallen Way’ (as the advertising slogan went), but I have a very clear recollection of watching the Innisfallen sail up the River Lee to the Port of Cork on her maiden voyage from Fishguard in the summer of 1948,” said Cyril.

“I was only five years old at the time. We lived at Glenbrook Terrace, between Passage and Monkstown, and so had a grandstand view of all the shipping traffic in and out of Cork.

“I distinctly remember that the Innisfallen was bedecked with a great display of flags on that occasion.

“Subsequently, I often watched the Innisfallen sailing down river en route to Fishguard on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.

“Two years later we moved to a new house in Mayfield (Iona Park) so my days of ship watching were over.”

Cyril added: “My father, Philip McIntyre, was a CIE bus inspector and one of his regular duties was to supervise the special bus service from Penrose Quay to the bus station at Parnell Place to cater for incoming passengers off the Innisfallen.

“It was usually operated by one single-decker bus, but during the summer months it often needed two or even three vehicles to accommodate cross-channel holidaymakers and their luggage.”

Cyril followed in his father’s tracks, getting a job with CIE in 1961.

“I worked for a few years in the railway goods office on Penrose Quay, directly opposite the Innisfallen terminal building,” he said.

“I can remember seeing cars being craned on and off the ship, and also cattle being driven aboard for the evening sailings.

“Those were also the years of high levels of emigration, and I remember those tearful farewells of families as a son or daughter boarded the Innisfallen to embark on a new life in London. How times have changed!”

Cyril’s father was a great friend of my father, Joey Kerrigan, and said: “I remember him telling me about some of your father’s adventures! And I remember one time reading an article your father wrote in The Blarney Annual ....Canoeing Down the Dripsey.

“That magazine was published by Professor Joe Reilly of UCC, another of my father’s circle of friends. Between them they could have written some great books!”

Oh, so they could, Cyril, so they could! Thing is, in my father’s case anyway, he was always too busy getting out there and doing, rather than sitting down and writing about it!

“I always enjoy reading Throwback Thursday,” adds Mr McIntyre. “It is so valuable to have these memories of Cork in times past recorded for posterity. Go n-éirí go geal leis an obair iontach seo agat!”

And then Cyril added the icing to the cake by sending two wonderful images of that great old boat, the Innisfallen.

“The colour card was issued by the City of Cork Steam Packet Co and was probably on sale aboard the Innisfallen,” he said.

“The black and white photo is by Roy Hammond, whom I’m sure you remember from our younger days in Cork... he did a lot of photography for the Cork Examiner and other newspapers, and later did news filming for RTÉ television.”

Well, who could forget that larger than life character, Roy Hammond? I remember him going out with my father on the hang-gliding escapades he undertook in his 70s.

They would drive down to some remote place near a mountain (not difficult to find in West Cork) and Papa would hike up to the top of one, attach his gear, and serenely jump off into space.

Roy would wait down below and watch for a thin column of smoke to rise from a smudge fire made wherever he landed, so that Roy could track him down by the nearest boreen or cart track. Apparently, it worked very well.

I have probably mentioned before the time Joey jumped off Carrauntuohill (possibly to celebrate his 75th birthday). “I dropped into an air pocket and fell straight down for quite a while,” he told me afterwards. “Then, luckily, I managed to get into the right kind of updraft, came down more slowly, and landed safely.”

I remember him pausing for a minute and then saying thoughtfully, “I probably wouldn’t do that jump again.”

Well, yes… Ah, ní bheidh a leitheid ann aris.

But back to the beloved Innisfallen. It evokes memories wherever and whenever it is mentioned. It certainly did for another Throwback Thursday reader, Tom Jones:

“Once again in awe of your Throwback Thursday pages and your readers’ contributions thereto,” he said, “Enjoying their rendering of experiences and times now long past. Loved Katie O’Brien’s reminiscences of travelling on the old Innisfallen as I too set off to London in the same year, 1968.

“Bless her heart for sharing her recollections and enchantment of what she experienced in London.”

Tom adds: “Of course, any mention of the old Innisfallen, which was such an integral part in the history of the lives of Cork people, can set the windmills of our memory recall instantaneously in motion.

“The mere mention of the name elicits a nostalgic response, and usually leads to an in-depth conversation about good and tough times in Cork, among the older folks. It’s almost akin to being in a movie theatre, when the lights go down, and reel after reel of film of times gone by scroll before your eyes. Which is why I send you this in memory and recognition of many who have taken that voyage, in good and not so good times.

“Pre the Innisfallen drive on/drive off of the 1970s, which operated from Tivoli, aka the Cork to Swansea route, on which many travelled to attend soccer or rugby matches, shopping trips, or simply weekend vacations, the Innisfallen that reverberates in my nostalgic chamber of memory is the one that berthed at Horgan’s Quay and conveyed not just human cargo, but cargo of every description to England.

“Who amongst us does not have relatives, or friends of families, who from lack of employment opportunities in a tougher times Ireland were compelled to seek hopefully better fortune on foreign shores? The father of a young family saying goodbye as he promised to ‘send for them once he got settled’. Young people who, as they bade farewell assured their mothers that they would send on ‘a couple of bob’ every week. Or a parcel of sorts to help take care of their younger siblings.

“Many setting off with reluctance, others without, to seek what opportunities lay ahead as they began their journey to independence.

“As a child in the 1950s, I stood there transfixed to watch and bore witness to the scenes of human drama unfold.

“How much of life’s joys and sorrows were enacted there on the quayside as people shook hands or engaged in a last embrace before boarding. Who does not recall the feelings of deep sadness, loneliness, and the shedding of tears as the ship pulled away from the quay?

“I am of the vintage when automobiles, and other cargo of heavy equipment, etc, were loaded on the Innisfallen by cranes in nets or other such loading devices. Penrose Quay was then lined with warehouses, while the dockside was fully operational for the loading and unloading of ships. There was also a dockers’ hut and a men’s toilet alongside on a side street there, as I recall.

“I believe that maybe that portion of the Cork docks was then under the control of and operated by a company called the Steam Packet. If I am incorrect in saying that, as I may well be, then I’m sure you will be hearing soon from many dockers or the descendants of those who worked there.”

Tom continues: “This was also a time when livestock, generally cattle, were herded from their holding pens in buildings on Penrose Quay to board the boat. I also believe a drover may have accompanied their passage, I presume to take care of their needs, and help keep them calm in case of rough seas.”

Speaking of the shedding of tears as the old Innisfallen pulled out, brings in another side of the picture, this time from Pauline Buckley (the friend of Katie O’Brien, who wrote last week) who came over every year with her parents to spend the summer with relatives here.

“My first trip on the old Innisfallen would have been in summer, 1948, when I was just nine months old,” said Pauline. “We then travelled over on it every summer until I started at UCC in 1966.

“I loved that journey, starting in Paddington Station where a porter would help with the luggage. And the cabin with bunk beds was such a treat.

“Of course, on the way home to London I used to cry in my bunk bed, knowing that it would be a whole year before we would go again. To me, as a child growing up in Camberwell Green (south London), Ireland was paradise.”

Meanwhile, Vincent O’Farrell has written to voice his delight in Throwback Thursday and the memories it awakens.

“I came to Cork in 1963 and was at that famous Rolling Stones concert in the Savoy in 1965,” said Vincent. “That gig by the Stones was an eye-opener to us all during those Church- controlled years in which we were brought up.

“Ten years later, the lovely Savoy was closed and on the market. I was with Robin Power at the time and we purchased the property.

“We developed the ground floor of the Savoy into quite a beautiful small shopping mall with Mary Rose’s Coffee Shop as the centre feature. The architect was James Toomey, and the concept for the development was based on the Lido in Paris.

“The Savoy had a very tricky narrow entrance, so the central coffee shop had to be the main feature.

“And that legendary upstairs dining in the old days. My sister recently had a house clearance sale, included in which were seven old oak chairs originally from that self-same restaurant. What memories they must hold of other days and nights in the old Savoy!”

Vincent adds: “We didn’t have much money back then, but great friends and company and many happy days and nights with James N Healy, the G&S, and the Southern Theatre Group in the Old Group Theatre on South Main Street. Was it Tom Harmon from Beamish & Crawford behind the bar?

“We had great talent in the Group from Dan O’Leary, Kay Healy, Anne Brennan, Dan Donovan, Declan Townsend, and his dad before him.

“The G&S performed the opening chorus from HMS Pinafore on the opening of the new Opera House. Great memories!”

Now - National Heritage Week starts this weekend, and there are some great opportunities to improve your local history knowledge.

For example, a nostalgic trip down Patrick Street from the 1950s to the ’70s at Douglas Library on Tues, August 19 at 11.30am. West Cork in the Olden Days at Skibbereen Library tomorrow (Friday) at 2.30pm. Collecting and Connecting Stories with the Cork Folklore Project at Civic Trust House on Pope’s Quay on August 20 from 2 to 4pm.

The National Heritage Week programme also includes the screening of two short documentaries made by Cork-based Wombat Media.

Echoes Of Faith: The Holy Wells Of West Cork is shown at 11am on August 20 at Bantry Library, and West Cork In Colour: The Stained Glass Of Harry Clarke is screening at 4pm on August 23 at West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen

And there’s so much more!.

Check out all the other events on offer at https://www.heritageweek.ie/event-listings.

And in the meantime, get writing to us with your own memories for Throwback Thursday!

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