It was another wet and windy night and yet fifty of you braved the elements to come to another of Arlene’s Sharing More Memories events. These are proving so popular and it is no wonder as when else would you be able to hear spoken memories of those now no longer with us. This time Arlene chose four people from the oral history collection made in the early 1990’s.
First up was Maureen Scanlan of Abbey House, this is the big house beside the Cathedral, originally the Deanery. Maureen’s father bought the house in 1910 and she shared her memories of living there, her family also owned and ran Crotty’s shop, the Italian Warehouse on Main Street. We had been given some beautiful photographs of Abbey House by Paddy Collins and these helped to illustrate Maureen’s recording. Since the talk Paddy has come up with another gorgeous photo of Maureen and her sister Patsy, which we will definitely share with you at a future date. Maureen passed away in 2003 at the age of 88.
Then we heard from Tommy Cunningham, Tommy was a very popular postman in the area. He was originally from Roscrea and came to Killaloe in 1951 and worked as a postman for forty one years. He talked of the hardship in cycling as far as Ogonelloe to deliver the post and getting his bike repaired at Mick Vaughan’s workshop. Mrs Hehir the postmistress a formidable yet very fair and honest lady by the sounds of what Tommy told us. Tommy passed away in 1997 at the age of 82.
Next was Lizzie Ryan from Lackareagh, near the Glen. Lizzie spoke of going to school bare-footed, farming, the consecration of Guarranboy Church in 1909, emigration from the area and the dances in the Cheesehouse at the Creamery. She sounded like a really lovely lady. She passed away at the age of 96 in 1996. Her daughter Betty came to the talk, Betty had given us some lovely photos of Lizzie which we showed while she was speaking.
Lastly Tony Quigley’s interview was played. Tony was a keen angler and told us all about the eel fishing business in Killaloe, how the eels were caught and packaged for shipment to Billingsgate Market in London. He spoke of Paddy Gissane who with his pony and cart delivered anything from eels to coffins, he served as an affordable alternative to a motor hearse back in the day, Paddy also put up all the posters for events around the villages, he was the source of all news! Tony recited a poem he wrote about the demise of the good times in Killaloe. He was active in the Killaloe Development Association in the 1960’s this gave him great hope for the future of the area and it’s improvement. Tony’s son Tony was in the audience, Tony had provided us with some wonderful old photos which we showed on the night. Tony passed away in 2006 at the age of 74.
Arlene has done it again, she works so hard on these tapes, listening, choosing the best bits, editing the recording, transcribing it and then doing background research so we can understand the context of each segment.
We are as ever so grateful to Kevin Griffin Jnr for alerting us to the existence of the tapes and to Peter Beirne at Clare Library Local Studies Centre for trusting us and releasing the tapes into our care for digitisation.
A big thank you also to The Lakeside team for setting out the Shannon Suite for us especially in the week before Christmas when they were so busy with all the festivities.
Killaloe-Ballina