Update 18th May

Boyle in Times Past a Bi-Weekly Feature.

In my last post here I began a survey of old Boyle from early to mid-decades of the 1900s’. This is for the most part with the help of Frank Tarpey and the initial work of Paraic Beisty now domiciled in the United States. I am, of course, very open to additional material or corrections. If it runs its course it will take quite a while to cover all the streets and residential areas! Then it is out into the adjacent townlands as used in station areas perhaps! Next time The Crescent.

Elphin Street East Side.

•• Pub. James Lindsay called Joss also grocer. James Keaney from Ballyfarnon. Paddy Hever a connection of Mr. Keaney. A venue for traditional music. Now the Craoibhin Bar and Restaurant owned by Gerry and Phil Emmett.

 •  Miss Neary then Leyland’s. John Cahill family grocer, wine, spirit, and provision merchant. John Cahill’s pub and grocery. Tarpey’s, Teresa Tarpey and then Frank until recent years where he also operated a Travel Agency. Now Toni’s Fast Food.

3• Mrs. Mac Namara and sister Martha Moran. Also a resident a man referred to as ‘flyer’ Convey. There was a Convey in Ballymore.

4• Edward C. McGee and family for a time before moving onto upper Bridge St. on The Crescent where Little Chick with Mary Cretaro is. Edward was father of Richard and  grandfather of Brendan McGee of Taylors jewellery. There was also a son Jim McGee who became well known as the Director of Music in the Army School of Music and with the No. 4 Army band based at Athlone. Edward and his wife were both music teachers and had small paper and confectionary shop. They were both church organists and got Papal honours for their contribution there.    

•• Jim Sheerin brother of Old I.R.A. man Pakie Sheerin. Jim had been in the U.S. and his wife was from the U.S. and they had two children Jack and Maureen.

Miss Conroy a room for book-keeping, typewriting and short-hand school. Winnie Gallagher married to Tommy Dodd. Also Cormac Gallagher a member of the fire brigade. Premises still connected to the Gallagher family.

Next Mrs. Nangle a widow later John William and Mrs. Sheeran and two daughters Margaret and Maura. A guest house.  

•• Miss McCormack a teacher, had been in France. A member of a well-known family. Charlie McCormack worked in the Roscommon Herald and two brothers worked in John Lowes. Charlie Jnr. Also worked in the Herald. Then Ryans. Afterwards the premises was with Gillespie’s, a lorry driver then John Leonard Accountancy.

•• Charlie Killalea from Corringeenoe married to Elizabeth Smith. Theresa Killalea married Owen Boylan. Owen, from Monaghan, came to Boyle as a lorry driver during the ‘Lime Campaign’ of the early fifties. Later Owen became a fuel merchant.

•• Miss Connaughton kept lodgers. Then Sgt. Lynagh on retirement father of Declan who was very involved with the tennis club.

•• John McKenna from Monaghan wife from Leitrim. John Joe McKenna a school and general passenger transport company and taxi service with Adrian currently.

10.                       Tim Brennan carpenter son Gerry.

11.                       John Callaghan and then Callaghan’s two sisters. Alice known as ‘the dazzler’ and Maud Tuite. In an Oblique View of November 2015 I wrote of them as follows:

Maud Tuite and Alice Callaghan had a bar on Elphin Street until 1978 when it was bought by Matt and Kay Smith and became the Hideaway. The Smiths gave it that name as Matt had worked in the Hideaway Bar in Rathmines, Dublin for a number of years before coming to Boyle.

Anyway Maud and Alice Callaghan ran a popular rendezvous there for decades. They were of old Boyle stock. Maud was married to a man called Tuite and they had a son Jack and a daughter known as Babs, perhaps an abbreviation of Barbara, who married a gentleman called Bill Carlos a vocational teacher who went to live in Dublin. The son Jack was involved in the racing business and there is a legend that Lester Piggott once visited the family home in Elphin Street though my ‘go-to-man’ on 'Old Boyle', Frank Tarpey, has not heard of that which puts it very much into question. Maybe I could print the legend.

The sisters ran the pub their way of course, as all publicans do, and it had a social division akin to Public Bar and Lounge Bar. The Lounge was the backroom kitchen where a particular ‘elite’ group would come together as in a club. In that back room was a fine table and a beautiful twin-oven range which was a memorable centre piece and is always referred to by those who called there. [As an aside I remember the ‘pot-bellied stove’ in the early seventies that was in Aggie Devine Conlon’s which is now ‘The Patrick’s Well’. Of course Kate Lavin’s has its lovely range and indeed is such a unique old-style bar that it is of particular significance generally]. 

Alice, the figure-head of the establishment- was referred to by those who remember her as ‘the dazzler’ perhaps because she herself would describe some special people as ‘mickey dazzlers’. Also a bit like Cockney rhyming slang she would refer to a person as a Basil Jarvis, Jarvis being a famous horse trainer in her time.

Alice is described as ‘humorous, thrifty and smart’. The area from what is now the entrance from Supervalu down to Londis was a market area and from time to time the people from the country would bring carts of turf for to sell there. Alice would query a seller about the quality of the turf suggesting that she had bought turf previously that turned out to be of very poor quality and so asked for a sample bag of the product. This she repeated apparently and thus reduced her fuel bill! She is remembered as wearing a black bib and as a smoker of Woodbine cigarettes, "without the sock" as she called it when removing the filter tip of the small cigarette.

Maud died in February 1978 and Alice then went to live with her niece Bab in Dublin.

*If anyone has a picture including these memorable Boyle ladies I would be interested in that.

12. The Railway Bar. Joe O’ Dowd ‘grocer, spirit dealer, and commercial traveller with a pony and trap as his mode of transport.  Frank and Beatrice Dowd, a nurse (?). Inherited by Tommy O’Dowd who worked in Lowes. Son Gerry a county goalkeeper in the seventies. Daughter Liz ran the business in the 90s’ where it was a fine traditional music venue.

13. ‘Beechlawn’ a house set back from main street. Owned by the Johnstones of The Irish House on Main St. They were in religion ‘Plymouth Brethern’ practitioners. Army officers there during ‘The Emergency’ of the 40s’. Then the Travers family. Mary was a prominent reporter with The Roscommon Herald and a community activist in politics and camogie.

14. Roes’ Garage. Purpose built as a garage and later extended. Willie Roe came from Mullingar prior to the 20s’ and started  with a bicycle shop in ‘The Shambles’ market yard. Moved to where Wynne’s Bar is now and had a repair facility opposite The Royal Hotel for a time and then to where Country Meats is now on Main Street and had petrol pumps and bicycle shop there. This premises was sold on to Fred Perry and became one of the earliest self-service supermarkets in the country. Later became the Main Ford dealers in the region signing up with Ford’s in 1919 based in Elphin St. Three sons, Alfie (father of Billy), Bobby (father of Clive) and Edsel (Henry Ford had a son called Edsel) and three daughters Muriel, Vivien and Doris. Edsel-Eddie as he was generally known-was a bank manager in Lismore, Co. Waterford. 

Amongst those who worked at Roes were Michael Sheerin, St. Patrick’s Street; Paddy Flannery, Brendan Coleman, John and Paddy Dwyer, Con Tansey, Liam McDermott with Jim Sheerin, Sales and Miss Campbell and Miss Lavin office.  In more recent times, October 31^st 1999, the premises was acquired by Dessie McLoughlin and is now home to Trojan Computer  Company and other educational initiatives. 

End of Boyle Celtic’s Roller Coaster Season

But… Looking Forward to the next One

Boyle Celtic went down to Carbury in a Sligo Leitrim League decider at Celtic Park on Sunday and though they drew the game 2 all it was not enough as they needed to win to continue into the last three games, which they also needed to win, to retain the title. So it was so close to a huge year for the side as they were defeated by Evergreen Utd. Kilkenny in the FAI Jnr. Cup semi-final in The Showgrounds on penalties after extra time. They then lost I to nil in Killarney in the Snr. Cup preliminary round. On Sunday May the 8^th the lost to West Utd. in the Connacht Cup semi-final by 3 to 2 in extra time after leading in normal time by 2 to 0 with less than ten minutes to go. While all this has been very, very, disappointing it was still a great season for a fine footballing side. Ironically, perhaps they played too much ‘good’ football. They were constant contenders in all the competitions and while a trip to Aviva would have been memorable the lead up to the semi-final in the Showgrounds and the atmosphere at that game was certainly memorable with the biggest Boyle sporting following ever.

Their year has been laced with great performances and especially great goals.

Perhaps they were caught out in the end by the number of games that they were required to play and the limitations of the panel’s strength in depth. Interestingly the captain of the winning Carbury team in his League Cup acceptance speech last Sunday was very generous in his assessment of the quality of the young Boyle team and their potential for the forthcoming years. Three members of the team Niall Brennan, Danny Browne and Michael Corrigan are trialling for a national team at this time. While there were a number of others such as Purcell, Connolly and Carlos right up there not forgetting the dead ball artistry of McDermotroe.

The challenge for the club now is to do a SWOT analysis with the team and management and seek to build on what was achieved this year to ensure them being contenders again next year. Sherriff of Dublin recently won their fourth title in six years so quality counts, it’s not always luck. And Boyle have a substantial quality base right now.  

When the disappointments of the last few weeks dissolve the onset of the new season, with all its possibilities, must inject a steely determination to do even better. This will require a discipline, dedication and determination from the pre-season even greater than in the season past. I imagine many of the loyal core supporters and the new supporters who came on board this season will be looking forward to next year. The hope is that the team panel shares that vision.

I conclude by saying that, while there were huge disappointments, there were several great moments and results in a sense all beginning in Ballina on January 15th and onto Carrick-on-Suir and Sligo. We will remember those and look forward to similar ones being repeated through next season. Who dares wins.

The Cuckoo

I know that a number of people ‘tune into’ the odd seasonal poem that I include here so on hearing the cuckoo over the last few days it brought back to mind the great long ago schoolboy poem by Wordsworth.

To the Cuckoo by William Wordsworth

O blithe newcomer! I have heard,

I hear thee and rejoice:

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,

Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass

Thy twofold shout I hear;

From hill to hill it seems to pass,

At once far off and near.

Though babbling only to the vale

Of sunshine and of flowers,

Thou bringest unto me a tale

Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!

Even yet thou art to me

No bird, but an invisible thing,

A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my schoolboy days

I listened to; that Cry

Which made me look a thousand ways

In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove

Through woods and on the green;

And thou wert still a hope, a love;

Still longed for, never seen!

And I can listen to thee yet;

Can lie upon the plain

And listen, till I do beget

That golden time again.

O blessed birth! the earth we pace

Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, fairy place,

That is fit home for Thee!

"The cuckoo comes in April. She sings her song in May. In the middle of June she changes her tune and in July she flies away,"!!  

The cuckoo or a breed of cuckoo barges into the nests of other birds and takes over

mimicking the eggs of the displaced bird or dumping the existing eggs. A naughty lazy bird!