Local Mayo history: A glimpse of Clogher 74 years ago

By Tom Gillespie

IN the 2012/2013 Balla, Belcarra, Clogher, Manulla Parish Magazine, Pa Heneghan reminisced on growing up in Clogher 74 years ago and recalled playing football in their bare feet.

He started school in Clogher National School in 1948 and this is a synopsis of what he wrote.

In those days nearly everyone walked to school. My first teacher was Mrs. Fionnuala Galvin. Her husband was the other teacher in the school. He was a Kerryman and she was from Galway and they lived in Belcarra.

In those days we just learned Irish, English, maths, history and geography and, of course, catechism. In the infant class we got plastercine, or ‘marla’, as we called it.

Mrs. Galvin was a nice teacher. We brought our lunches to school. Some of us had sandwiches in winter and summer. We never drank a cup of tea in Clogher school.

In summer time most of us went to school bare footed, or ‘in our feet’, as we used to say. It was not that we had no shoes, just that at the first sign of summer we got rid of the shoes and stockings and apart from going to Mass we did not wear shoes again until the summer was over, though we got cut from glass and got thorns in our feet and had to walk on the rough stones and gravel on the road.

We played football in our bare feet at lunchtime every day and the games could be hard and competitive at times. We had a fairly good team and at one time we played and won six or seven games in a row against Belcarra, Ballyglass and Manulla schools. In one game we beat Manulla by, I think, 8-2 to 2-3 and Paddy Deacy scored seven goals in that match. I remember Sean McNamara could hit a ball off the ground and over the bar - all in his bare feet.

Mrs. Galvin taught me for three years before I moved to the Master’s room. Mr. Galvin must have seen me coming because he retired the previous Friday. He was replaced by Tom Keville from Balla who was then training to be a teacher. Tom taught us for a month or two before going back to complete his training. He was replaced by John Mitchell who was still there when I left.

When I started school the Belcarra priest was Fr. Mannion. Shortly afterwards he was replaced by Fr. Gibbons. He visited the school nearly every week and we loved to see him coming. He nearly always arrived before playtime and we would not be called in until he left. It was often nearly time to go home at this stage.

Every Christmas and Easter he gave half-a-crown and chocolate bars to the Mass servers. In those days anything up to 20 lads would turn up to serve Mass just for the money. He would allow all of them out on the altar to serve.

A crowd of people would gather in a house where there was a radio to listen to it. Michael O’Hehir commentated on the matches. He was magic. You could almost see the match, so good was his description of it. Towards the end of the 1950s nearly everyone had a radio so the tradition of people gathering in a house to listen to a match faded out.

Within years history repeated itself. This time crowds gathered in Sandy Kelly’s to see matches on television. Sandy was the first to get a TV in Clogher and his house was packed for the semi-finals and final until, gradually, nearly everyone got a TV set.

Some of the people who went to Clogher school in my time have become well-known. Probably the best known is Padraic Staunton, now Fr. Staunton, and Connaught Telegraph columnist, who has appeared on TV on a number of occasions speaking on controversial issues.

There were very few cars in the area at the time and on a summer’s day every car that passed left a fog of dust behind it.

Turf would be cut by slean, spread from a barrow or fork, turned, footed, re-footed, put out and finally brought home, usually by horse and cart or ass and cart.

There was no electricity. When dusk came you had to light a lamp. If it was empty you had to fill the lamp with paraffin oil which soaked up through a wick which was then lit. Then the globe was put back on and you would be blessed with light for the night.

In the early 1960s we formed a dramatic society and put on a few plays. Some were quite good and on a few occasions brought the house down.

The first play that I can remember we put on was ‘The Cobwebs’ and we needed a greyhound and we borrowed one from Moran’s in Kilnageer.

As he was a very valuable greyhound we were under strict instructions to return him immediately after the play was staged for the first time in Partry.

However, it was very late when we got home and decided to leave the dog in the van until the morning.

But when we checked next morning there was no sign of the greyhound - he had legged it. Despite a search over the next few days he was not found and has not been seen since the night he performed on stage.

A big change from these days is that women now work outside the home. At that time nearly all married women stayed at home working inside and outside on the farm but were never acknowledged or paid.

Women were never seen in a pub. The pub was a place just for men to have a drink, no food, music or television. There was no such thing as bingo or discos. There were plenty of dances though no alcohol was allowed.