Throwback Thursday: Was this the greatest ever pub in Cork city?

We have another identification of an extra in the 1954 film Moby Dick, after photos featured in Throwback Thursday in recent weeks.

Dominic Galvin saw the previous columns and wrote to say that he recognised one of the men in one of the pictures taken when the movie was shot in the Cork coastal town.

“The man standing fifth from left is my great grandfather, and his name is Richard (Dick) White,” said Dominic.

“Dick lived at Chapel Lane in Youghal and was ex Royal-Navy and subsequently Merchant Navy.”

Dominic, that is great, and thank-you! Two down, several more to go!

And, by the way, do you have your great grandfather’s life story written down anywhere? Honourable and exciting careers like his deserve to be recorded and shared.

Meanwhile, Chad, who identified Dick Donegan for us as another extra in that legendary film, has written again with a query for readers:

“Dick used to live on Rockboro Road, not far from our house on Old Blackrock Road,” said Chad.

“Apart from playing in dance halls, etc, he was quite a character, I seem to remember.

I was too young to take much interest, but recall him standing for election and would be interested in knowing what party he stood for - if any!

“Was he ever elected, or indeed whether it was just to the local council or whatever?”

Over to you, readers! Who can recall any further details of Dick Donegan’s career? Write and tell us.

We have had plenty of responses to our feature last week on Cork’s old and vanished pubs too.

Johnny O‘Mahony wrote: “Hi Jo, what about the Swan And Cygnet? Characters from all over Cork through the ’70s and ’80s?”

We immediately responded, asking for details of these characters, and anything else he can remember about the great old Swan And Cygnet, on the corner of Patrick Street and Lavitt’s Quay, with its unique watering trough for dogs, designed by none other than Seamus Murphy, but Johnny hasn’t replied yet.

In the meantime, though, Rick Davitt chimed in on the self-same establishment:

“The greatest of them all, The Swan And Cygnet. Oh, how I miss the characters, the music, Buddy Doran, and the great pint.”

Strolling around our city these days, he says, can be heartbreaking: “Walking down Oliver Plunkett Street, have you seen the awful shops and their signs?

“Vape shops and phone shops, that’s all you see. It is so sad. It would certainly not win any awards now.

“Pana is starting to look well in green, though. The lighting columns are awful, but at least those electronic trees are gone. (That was some joke. Like, when it was suggested to put gondolas on The Lough, and some bright boy said yeah, but who is going to feed them?)”

Pressed for further memories of bygone Cork, Rick recalled a few favourites.

“I remember Queen’s Old Castle. My grandmother worked there. Did you know that accommodation was provided on site for the drapery assistants, a lot of whom were up from the country?”

No, we didn’t know that, Rick and it’s a fascinating fact. Living over the shop! They’d have no excuse for arriving in late, would they?

I seem to recall that in Ger Fitzgibbon’s book Songs For A Burning City, those live-in workers are mentioned too, for several businesses. It must have been a regular feature of city jobs back then.

“The Munster Arcade stood where Penneys is now,” continues Rick. “There were no tills at the counters. Instead, the money and the invoice were put in a metal container and were whisked away by magic to the cash office. A brief delay, and the receipt and change made the journey in reverse.

“It was, of course, a pneumatic tube system, using air pressure and suction, but it was a thrill for us kids to watch.”

Rick adds: “Then there was Roches Stores with its distinctive red and white bags. I well remember that you never asked for a plastic bag at home. You always said, ‘Have you a Roches Stores bag?’ That was to put your football boots in.

“The pubs that are no longer with us?” asks Rick. “Oh, The Crystal in Gillabbey street, what a fine real pub. A great favourite of Seamus Horgan, what a character, may he rest in peace.

“The Cubiculo in Drawbridge Street. I think the translation was a bedroom, which seems a strange name for a pub.

“And of course The Western Star on Western Road, that was a great sporting pub, rugby in particular.

“There was a great story that Noel Cantwell, the fantastic footballer and a local hero, captained Manchester United to win the FA cup in 1963, and brought it to be filled in the Star.

“Well, it’s good that at least some of the real pubs are still with us.”

Gosh yes, the Western Star, owned by rugby international ‘Starry’ Crowley. Who could have believed that such a legendary establishment, beloved of generations of hard-working (?) students, would go, disappear forever, with all its memories, in the face of unstoppable redevelopment?

It even featured in a revue song at UCC back in the 1960s if memory serves us right:

Let’s skip this lecture, do a bunk,

Mummy wouldn’t like it!

Oh do come on, don’t be a funk.

Mummy wouldn’t like it!

Just think of Starry’s creamy pint,

The thought of it nearly makes me faint,

OK, I’ll come but not for long,

Mummy wouldn’t like it!

Hang on, we were just talking about the Swan And Cygnet, weren’t we? Who remembers the Black Swan – wasn’t it on Anglesea Street or am I getting mixed up? Yes, surely it was there.

When this writer was young, there was actually a butter called Black Swan, and I used to think it must have been made at that pub. Well, as a child you wouldn’t think there was anything odd in that.

In fact, Black Swan butter was packed on Union Quay, at the premises of Dowdall & O’Mahony back then. No connection with the pub at all, at all – unless of course some of the workers called in there after knocking off for the day!

I went over to the Pubs & Bars of Cork City & County page on Facebook to check and, as always, found some great detail on the pub.

I particularly liked the comment from someone who remembered being refused a drink downstairs there, because he looked too young, but being granted one upstairs in The Alderman! It was one of the city’s famous old early morning houses, called into by many dockers on the way home from the night shift. Haven’t too many of those left, have we?

Now, here is an entertaining piece sent to me by a friend who thought it was just right for Throwback Thursday. It is, apparently, translated from French, but one would suspect Canadian French, as the style and detail suggest North America rather than Europe. Anyway, the sentiment is absolutely spot on. See what you think:

“Don’t argue with people over 60. Really, avoid it. It’s not just a matter of age: it’s a genuine lesson in survival.

“They grew up without Google, without home meal delivery, without personal development podcasts, and without an ‘Undo’ button. When something broke down, they’d grab some duct tape, WD-40, a hammer, and put on such a determined face that even the broken appliance started doubting itself.

“As kids, they could tell exactly what mood their mother was in just from the sound she made setting the frying pan on the stove - gently or with a slam. They were the generation of kids who walked home from school alone, with the house key around their necks and very clear instructions: reheat lunch and don’t set the kitchen on fire.

“At ten years old, they could bike to the corner store, buy a bottle of milk for the neighbour, feed the dog, and still have time to play outside with friends until nightfall.

“Their knees were perpetually covered in scrapes, bruises, and streaks of antiseptic. Their universal first-aid kit? A quick rinse under the tap and a Band-Aid. As long as no bones were sticking out, everything was fine.

“They drank straight from the hose, ate slices of bread slathered in butter and sugar, shared a single bottle of Coke among five, and somehow survived despite the total lack of sanitisation.

“They’re the generation that knows how to rewind an audio cassette with a pencil. The one that remembers the suspense of waiting a whole week for a movie to air on TV, because if you missed it… that was it.

“They recall rotary phones, massive paper phone books where you looked up a family’s number, and the thrill of colour TV finally arriving.

“They lived through party lines on telephones, typewriter ribbons, the first brick-sized cell phones, and then flip phones. And today, they might accidentally send you a seven-minute voice message where the first six minutes are mostly just their breathing and: ‘Hello? Can you hear me?’

“And don’t you dare laugh. Because without GPS, these folks could cross half the country with nothing but an old paper road map, a cooler full of sandwiches, and that deep-seated conviction that: ‘The exit can’t be too far now…’

“They’re the absolute masters of household ingenuity. They know how to sew, tighten, glue, and fix just about anything. And somewhere in their closet, they’ve got that legendary ‘bag of bags’ stuffed with plastic grocery bags, probably older than half the electronic gadgets you own.

“So, leave people over 60 alone. They knew the world before the internet, then they learned to live in the one after. And through it all, they didn’t just survive: they made do, adapted, and kept moving forward.

“And if you rummage through their pockets today, you’ll probably find a mint candy, a neatly folded handkerchief, a painkiller ‘just in case’… and above all, a hard-earned wisdom that no app store will ever let you download.”

Well, you will probably spot a few clues in there that this didn’t originate from here in Ireland, but nevertheless the point is made. Our older generations have lived through times of almost seismic change, seeing wonderful cures invented for previously fatal illnesses, marvellous household inventions to take the hardship out of housework, world travel becoming a norm, but – and this is the vital bit – they have also lived through a very different earlier world, when times were hard, money was scarce, bank loans were unthinkable as well as unavailable, very few owned their own houses, a two-car family must have meant two doctors or two solicitors at the very least, and you never, ever, took it for granted that you would be looked after by the State or propped up if you had been careless with your income.

A fridge was an expensive luxury, the radio was coddled and coaxed to keep running, and damaged household items went to dad or grandad to be repaired. You mended your own clothes as a matter of course, and if you were lucky enough to get a bicycle, it was often second-hand, as they had a value too.

Today, when you see the very latest shiny bike thrown casually down by the footpath on a housing estate, you can’t help but remember a time when such items were of enormous value and cared for as such.

Do they even mend punctures any more, today’s kids? Or do they throw the whole thing into a skip and demand a new one?

Let’s hear your views. Email jokerrigan1@gmail.com, or leave a message on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/echolivecork.