Just around the corner

Leaving The Diamond for now we take a very short walk around the corner to visit te flat of my aunt Nanny and uncle Willie in Sean McDermott Street. If you've seen the earlier photo of The Diamond you'll have seen The Diamond Bar. Well Nanny's flat is right next door to that bar. Or at least it was, the building has since been demolished.

Nanny, Willie and their two sons, Michael and Paddy lived in this two roomed flat. The blacked out window that you can see was Michael and Paddy's room. Nanny and Willie's room was at the back.

The building you see is an old Georgian building, and like those on Summerhill, Gardiner Street and other areas was over 200 years old. These buildings were never actually pulled down. After a time, when Dublin Corporation (the council) realised that the conditions in the old buildings were a huge contributary factor in the rampant illnesses like TB etc, the inhabitants were moved to temporary accomodation while the buildings were renovated. The insides were torn out and rebuilt and the outer walls were scraped and painted where necessary, and then the tenants were moved back in after the work was done.

Poor Nanny and indeed Willy had a tough life. Nanny lived through the The Great Lockout, the Rebellion, The War of Independence, and the Civil War. She had a niece who one day went across the road (they lived on Summerhill at this time) to buy a packet of peas in a local shop. As she crossed the road on her way home with the peas a Crossley Tender carrying Black & Tans (British paramilitary police force) drove into the street. The Black & Tans shot Nanny's niece dead. She was 12 years old. That was not an unusual atrocity for these men to commit at that time.

Later, Nanny was pregnant, expecting Michael and she was in a shop when someone screamed and told her she was on fire! It turned out that in fact her coat was smouldering. She believed that just before she went over to the shop a spark from the fireplace had lodged in her coat and was starting to burn it. Anyway, this fright, and probably the trauma I already mentioned, led to Nanny becoming agoraphobic. Although she could leave her home she never left the immediate area, and if you were to walk down Sean McDermott Street in any weather you'd have seen Nanny standing there at her halldoor. If she needed anything in the shops she had to depend on local kids (or us if we were around) to go for her. The first time she left the street was when her son, Michael died as a young married man.

Then there was Willie. Willie left to join the British army, despite the wave of nationalism here in Ireland. But he had to. It was not because of any belief in the British system, it was for economic necessity. May I recommend a book called "Strumpet City" by James Plunkett. If you read this book it will give you a better idea of living conditions in Dublin at that time. And indeed the story of the male and female lead characters could easily be that of Nanny and Willie.

I remember that there was a long picture frame on their wall and this contained all of Willie's campaign medals. I used to love his stories of the time he served on the Northwest Frontier in India and in Afghanistan. Willie wasn't left untouched by these campaigns. I believe that his fondness for drink was because of things he had done and seen while serving overseas. I remember once I was standing at his halldoor and he and some man were having an argument. I clearly remember the words that Willie used which ended the argument. In a cold and (to me) frightening voice he said quietly to the other man, "Go away, son. I've killed better men for less!" The other man had the good sense to follow Willie's advice -- he walked away.

But let me describe the conditions they lived in.

As you walked into their hallway the first thing you'd have noticed would probably have been the bare wooden floorboards. But you'd also have noticed that unlike the other houses around, there were only 4 families living in this four story building. The overcrowding of families had ended. From that hallway, the door to their home opened into a tiny hallway. Straight in front was a tall walk-in cupboard which in fact was used by Nanny as a toilet as she couldn't go up the flight of stairs to the one they shared with another family. To the right of her little hall was the door to Michael and Paddy's room, and inside of this room there were two beds, a sideboard and a small fireplace. Michael kept that room spick and span, and later he even managed to get a sitting room suite into it... not leaving room for anything else. To the left of Nanny's little hallway was another door which let to her's and Willie's room. This rooom was much bigger than the front one. It held a dresser (for holding dishes) a sideboard, a large double bed. And on the walls were some old photos, and one of Jesus with a small red lamp attached to the picture frame. Oh yes and a fireplace... and I don't remember the fire ever being allowed to go out! There was always a large iron kettle standing on the hob simmering away. Nanny loved her cup of tea.

At the time I'm speaking of Willie had been demobbed from the army and got work wherever he could, mostly casual work on the docks. But as his taste for drink strenghtened the work became less and less until they were really living in hard times. But they somehow managed. And one of the ways they got by was by Willie collecting scrap metal. I remember him often bringing home coils of electrical wire and using the fireplace to burn off the insulation, leaving him with coils of copper wire which he sold to scrap dealers. I don't suppose he ever received much money for this, but it did help to keep them going.

The law back then was very harsh, and poor Willie fell foul of it once. He was walking along the dockside when he saw some kids climbing up onto the rail line above. He called on them to stop and come back down as he was afraid one of them would fall from the Loop Line Bridge (onto which they were starting to climb) and into the Liffey. They told him that they were just going up to retrieve a young pigeon that couldn't fly, so Willie told them to stay where they were and he would get the pigeon for them. Willie climbed up and had just made it to the level of the train tracks when he was called on by a policeman to come down immediately. He did so and was arrested for trespassing on the rail line. He tried to explain why he had been climbing up, but no one was interested. He was brought to court next morning and the judge wasn't interested in his story neither. That judge sentenced poor Willie to seven calendar days in Mountjoy Prison. To be sentenced to 'calendar' days meant that you served the whole sentence, no time off. And at that time if you received a sentence of less than one month (I think) you weren't fed a dinner. You were given tea and bread for breakfast and that was it. If you wanted any more your family had to supply it. So I remember going with my Gran to the gate of Mountjoy Prison and she handing in two billy cans, one containing a stew and the other filled with tea. A tough sentence for Willie and for his family just for wanting to rescue a pigeon, and save some kids from possible injury.

Well, time passed and Willie was taken to hospital because they thought he had a hernia. But it turned out to be much more serious, it was a cancer. Back then there was no palliative care at home, so when Willie was allowed home the only medic he had visit him was a nurse who came to change the dressings on the surgery wound. He never got back out of that bed alive and died in pure agony. I was in the flat the following day and Nanny and her sister, Mary (Liz's mother) were there alone. Nanny said that because of the state of the room she was ashamed of any of the neighbours coming to the wake, and Mary asked me to carry Willie into the sitting room and lay him out on Paddy's bed. Michael had married and left by now. This was the first time I had ever carried a dead body and he was stiff as a board. I had to manouvere him through the door, into the small hallway, through the other door to Paddy's room and then lay him on the bed in there. But as I carried him I bumped his head off the door jamb and Nanny and Mary screamed when they saw and heard the bump. Mary said, "Ahh poor Willie's head!" I, rather thoughtlessly replied, "Sure he can't feel it now!" I regret saying that to this day because as I said it poor Nanny cried bitterly. How we can hurt someone with a thoughtless word or remark!

For the wake the walls around the bed were hung with white sheets (as was the tradition) and pieces of cloth were fashioned into black crosses and pinned to the sheets. Willie was laid out in a brown habit (which was provided for free by the Magdalen nuns who had their convent across the road) and his hands were clasped as if in prayer, and a rosary was threaded through his fingers. My dad asked the owner of The Diamond Bar for some bottles of beer and sandwiches, to be paid for at a later date. This too was a tradition... for the local publican to supply the refreshments for wakes. Then the neighbours and friends started to come to view the body and pay their last respects to Willie. After they left I saw something that left an indelible memory. I had never seen Nanny or Willie showing any kind of affection to each other. But as soon as the neighbours had gone I saw Nanny go over to Willie and hold his face between her hands, and she kissed him and told him how dearly she had loved him and always would. I must confess that touched me very deeply.

Later that evening Paddy and I went for a drink together and we came back to his room (complete with Willie in the bed) a bit the worse for wear. We pulled some armchairs together to try to get some sleep, but it wasn't possible to sleep... those armchairs were just too uncomfortable. We both looked at Willie and I know we were both thinking the same thing. There we were with nowhere to sleep while Willie was taking up a whole bed. So we lifted Willie from the bed, laid him gently on the floor and slept the night in the bed... replacing Willie to his rightful place early next morning. No it wasn't disrespect, or at least we didn't mean it to be. To be honest the plain fact is we were both drunk. But I'm sure that Willie, wherever he is now, has had a laugh with my dad 'up there' about what Paddy and me did that night.

Later that evening the undertakers delivered the coffin and Willie was placed inside. We carried that coffin on our shoulders across to the church and as we left, poor Nanny called out "Goodbye Willie, we'll be together again soon!"

And they were reunited fairly soon after.

I think it's nearly time we moved to Gardiner Street and the births of Marie, Chris and Ellen. So till the next time..... please do come back.... there's lots more.... including the street games... the fun.... the growing up in a tough neighbourhood.

A bit o' meat to the story so far.

Let me introduce you to myself. Yes that's a photo of me and
was taken sometime while we lived in The Diamond.

The reason I'm including that photo is that I've received quite a few emails asking me how old I was when I lived there.

The fact is I don't know how old I was. Maybe 3 or 4 perhaps?

You see I'm blessed, or maybe cursed with a long memory. I can remember the room we lived in on Summerhill even though I must have been only 2 or so when we moved from there to The Diamond. Though in truth I never left Summerhill behind as you'll see if you stick with me.

People have also asked me other questions and this is why I'm taking this little break from talking about the area -- I want to address at least some of those questions.

I was asked about the poverty, the size of families, the hygiene facilities, or lack of them, etc etc. I hope to address these and some questions that haven't been asked but which I think should be addressed anyway.

When I started this blog I had no idea what I was going to do with it. It was only as I was given encouragement (you know who you are) that I began to see where the Blog should go. And if you stay with me you'll see where that is.. eventually.... I hope.

On poverty. Yes, in fact I believe that most of the families that lived in our area lived in poverty. Povery of the miserably grinding kind. We lived in a country that had practically nothing. Let's take Summerhill. At one time the houses we lived in were owned and occupied by the aristocracy. Following the break up of the Act of Union of Great Britain and Ireland they left, and they sold off their properties to shylock type (in the main) landlords, who in turn allowed the buildings to fall into ruin and then rented the rooms out to poor families. Simple maintenance was never carried out while we lived there. I remember flights of stairs that didn't have banisters, or had rickety banisters. Steps missing from some of the flights of stairs. I remember people having to climb those stairs to the top of these four story buildings at night with a candle, or even a burning piece of paper used as a torch to light their way.

You see we were (and still are) a very new independent nation. At the time I was born this country was still recovering from the Easter Rebellion, which was in turn followed by the War of Independence against England. Then after we won that independence there was a bitter Civil War. This all happened in the 30 years before I was born, and it took the new nation a time to recover and to begin to prosper. Even after the English left and almost up to the time I was born they (the English) carried out a Trade War against Ireland, (No this isn't a political treatise -- just the plain truth) by placing huge tariffs on anything imported from Ireland. We made the final break from them in 1949 when we declared a Republic. Up to then we were known as The Irish Free State and had a British governer. So I suppose that makes us even younger than I said earlier.

During my childhood our biggest export was... people. There just wasn't any work here so men and women had to leave to find work wherever they could. I remember a time when my father wasn't working and he received the 'princely' sum of 10 shillings a week on the dole, and this was to feed, clothe and keep a roof over the heads of a wife and four children.

Pregnant women were given free milk, the Infant Aid Society provided that. They were also give a free meal every weekday by the nuns at The Dinner House.

Kids left school at 12, 13 and 14 to look for work or to make money in whatever way they could to help their families. It was very unusual to see a kid still at scool after the age of 14. That was the legal age at which you could end your formal education.

Death was no stranger to us even as kids. TB was rampant, the infant death rate was the second highest in the world after Calcutta in India. People died for all of the usual reasons, old age, heart attacks and so on. But they also died because they lived in rat and flea infested tenement houses, in dampness, in rooms that were cold and damp in Winter, in rooms that had a bucket in a corner covered by a curtain... the bucket being the toilet... which was emptied whenever the real toilet outside was free... and working! They slept in beds that were covered in old overcoats in an attempt to keep in some of the heat. Our rubbish was emptied into large open bins which were kept in the back yards where small kids played, and these bins were emptied once a week by the corporation cleansing department. We lived near piggeries, dirty smelly pig styes. Lanes off some of the bigger streets had people who kept pigs, goats and hens and these were allowed to roam freely. The smell is better imagined than described. Is it any wonder that all kinds of sicknesses, diseases, infections were part of everyday life? I remember when someone died in our street we (kids) used to make sure we visited the room where the body was laid out. This was because we were sure of being given a cup (sorry no glasses) of lemonade and a slice of cake for kneeling at the bed and saying a prayer for the dear departed. The adults would be sitting around drinking bottles of beer and that rare treat... a ham sandwich, just one each, and remembering the departed neighbour. Then when the body had to be moved to the local chapel the coffin was borne from the home to the chapel on the shoulders of family and neighbours -- funeral cars were too expensive and were only used to take the coffin to the actual burial.

Families were huge. It wasn't anything unusual to see families of 16 kids. In fact I knew a family who lived in a 3 room flat on Summerhill and they had 23 kids! My own mother had 6 kids who lived and I don't know how many who were still-born or miscarried. But I do know that I had two brothers and one sister who died as babies. These were Michael, Francis and Angela.

The one that I remember most was Francis (known as Fran). I loved playing with him, hearing him making his goo goo sounds and how he used to smile at me and grab my fingers tightly. Then one day he was suddenly taken away and I never saw him again. I was never told the full details, just that there was something wrong with his throat which affected his breathing. I remember one night after he died my Dad was helping me put on a jumper and I burst out crying. I thought I was never going to be able to stop, I can remember the racking sobs that I couldn't stop. My Dad held me in his arms and said gently, "Is it Fran you're crying for?" I wasn't able to answer him but he knew.

After I was dressed Dad took me for a walk. We walked around town, mostly in silence as I remember, and then as we approached our home (we lived in Gardiner Street then) my Dad pointed to a star in the night sky. He was very careful to ensure that I could actually see the star he was pointing to, and when I told him I could see it, and he was satisfied that it was the one he was pointing out, I remember his words to me. "Jimmy, that's a new star up there, that's Fran!. God needed him for a star and now he'll always be there watching over you." I felt just a little comforted, but at the same time I was thinking that I'd rather have Fran back instead of him being a star. I can still pick out that star in the night sky.

As I said at the beginning.... perhaps a long memory is more a curse tnan a blessing sometimes.

Come back soon.... I'll be moving on and promise to be more cheerful. It wasn't all doom and gloom y'know... we had great times too. Next time I think we might move into Sean McDermott Street next time and visit my Aunt Nanny and Uncle Willie... or maybe not.... is this what's called a cliffhanger?

The Diamond II

Still at The Diamond. I just wanted to talk a bit about the conditions we lived in, and maybe a bit about other things.

The 'houses' in The Diamond were all two story houses, occupied by 3 or 4 families to each house. This was a huge improvement over Summerhill where often 12 - 16 or more families shared a house.

A small arrow points to the house that we lived in, the one where the wall outside is in shadow. That lamp you can see lit up our room at night.

Come inside with me and I'll take you on a little tour of the house, and maybe I'll talk about what it was like to live there too. We push in the halldoor because it was never locked. Didn't have a lock on it, if you wanted the door to stay shut and not keep on banging on a windy night you tacked a piece of leather to the edge of the door to wedge it shut. So inside the first thing we notice is the bare wooden floorboards and a long hall. The ceiling is high and about 8 feet in to the right is a plain wooden door. Inside that door lives one of our neighbours, her husband and 12 kids. There's a door just beyond that one which was a separate flat, but our neighbour has that one too on account of her big family. As you look down the hall, to your left you see a flight of stairs going up, wooden and no covering of any kind. To the right of the stairs in semi darkness there's a door, and when you open this door you see a large sink with one tap delivering cold water. To the left is another door which doesn't reach all the way to the top or bottom, this is the toilet. These facilities are shared by three families.

So we go up the stairs, two short flights, and to our front is the door to the flat we lived in. At an angle in the wall to the right is another door, our other neighbour, Mrs Rice lived in there.

We turn the brass handle and open the door to our flat. Straight ahead is the window and standing to the right of the window is our wash stand (mentioned previously) To the left is my single bed and over at the wall to the left a double brass bed which was my parents. I was very lucky to have my own bed -- few kids did back then.

There isn't much in the room. The wash stand, a black gas stove with brass keys for turning the gas on and off. There's a small fireplace between the stove and the washstand, and although we did have gas a lot of the cooking was done on that fireplace. Gas was expensive. There was a gas meter fixed to the wall and this meter eat up the shillings that had to be put in to keep the gas flowing. When that shilling's worth of gas ran out you didn't have any choice, you had to use the fireplace. But the gas was still used and a big day was the day that the GasMen came to collect the shillings from the meter. They would open the small brass padlock, slide out the money drawer and make little stacks of the shillings, and sometimes they'd give Ma a rebate. I remember that she lived for the day the Gas Men came. They came in a big van painted a sort of rust colour and there were two klaxon type horns on the roof of the van. As the van entered the street the driver would blow the klaxons, presumably to let the neighbours know that they were coming. But about the rebates. If she got a shilling it made my Ma happy, any more than that was a bonus, and I remember her telling a neighbour that she got all of 6 shillings rebate. Quite a bit of money then!

Electricity. Yes we did have electricity. But only for lighting. No such things as plug sockets. In fact I never even saw one till I was about 13 years old. No television then, but if you had an electric radio you had to get a double adaptor and plug the adaptor into the lightbulb socket and then the radio into the adaptor. And as this meant that the electricity would be running all the time there was a string hanging from the adaptor which worked as a switch so that you could listen to the radio in the daytime, but by pulling the string you turned the light on or off.

Also in the room -- a kitchen table and two chairs and over against another wall was a chest of drawers. That was the full extent of our possessions.

I said that the hall door was never locked. This made it easy for the postman to deliver any mail. he never delivered it to your flat though. He would stand inside the halldoor and call out the names from the envelopes. If you weren't in, or if a kind neighbour didn't take the letter for you, then you just didn't get it. Then again that wasn't a real hardship because we didn't get many letters anyway, except maybe bills.

I'm thinking of Mrs Rice our neighbour. I was very fond of that women and she was kindness personified. She would often bring me into her flat and give me a bowl of soup and always a slice of bread and jam. I didn't care too much about the soup, but I loved that bread and jam! A real luxury.

Mrs Rice was the best of neighbours and I remember a time when my Dad was seriously ill. We didn't have the money to get a doctor so Mrs Rice came in and nursed him. She fed him chicken soup, rabbit soup, soup made of recipes known only to her, but whatever, she nursed him back to health. But she did have one bad habit that nearly drove my poor Dad crazy. While he was ill she would sit by the bed and read the evening newspaper to him. But she didn't read the headlines nor the sports section first -- instead she went straight to the Deaths column and would read it from start to finish, commenting on any neighbours whose death was in the paper. Dad used to say afterwards that although she had a heart of gold, she had no idea on how to cheer up a man who was so ill that he thought his name could well be appearing in that column next!

I think I'll return to The Diamond again.

Till then..... hope you're enjoying the story so far. And if you have any questions please feel free to ask.