MRS. BABS GRIMES, ST. FLANNAN’S ROAD, KILLALOE –
You can listen to the full interview here through Soundcloud!
My husband was John Grimes, one of the “originals” of Killaloe, oh yes, and they were in the Church since he was born until Mary left it about 3 years ago and Mrs Geraghty took it on, they were always sacristans in the Church, oh yes always.
He worked on the Fishery Board for a good while and he worked on the Shannon Scheme and he didn’t like it he was a kind of a naturalist so he liked gardening and he got a job as a gardener at … where the Parish Priest lives now, there was an old lady named Mrs. Lefroy and he worked for her for years and the flowers down there were gorgeous and he used all the time tend his flowers and he brought up a couple of bits and slips and that time our garden was gorgeous.
Your husband’s family – how many generations were they here?
Oh Goodness, the Grimes’s were natives of Fenlea and there’s a field up there and I think John Scanlan bought it and they call it Grimes’s Meadow so they came from up there. And there are tombstones down there in the graveyard, I think they are the second oldest family in Killaloe, they are all buried down there in St. Flannan’s graveyard. There’s a Michael and his wife buried down there and there’s a John and his wife buried down there too and Bunty’s father, her 3 brothers and her sister they are all buried down there but they go back, they are the second oldest family and I’d say the Ryan’s, J.H. Ryan, well they are the oldest family in Killaloe and they are all related to the Daly’s and to Bridget Tully, Bridget Tully’s mother was Grimes and Betty Daly’s mother was Mary Grimes, I remember that. And Gerald Brookes wife was a sister of Bridget’s so they are all mixed up, then John’s mother was Guerin and Danny Guerin was her nephew, that owned the house that those people bought, the Sheedy’s and he left it to Syl Addley and he sold it to the Sheedy’s and of course Mai Sheedy’s husband was related to the Minogue’s too.
In my husband’s family there was Paddy, John, Tommy, Michael, twins John and Tommy too but they died, there was Sadie, Mary, Nellie and Peggy a very big family but they were all big families that time, yeah there are no big families anymore.
What would they have done for a living?
They made their living that time from fishing, always fishing and they were able to make a living and I remember when I married John they had a little house over there and they used to smoke the salmon in there, it was over there beyond in Thomas Street where Rita Corbett lived RIP, well I married John and we lived in that house and there was a whole crowd in it, Mam gave out that “he should have got a house for you” but I said sure I can go up to Fahy’s and work every day and not be down there at all and we got on the finest we never had an argument, never, we got on the grandest.
I was to go to Limerick at the time I came here to Killaloe but Mrs. Minogue over on the Green, they owned where O’Sullivan’s are, Mary’s mother and father now, and Mrs. Minogue told my mother when she came in that Mrs. Fahy wanted someone until whoever was working for her there got better from the measles or something like that, that Eileen Geraghty had, so Mam said to me, “Go in now to Mrs. Fahy for a week or a fortnight” – well I came into Killaloe that time and I never left it. I met John and his lovely hair enticed me so I stayed, love is a killing thing (laughing), it’s a killing thing in a lot of ways (laughing). So they tell us (laughing)
What would your husband have thought of the Shannon Scheme?
He worked in it. They got a £100 when their living through fishing was taken away.
Was that a lot of money then?
Oh it was a lot of money that time. Do you know that I worked for 5 shillings a week? I wouldn’t offer it to one of the lads now because they’d go mad. But the money was a lot more valuable that time.
And that was working I suppose 40 hours or more?
Ah t’was, working all day and half the night, polishing shoes and all those kind of things and I would have had more money if I had gone to Limerick to Lady Shaw but as I told you love prevails (laughing).
Did your husband miss the fishing?
Well he didn’t do much fishing because he was a bailiff himself you see, himself and his brother Tommy, they were on the rivers and it was his father that done the fishing and their Uncle Tom.
When I came here those houses weren’t built along there but there was small houses, and there was Mary Kate Magee, Jimmy Barrington and his mother and there was Willie Geraghty that lived at the corner house and his wife. And down in New Street there was no new houses, they were all old houses with half-doors, at that time and ah, we used to have to draw the water from the pump over there up to Fahy’s but of course now they all have the water in now. Of course the Jail was here, the four houses along here and the Courthouse was up there, and at the time of the Tans there was a Centry shot, I remember the Jail with the big bars on it, the Centry came and he was standing over there near Mary Kate Magee’s and this soldier came there to the gate below and he had a cigarette held liked that and the soldier aimed at the cigarette and he was shot, I remember the Jail well.
Then they knocked down that and they built those four houses, I remember them being built and I on my way to Mountshannon on a bicycle with my first cousin.
And who built them? Were they built and sold privately?
They were built by the Council and the Council leased them to anyone who wanted a house and the first people that got one was Mick Cassidy got the one here, Mick Meade got this one, Johnny Reddan got the one next to me and Paddy Grimes got the one below, so now Bunty Grimes is his daughter and she is still there and Mrs Reddan is still alive out there and I think she is 86 years, she is a great little woman and then Mick Meade went away and John looked for this but his father looked for it too as the one beyond was dangerous but sure it is still standing. Dr. Courtney got them to agree that she would give it to Jack (his father) and “Mud” while they lived and when they died it would go to John and I, so that’s how it happened and now it is fully paid for and it’s my own and I can do what I like with it.
Nana’s is the place where they come for a few bob or a pound if I have it.
I remember the four boys were drowned, I remember that evening well, Bill Brien came in and told Mam, so Mam got into her ass and car and she came in here to see Mrs. Kiely.
Here we were outside and we trying to get those blessed old turkeys down and they sitting above gobbling and they wouldn’t come down for us and we were calling and they would not come down. Then my step-father came over and we told him about the drowning’s and all the rest and we told him we couldn’t get down the turkeys. They were used to me mother. So he said I’ll try and get them down, well you should have seen him trying to get them down. Anyway, I think we got them down in the end, they came down when they got hungry I suppose.
We had oceans of turkeys, ducks and hens out in Ross, all we had to buy was tea, sugar and things like that, we were self supportive. Then we had the turf from the Red Bog, we used to cut turf there. My husband used to say “I brought you in from the Red Bog” and I’d say, “You did not, I came in myself” (laughing)
Where is the Red Bog?
It is between Bridgetown and O’Briensbridge.
Is it still there – do people still cut turf there?
I think they still cut the turf there, ya. We used to pick Ceannbhán.
What is Ceannbhán – I never heard of it!
It’s like a rush and there’s a lovely white flower on it, not really a flower but it’s a lovely thing.
And there was a Well down there and we used to go for water and it was as cold as ice and every evening maybe meself and Liam would go down for 2 gallons of the pure spring water and we’d sit down then and make daisy chains and all that kind of thing and bring up a whole big bunch, me mother used to be overlaid with Ceannbhán I loved it and I haven’t picked a bit of Ceannbhán for years. It was lovely out there. I loved Ross. You’d hear the Cuckoo all over the place and the Corncrey, I think he’s preserved now!
Would you say Killaloe has changed much?
Killaloe has changed a lot, oh very much.
For the better?
No not for the better, every factory is gone but for Bensons factory and they were there when I came into the town and they are still there but they are on a 3 day week, sure didn’t the one go down there the other day and all those that were down there, there is no work around and I think that war finished it all together, at least as regards tourists and things, I wonder if it will pick up, it would be great if it did.
I believe that in time to come they are to build a new bridge, yes that was said, I had a cutting but I looked everywhere for it but I can’t find it.
But Killaloe has changed very, very much and not very much for the better.
I hope it will pick up Please God it will.
This interview was recorded in the early 1990’s.
It was digitized by the Killaloe Ballina Local History Society in 2018 with assistance from Clare County Council and Paddy Collins, Ballina.
Killaloe-Ballina