Personal Recollections of a Dublin long since gone

[Bridget x]

The four people behind the counter wore spotless white coats and after mammy collected her messages (shopping) the nice man behind the counter used his sharp knife and cutting a slice off a ring of white pudding handed it to me.  I loved Sunday mornings, all week we would have porridge for breakfast but on Sunday the lovely smell of the pudding and sausages frying would have us flying down the stairs ready to tuck in.  If you went to early Mass, from every house one passed would come the same lovely smell, a late Mass and ones nostrils would be assailed with the smell of cabbage and bacon bubbling away for Sunday dinner. Finally, we reached Moore Street but that’s a Recollection for another day.
(Some months late)
Returning from school we turned the corner into our street and I felt sick as we spotted our neighbour from the upstairs rooms anxiously looking this way and that until finally, she caught sight of us. Stepping even further out on to the footpath she beckoned for us to come quickly. It was like history repeating itself, had not the neighbours come to fetch us all home from school when mammy had almost died and had to go into hospital for a very long time?  Then I saw the smile on her face. Surely mammy could not be sick or she would not be smiling?  She bundled us all hurriedly into the hall of out tenement house and up the stairs. What was that strange smell?  I would later find out it was the smell of Detol disinfectant, mum always used the cheaper Jeys Fluid for scrubbing and cleaning.  Ushering us into the room we found our mammy sat up in bed in a lovely white nightdress and in her arms a blue bundle.  I recognised the shawl as the one she had bought from Mrs Crowley’s second hand shop.  Beckoning us to gather round and come closer she gently pulled the shawl back to reveal a little puckered up face with a head of black hair, the latest addition to our family after five years!  She was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen, the tiny rosebud  mouth opening just like the tiny birds I had seen in my picture books. " Oh mammy, she is gorgeous, can I hold her" asked my older sister" Our brothers did not share our enthusiam as they cried " Ah no, not another girl!" sure she wont be able to climb or play football! I was in my element, at last, I would have a pram to push with our very own baby, no more going to ask our neighbours ” please can I push your pram and baby?”    For the rest of my life I would forever associate the smell of Detol  with “new babies”       Bridget

[Taidquest]

hi bridget,
                  check out the link to dublin forums below
for story about bang bang.the link should take you to page 6 on the thread,
on page 8 there is someone who says bang bang lived at 9 mill st or maybe lane,
I'm not sure.when I read the story I thought you'd been 'moonlighting'.
 keep up the good work.   best wishes,   anne.
http://www.dublin.ie/forums/showthread.php?t=3913&page=6

[Bridget x]

Hi Anne, Thank's for that.  What a lovely well written story about Bang Bang.  I really enjoyed it.  I guess you could not call yourself a Dubliner if you had not met or heard of bang bang. May his memory live forever in the hearts of all Dubliners. R.I.P.   Bridget x

[Bridget x]

Dublin Recollections.      The Entrepreneurs.

While I cannot remember having “regular” pocket money, when Dad was in employment we were treated to the pictures, sweets and ice cream. I loved the rare times when dad would take us to see his brother over the other side of the city; I think he may have been better off than us because he gave all of us children two whole shillings as we were leaving! The only other time I had been given such a huge amount was on the day I made my First Holy Communion! My friends and I devised our own ways of earning pocket money.  One of the most profitable ways was to “go for the messages” (run errands) for the older women of the street.   
We were constantly warned by our mothers, “If Mrs. ---- sends you for a message and she offers you money you are not to take it”  Having completed the errand we would rush back wondering if we were going to get anything. Out would come the purse and as the penny reward was proffered we stood with our hand going backward and forward as we uttered “Ah, no thanks, me mammy said I was not to take anything for going for a message”  “Ah, sure take it, I’ll not let on to your mammy” I almost cried on the spot when one old lady returned the penny to her purse saying, Aren’t you a grand little girl doing what mammy tells you!!”   Collecting empty bottles and jam jars was yet another source of income. Of course there were no plastic bottles in those days, everything was glass.  If empty beer or lemonade bottles were returned to the shops or pubs the penny deposit was refunded.  The lemonade bottles were returned to Miss Ts corner shop and the beer bottles to the pub directly opposite. The old Jewish gentleman in Tilly’s Lane took the jam jars.  When he left us for a moment to add our small donation the mountain of glass in his back yard, we would “help” ourselves to a couple of jam jars lying in the pile waiting to be sorted.  We would return later and sell them back to him!!

The price of admission to the cinema was four old pennies. Naturally our parents could not fork out the money every time we wanted to go to the pictures, so we used what little initiative we had make up that precious four pence.    On Sundays, armed with a couple of empty buckets we would knock on every door in our street of tenement houses asking each family “Do you have any slops please?”  They would come to their doors scraping any left-over food such as meat bones, stale bread, and cabbage leaves and potatoes peelings into our buckets. Sometimes when we knocked a voice from within would shout, “Who is it, what do you want?”  “Any slops missus? We would ask?  “No, I’ve already given them to the two young ones (young girls) who called earlier.” When Nana had missed out on some sheets in the sale at Lee’s drapers store in Henry Street she had remarked  Oh well, “The early bird catches the worm” “What does that mean Nana,” I had asked.  Her explanation was now brought home to me! Some other children had beaten us to it.  On the Sundays when we were lucky enough to amass a couple of full buckets we would take them up William and Wood’s lane where Paddy K. had a yard in which he kept some pigs.  He would relieve us of the slops giving us two old pennies in return, if Mrs. K dealt with us she would throw in a handful of sweets so we were always pleased to see her come towards us.  Of course a child from another street would not invade our “territory” to collect slops; it was an unwritten agreement/code that children only collected in their own street. When we were a little older and allowed to go on a bus (in a group) we would find an empty sack and make our way out to Dollymount. Pairing off, we would spend hours prising winkles off the rocks until we had half a sack full. This was all we could carry because of the weight.

[Bridget x]

On reaching home, the winkles were rinsed well before being placed in a bucket and boiled on the stove for an hour or so. They were then transferred to a white enamel basin. We would set up our stall, (a chair) by the hall door with a large sign proclaiming “Winkles, a penny a cupful, bring your own bag” Our customers, (children from the street) would come, the little girls holding out the hem of their dresses for us to toss the cupful of hot winkles into while the boys did the same with the end of their gansies (jumpers), no bags! On one particular day “business” was really bad, our regular customers bypassing us as they went towards the end of the street where the competition had her “stall” set out. While I minded our stall, my “business partner” went to investigate the cause of our lost trade. She returned spluttering and red with rage.  “You’re not going to believe what that little bi--h has done! She’s not only giving the customers bags but she’s supplying them with pins as well!”  Dear God! Why hadn’t we thought of that?  Running indoors I grabbed my brother’s pencil and hastily changed our sign to, Winkles, half a penny a cup.
 Having made up the admission price we would now debate should we go to the Maro or the Volta? If it was raining we had no option but to choose “The Maro” Every child knew when it rained you would get soaked in the Volta as the rain came pouring down from every part of its leaky roof.  If we were already in there and it started raining pandemonium would break out as everyone ducked and dived from one row of seats to another seeking a dry spot   It would close down when I was still a child.
Oh Happy days!       Bridget x

[Bridget x]

How I loved the summer evenings when we could play outside in the street, the boys usually running up and down with the rim of an old bicycle wheel and a stick which they used to “drive” the wheel.  We girls would play ball or “piccie” using an old shoe polish tin to hop from one chalked bed (drawn on the ground) to another. I heard my mother’s voice calling, even above the squeals of delight of the playing children.  I pretended not to hear her. It came again, but louder this time.
“Bridget, that’s the last time I’m calling you, if you don’t come now I’ll get Patrick to come out to you” I hurried over to our front door.
“Ah mammy, I can’t come now, we’re playing relieveo and it’s my turn to be on”
“You’ll be “on” alright if you don’t do as I tell you, now come in and collect your school bag and clean clothes, your going home with Auntie Bridget tonight”
Ah mammy, I went home with her last night, it’s not my turn, and it’s Js turn to go”
“I don’t care whose turn it is to go, I’m telling you to go and whist, (quiet) keep your voice down, she’s just inside the door and she’ll hear you”
I reluctantly entered the house to gather my things together ready to go directly to school the following morning. As stated in an earlier story we children took turns in going home with Auntie Bridget every night as mammy said she got lonely as her husband was away in the war. Auntie Bridget and Uncle John did not have children of their own.  I passed my sister J on the stairs and it was obvious by the smirk on her face she had overheard the conversation regarding my going home with Auntie Bridget.  I was really bulling, (annoyed) and could not resist giving her a good poke on the arm!
“Are you ready Alana “(term of endearment for a child) called Auntie as she put her coat on and threaded her arms through the handles of the ever present shopping bag.  Bidding goodnight to my mother we left the house heading for her home in Hardwick Street.  Oh God I thought, I hope we don’t meet any of the aul ones  (old women) that she knows, sure wasn’t she bound to stop and talk to each and every one of them and it would take us ages to get to her place!  I could smell the fish and chips even before we reached Benny’s chippy in Parnell Street and wondered would she stop to buy us a bag of chips?  As if reading my mind she remarked,” Sure there’s no point in getting a one and one (one fish and one bag of chips) now, sure they’d be stone cold before we get home to my place, lets wait and get them from the chippy round the corner from near me, I have a lovely crusty loaf in my bag and some real butter at home, we’ll have a grand supper”
That made me feel a little better about going home with her and my game of relieveo was soon forgotten! 
I linked her arm as we walked along hoping against hope she would not call into Domnic Street church to “say a few prayers” as the previous week hadn’t  that cross auld Father Riley caught me and Sheila pretending to hear each others “confession” in the confessional boxes and only run us out of the church!  As usual, she did call in to light a candle and say some prayers; I was in luck as we did not see hide nor hair of him!  A deeply religious woman (despite her love of harmless gossip) she had a great devotion to Saint Anthony and never failed to call in and visit the shrine in Temple street almost opposite to where she lived

[Bridget x]

How well I remember my first visit to the shrine, as if it was yesterday.  We walked down the little laneway to the right of the main hospital, past the door for accidents and through a door almost opposite which led to a small hallway. The hallway led out to a lovely well laid out walled in garden filled with flowers, bushes and trees, a peaceful place where it felt safe and somehow, cut off from the outside world.  I likened it to the secret garden I read of in my library books. I had never been in such a place before. While we had no gardens in our tenement houses I had of course visited the Phoenix Park along with the other children of the street, yet, somehow this was different. I was not overwhelmed here in this place as one was with the vastness of the latter. We turned right along a narrow path and towards what looked like a tiny chapel. On entering I was surprised to find, not a church but a small room with an alter holding a life sized statue of the saint. The three rows of candle holders were already full, their flickering flames casting shadows high up to the vaulted ceiling within this small space. There were four pews with red velvet kneelers and space for two people on each pew, which filled the back wall.  We knelt and prayed in the silence, well, Auntie Bridget prayed, I was too busy thinking of the fish and chip supper we were going to enjoy later on!  The door opened and an auld fella (old man) entered. He knelt and prayed for a short time and then went to a small table in the corner I had not noticed before. I watched as, taking a small sheet of paper and a pencil from a basket he wrote something on the paper before placing it in the small basket on the alter adding to the many others that were there. 
“What’s he doing” I asked
“He’s writing a petition” replied my auntie.
“What’s a petition?”
“Well, er, it’s a request. A kind of plea asking the saint for something he wants badly”
“Like what?”
“It could be anything, he may have lost something that he wants to find ,, or he could be praying for someone that’s sick, Ah, sure it could be for anything”
“Well then, how do they post them to Saint Anthony?”  I asked thinking of that auld postman of ours who would not even go up a flight of stairs to deliver but stood in the hall shouting out the name until the person came all the way down to collect the letter. What were the chances of getting these (what had she called em ?)to heaven? 
“Well, go on then, tell me how they get to heaven?”
“When the basket is full of petitions they are burned before the alter of Saint Anthony and don’t you worry, he gets them and knows what each person is praying and asking for”
“Can a person ask for anything?”
“Yes, within reason”
“And could I ask for” was as far as I got. That’s enough cried Auntie Bridget, now let me get on with my prayers”
Could I just ask one more question? Can I write out a petition? (I had learned a new word!)
Yes, yes, why don’t you ask for daddy and Uncle John to come home safely from the war?
I felt my face go red with guilt, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind!
This indeed was fabulous news to these young ears! My eyes lit up, the possibilities were endless. Why had nobody told me of this before?
Tiptoeing to the small table in the corner I took several sheets of paper and wetting the small stub of pencil between my lips proceeded to ask the good saint for the following.

[Bridget x]

1   Could you please teach me how to turn the heel of that sock in sewing class as I’m always getting into trouble with Sister Margret Mary?
2   If you (cause you’re a man)) can’t teach me to turn the heel could you please see that I have chicken pox in the morning so I don’t have to go to school?  (Thinks) On second thoughts, I think I’ll make that measles, sure didn’t Mary Muldoon just tell us in school last week about her aunt who had to wear a veil for the rest of her life after getting terrible scabs on her face from the auld chicken pox!
3   I hate being the small fat girl with the gym slip bursting at the seams at school. Could you please make me smaller?  Hang on Saint Anthony, I don’t mean smaller in height (Oh God, how do I spell that word, deat? (diet) Better not ask Auntie Bridget, sure then she would know what I was asking for.)  Well, if you would just make my clothes fit me better sure that would be grand!
4   Now I don’t want to be greedy but I wonder if you could change my nose and let me have a lovely little upturned one like my sister J and lovely tumbling curls like my sister M?
5   Oh, I almost forgot, could you bring daddy and Uncle John home safely from the war.
“In the name of the Lord God are you writing a book?” called out Auntie Bridget causing me to hastily fold my papers and place them with the others on the alter.
We left this lovely place and made our way to the “Chippy” where Aunty Bridget threw caution to the wind and bought us a one and one each!  We went to her place and enjoyed our supper with the lovely crusty bread and the real butter!
The following morning saw me rush to the small mirror Uncle John used for shaving. I examined my face from every angle but not a spot or blemish in sight. I consoled myself thinking surely they would appear before I got to school? I could not see if my plump body had diminished overnight due to the lack of a full length mirror. On my way to school I peered at my reflection  in every shop window that I passed  hoping that the good Saint Anthony had by now received my urgent petition but, alas I still had to attend school and the dreaded sewing class that day.
“  I don’t know what’s got into you Bridget, sure you’re getting so vain, every time I look at you you’re looking into Nanas full length mirror” said my sister of the upturned nose.  I thought of how full the basket of petitions had been before I placed mine and convinced myself Saint Anthony was very busy sorting that lot out before he reached mine, give him time!  And so I waited and waited and in the end gave up hope of ever having tumbling curls and a pretty upturned nose, no, sure that auld Saint Anthony was no good! Sniffing loudly and tossing my long plaits, I made up my mind I wouldn't be writing to that auld fella ever again!  But  wait a minute, had I not heard Nana mention something about a Saint Jude, patron saint of lost causes?
Er, now where in Dublin was there a shrine to Saint Jude??      Bridget x

[Bridget x]

I think I should tender apoligies here as this is rather a long Recollection, I got "carried away!"
Come on all you older Dubs out there, why not add to this thread with YOUR memories.  Bridget x 

The Magic of Moore Street.


We were really pleased that mammy had chosen to go down Henry Street to reach Moore Street. That way we had to pass the ice cream man with his barrow at the junction of Liffy Street.  We reasoned if she had not yet started her shopping we stood a good chance of getting an ice-cream!  We almost always got one. The ice cream van was literally a white painted square box with a perfect circle cut out on top to accommodate the wooden barrel that held the ice-cream. The barrel would be surrounded by ice inside the box to prevent premature melting. Two bicycle wheels separated by an axle supported the box while jutting from the rear yet another wheel, part frame, and a saddle. The vendor would not even have to get down from this contraption to serve the ice cream.  “Can we have a cornet mammy?”  I asked.  “Oh, go on then” replied mammy as we made our way to the cart.  We children watched, our mouths watering as, leaning forward, the hand, holding the spatula disappeared inside the barrel, appearing seconds later with the creamy golden ice cream dripping from the spatulas end. We watched patiently as the ice cream was pushed and shaped until the build up resembled a miniature Mount Everest topped with a generous splash  od rasberry.  My little sister M, amused herself by using her forefinger to trace the red painted letters of  “Ice Cream” emblazoned on the side of the cart. Greedily licking the ice cream, we continued on our way to collect the Saturday shopping.

Even before we turned the corner of Henry Street into Moore Street, we could smell the flowers. This particular stall holder took great pains to show them off to the best advantage arranging the tallest on top then graduating down to almost ground level with the shorter blooms, giving the effect of a wall of colour. It was not surprising to find a picture of this particular stall always included in the picture post cards  of Moore Street that were sold all over the city.  It was one of the busiest stalls in the market street and always had a crowd around it, either buying flowers or standing there just to admire the display. I secretly hoped the stall would be very busy that Saturday morning and my mammy would have to join a long queue thus giving me time to look for HER. Flowers for the house was a luxury we could not afford, the ones my mammy bought every Saturday were for the grave of my brother Michael. Auntie Bridget would buy them one week and mammy the following week.
 
I just knew she would be there once we turned the corner into Moore Street, Ah, sure wasn’t she always there  with Nelson looking down on her from his pillar a hundred yards from where she sat. Yes, there she was the little auld one, sitting on the small stool, her back resting against the pub wall, her black fringed shawl almost covering the hunched body completely.  While I had never seen her stood up I just knew she was very old and tiny. I waited and watched for the small puff of smoke I had come to expect. The bony gnarled hand crept from within the folds of the shawl clutching the once white clay pipe with the broken stem. Placing the jagged ends of the stem between the gums of the toothless mouth, she puffed heavily sending a white cloud of smoke billowing up into the air to mingle with and join all the other smells prevalent to Moore Street.