The Knife Sharpener

Every couple of years this man would come to Loughrea, County Galway and set up shop on the foot-path outside Molloy's Harp Bar on Main Street. He was an itinerant blade-grinder, or knife sharpener. Folks would get wind he was in town and quickly a queue would form, of people waiting to have their 'sharps' sharpened.

All manner of blades were whetted. Scissors, shears, scythes, chisels, sickles, lawn-mower blades, axes, carving knives, plane-blades, scrapers, even razors, he sharpened them all. Sparks would fly when he applied the blade to the spinning whetstone, turning the blade to whet both sides, changing the angle he held it at, almost flat for knives, fully right-angled for scissors. He moved in reverie with the blade, caressing the blade's fine edge to the stone, teasing it to a polished finish as he gently varied the speed of the stone by pedaling the foot-spindles faster or slower. He was an artist really, a craftsman for whom steel was his brush.

He would finish with a smile, rubbing the now gleaming blade with an oily rag to keep the rust off. I can't remember what he charged, something fairly nominal and affordable I imagine, for everyone needed their knives sharpened, rich and poor alike, and he didn't discriminate. He would finish up when the last blade was tested. Deftly he'd flip the cart onto it's one wheel, and using two handles which he had folded into the frame, he wheeled the grinding barrow off to his night's lodgings.

He towed the cart behind his bicycle and like the poet Antoine Raftery, he went from village to village, town to town, farm to farm, working his magic on the cutting edges of Irish life, continuing a tradition that probably went all the way back to medieval times. I wonder if he had a set route, or just took a notion, north today, tomorrow west with the sun? I took these two photographs in August 1973 and had 'lost' the images until this weekend when tidying out my mum's house.  

I was working in Sligo in 1979 when one day I took a drive to Drumcliff to see Yeat's grave. There I saw the little blue and white cart for the last time, tucked in behind a caravan, parked off the road. I stopped, but there was no one about. I often wondered what ever became of the little man with the sharpest wit in Ireland. I never saw him again. I didn't even know his name!

Sometimes I see a Heron in the Corrib river when on my Walking Tours

The word for Heron is 'Corr' in Gaelic. It is also the Irish word for Crane and is used interchangeably. In Celtic mythology, if a sacred place or taboo is disrespected, the effected Druid would adopt a 'corrghuíneacht' - or Heron stance, to put a curse on the transgressor. They reputedly stood on one leg, with one arm skyward, wrist at right-angles over their head, pointing at their enemy, transfixing them with one eye,  chanting or satirising him. Such a spell resulted in everything from blisters on the person's skin, blindness of the enemy, even their death! Irish Herons, not to be messed with. Timeless guardians of our heritage! 

Here in Galway, you can often see Cranes at Salthill, in the rock-pools opposite Leisureland, at Long Walk, near the aptly named B&B Heron's Rest, and often when on my 'walking tours', I see a Heron at the little weir below the Fisheries Tower or at the weir below Nuns Island. 

Keep a wary eye out for them...hah! 

Heron sculpture at Nuns Island, Galway.

The Winkle-Pickers Tale.

I started this blog as background piece for a journalism student/friend of mine in Galway University, researching for a radio feature she was doing on Periwinkles. I know, what of them, those little sea-snails? So one day, around the spring equinox, when the tide was at its lowest ebb, I walked to Salthill and watched some winkle pickers far out on the reef at Blackrock, Salthill, where winkles grow aplenty and they grow big, blue and tasty on the wave-swept rocks there. The picked winkles would be bagged and left at the high-tide mark in a rock-pool for a few days, before being picked up by a 'winkle wholesaler' and shipped off to France, presumably at a tidy profit to the seller, though probably not for the pickers.

I walked out there myself, to the end of the reef, carefully picking my way across the slippery seaweed and hidden rock pools, feeling very self-conscious in my fashionable walking gear and tried to get one older grumpy man to talk about his experiences picking and harvesting the blue pearls that are the Atlantic periwinkle. He was bundled up from the cold, his weather-beaten face and wrinkled, blue hands a testament to the hard life of a sea-shore harvester. He hardly stopped to look at me, let alone speak so I didn't get much information out of him. He was busy, stooped over, one hand in the water, one clutching an onion sack, brimming with hundreds of blue-black shells, anxious to get the most of the sea's bounty before the tide turned. He ignored me, grunted and waved me away. One look at his big blue hands convinced me that this conversation would wait! On my way back to shore, I cast my mind back to Kilkee, County Clare, just for a moment in time and remembered how I fell in love with these little beauties. 

Y'see my Dad was born in Kilkee way back in 1914, although by his own admission, he fled that windswept coastal village as soon as he could pay for a ticket on Percy French's famous West-Clare Railway. He found the 44 weeks of deserted Kilkee too depressing to bear. and the hectic bustle of the 8-week tourist season too busy to enjoy, so he left. He became a primary school teacher, initially in Dublin, then in Raheen near Killimor in East Galway, and finally he settled down, got married to my mum, raised a family of seven children and ultimately taught for 45 years in a three-room country school in Duniry, near Woodford, at the foot of the land-locked Slieve Aughty mountains, far from the spume of the waves, the cry of the seagulls and the smell of storm-stranded seaweed and bloated bladder-wrack. 

The draw of the sea is irresistible though and Dad was drawn back more often than he cared to admit. Thus in the sixties and seventies we spent every summer there, in a rented 'lodge', all nine of us, cramped like sardines yes, but the accommodation was not important, for we had different priorities then...like building sand-castles on Kilkee's golden horseshoe beach, tight-rope walking the endless strand-line wall, swimming 'au natural' at Newfoundout, the naturist swimming hole under Georges Head, idly fishing for cobblers and crabs, using barnacs for bait on a threaded twisted pin, barefooting the rocks 'back west' at the Pollack holes, de-spineing jet-black spiky sea-urchins to make ashtrays out them and sell to the tourists, playing pin-ball in Perks Amusements.

And yes, the 'piece de resistance', eating winkles with a straight pin, off with the little round lid, out with the whorley snail, down the hatch, toss the shell, reach for another, and on and on, no tv back then, just the beach and the winkles...simple pleasures, impossible to recreate nowadays as an adult. Kilkee and winkles were an inseparable fact of life for us...and as I grew older the taste for them never waned. As a boy-racer you could follow my car tracks from Kilkee to Loughrea by tracking the trail of empty winkle shells from Clare to Galway. The archaeologists of tomorrow will surely be confused at the proliferation of sea snails so far inland.

Winkles are not for the faint-hearted mind you...eating a periwinkle is an acquired taste, and you never, ever look at it before swallowing...or you will never eat one at all. Oysters and mussels are easy pickings by comparison. The winkle's nutritional value is probably tiny, the sodium content high, but the pleasure connection from eating these booger-like delicacies...priceless! 

What is odd is that to my knowledge, no one in my family ever picked a winkle and boiled it...it wasn't like the done thing...I don't even know how long to boil them...kind of a trade secret..is it 10 minutes, or as we believed as kids, 10 hours? I still don't know, but the one thing I do know is that no one sells periwinkles on the street here in Galway, you still gotta go to Kilkee or Lahinch to satisfy that craving...so that's an even bigger mystery. 

One day I was at a little hotel in Kinvara, on the south shore of Galway Bay, meeting some friends for a drink. I was wearing what were then fashionable, pointy-toe shoes, or winkle-pickers. My friends pointed out that the hotel itself was called Winkles, after the family that owned it. We had a good laugh. Seems one is never far from a periwinkle in Galway. Sadly, the hotel is gone now, a supermarket stands in its stead.Funny thing, I have never seen winkles on a restaurant menu, not even in Winkles Hotel.

A friend of mine, Bob Fane, wrote me from the States about the periwinkle, yes, the same Atlantic blues we ate here on the other side of the sea.

'Ah childhood, 'Boy Land', 'Never Never Land', once you cross its borders you may never return again. When I was a lad of 8 or 9 my father had a place in Connecticut on the then pristine Long Island Sound. We would dive off the rocks, root through the seaweed, find the periwinkles and, like yourself, would take out a safety pin from our bathing suit and eat then down, maybe 1/2 dozen, I never really chewed them, just let them slide down with the salty brine as the taste. We felt like Jon Hall from some exotic South Pacific movie. Then my brother told me they were nasty little buggers, full of excrement and other things too hellish to stomach, the source of hepatitis, yellow fever, polio, and bubonic plague. My peri-days were over.'   

Today, the periwinkle industry in Ireland is quietly thriving. It is an invisible industry, with the harvesting of this naturally occurring seafood mainly carried out by migrant workers way out on the foreshore, or on the small off-shore islands, far away from prying eyes. Many of the workers are illegals or at best, working off-the-books. Conservatively some 5,000 tonnes of periwinkles are exported from Ireland annually, and the business is worth some €15 million annually. The players in the market fly way under the radar and the industry is completely unregulated. Curiously it is almost impossible to buy cooked or raw winkles in Ireland. Almost all are exported.

My memories of winkles are very much the stuff of boyhood adventures and endless summers. I see from the Clare Champion that winkle sellers on Kilkee beach will now have to register with the county council, the health board and take out a traders licence, as well as providing €2 million in public liability insurance. The Periwinkle kept people alive during the Famine and has provided a simple living for the west Clare winkle sellers. These are not in 'big business'. Selling a couple dozen winkles for a Euro won't make one wealthy, but it is such a tradition, part of our culture.. Winkle sellers were a fixture in Kilkee, our 'supplier' of our fix. Aah for those innocent childhood days of carefree, endless play and afterwards, dangling your barefoot legs over the strand wall, needling a damp bag of periwinkles,watching the sun setting on Kilkee bay. A little bit of heaven. Perhaps it is gone now, another victim of draconian regulations gone mad in this little island off an island off Europe. 

Erin's Lament - Galway's Gain! Galway Titanic Connections

GALWAY'S CONNECTION TO TITANIC

  

RMS Titanic was the greatest ship of her age. Thought to be unsinkable, Titanic was 882 feet long (this replica model, pictured above on the Prom in Salthill, was built by a Men's Shed project in Lahardane, County Mayo, to mark Titanic's 100th anniversary in 2012 is 1/10th scale). The real Titanic was built in Belfast to be the fastest liner in the world. Titanic struck an iceberg some 200 miles off Newfoundland, at 11.20pm on the night of the 14th of April 1912. She sank at 2.20 am on the morning of 15th April 1912, while on her maiden voyage to New York, from Southampton, England, via Cherbourg, France and Cobh (Queenstown), Ireland.

There were 2,223 passengers and crew aboard Titanic when she sailed from Queenstown (899 crew and 1,324 passengers) on the morning 12th of April 1912.

In total, 1,517 people died when Titanic sank (685 crew and 832 passengers). 120 Irish passengers boarded Titanic at Queenstown (42 survived, 78 died). 37 of the Irish passengers were from Connacht.

Nine passengers on Titanic were from County Galway. 2 others aboard had a very strong Galway connection.

Hanora "Nora" Healy, 29, of Athenry, Co Galway boarded the Titanic at Queenstown as a third class passenger. Her ticket cost £7-15s. Nora escaped the sinking in lifeboat 16. She died 11 March 1919 aged 36.

Andrew ‘Andy’ Keane, 20, Derrydonnell, Athenry, Co. Galway. He was a keen hurler and brought 2 county medals and a dozen hurley sticks with him on Titanic. He died in the sinking. His body, if recovered, was never identified.

Margaret Mannion, Loughanboy, Caltra. Co. Galway. She survived the sinking and returned to Ireland in 1919. She married Martin Hopkins of Ahascaragh. She died in Clontuskert on 15 May 1970.

Ellie Mockler, 23, Caltra, Co. Galway. She survived the sinking and in 1917 became a Mercy Nun in New York. She died in 1984, aged 95.

Martin Gallagher - Currafarry, Caltra, Co. Galway. A hero of the tragedy, he saved several women to escape certain death by helping them into lifeboats. He died in the sinking. His body, if recovered, was never identified.

Thomas Smyth – Chapelfinnerty, Caltra, Co Galway. He died in the sinking. His body, if recovered, was never identified.

Thomas Kilgannon - Currafarry, Caltra, Co Galway. He died in the sinking. His body, if recovered, was never identified.

John Flynn, Carrowhakin, Clonbur, County Galway. He emigrated to America some years previously and was only home on a visit. He died in the sinking. His body, if recovered, was never identified.

Patrick Shaughnessy, 24, Tynagh, Co Galway. He died in the sinking. His body, if recovered, was never identified.

Other Galway Connections;

Bruce Ismay, head of the White Star Line, the company that owned ‘Titanic’, was a captain of industry, an extraordinary entrepreneur, and the driving force behind the new breed of luxury liners purpose built to race across the Atlantic. He was vilified after Titanic sank and shunned as a social pariah. He left his life in London and moved to Connemara where he mostly lived from 1913 

Eugene Daly -Athlone, Co.Westmeath. 
A weaver and a talented piper, sailed on Titanic. Luckily he survived the sinking by clinging to an upturned liferaft. He testified at the Titanic hearings in New York. He married in New York and in 1921 returned to Ireland initially to Athlone. Later, he settled in Galway city and after his wife died in 1961, he flew back to America where he lived with his only child, Marion Joyce, in Missouri. He died on 30 October 1965. (see his story, Erin's Lament, below)

The Piper on the Titanic;

Erin’s Lament, Galway’s Gain - A Titanic tale

In April 1912, Eugene Patrick Daly, then aged 29, (born 1883), a weaver from Athlone, County Westmeath, Ireland, was travelling to New York City, just one of 113 Irish passengers who unfortunately chose the Titanic to emigrate to the USA. He boarded the Titanic on the 11^th of April, 1912, at Queenstown (ticket number 382651). The ticket cost him £7. 15s, or almost 6 months pay for a working man.

It has been confirmed in eye witness accounts of the Titanic’s call to Cobh, that Daly played "Erin's Lament", "A Nation Once Again", "Boolavogue" and other well known nationalist tunes on his uilleann (elbow) pipes (a traditional Irish instrument) for his fellow steerage passengers, as America, one of the two tenders to the Titanic steamed away from Queenstown harbour, bound for the gleaming liner that lay at anchor far out in Cork harbour, near Roches Point. It was both a heartening and a poignant moment listening to those traditional airs as the passengers left Ireland, most of them for the last time.

Amazingly Daly survived the Titanic’s tragic sinking by clinging to an upturned collapsible lifeboat (Collapsible 2). He credited his survival to his heavy overcoat. Though frost-bitten and near death, he was rescued, but he lost his precious uileann pipes, which he claimed he'd played as the ship sank, saying he'd never heard the orchestra play. He would later file a claim against the White Star Line’ for $50 for their loss. Similar pipes, possibly Eugene Daly's, were recently salvaged from the Titanic wreck and are now in the Titanic Museum collection.

Eugene Daly got married in America to Lil Caulfield from Co. Mayo, and whether he was homesick or inspired by the Irish Free State, he returned to Ireland in 1921. He suffered terribly from paranoia on the return ship journey, so much so that his wife paid a crew-member to sit with him at night while the others slept and he vowed never again to set foot aboard a ship once they arrived home. 

With his new wife he moved to Galway where he found work in the Galway Woolen Mills and later in Palmers Mill, now the Bridge mill, which was then a busy flour mill. He lived with his wife and daughter, (born in 1925) Mary Kate, but known as Marion, at 7 St. Johns Terrace in Galway and was a popular musician in the city, playing pipes and flute in ceili bands around the city.

In 1961, after his wife had died, and after he'd retired from the now obsolete flour mill, he emigrated one last time to the USA, but this time by plane, to Washington Heights in New York, to live out his last days there with his only child, his now married daughter Marion Joyce. 

Marion had emigrated some ten years earlier with her husband, a locally renowned tenor, John Joyce. He worked in Manhattan and Marion looked after her growing family, where she also was superintendent of the building they lived in. While living with his daughter, Eugene was a regular mass-goer, a volunteer at the church and a doting grand-father to his grand-children. He was tight-lipped about his near-death experience. He died there age 82, in 1965. 

His daughter and her husband later moved to Branson Missouri, to be near their youngest son, who was serving as a police officer there. They are buried in Branson.

To his credit, Eugene testified at the Titanic Hearings in New York and his description of the sinking, the inadequate lifeboats and especially his eye witness testimony of a ship’s officer shooting third class passengers who were trying to board a lifeboat has been relied on heavily by historians of the Titanic and is the stuff of film legend now. 

His credible eye witness testimony of the chaotic scenes and passenger discrimination onboard Titanic was instrumental in the passing of new Lifeboat laws for passenger ships.  He helped save many lives in subsequent ship wrecks because of the new Lifeboat laws.

His account of the tragedy was used as research in many movies and stories about the great liner. He was interviewed by Walter Lord while he was writing his book on Titanic, 'A night to remember', which was later in 1958 made into the famous movie of the same name. That book and movie informed the makers of the modern movie 'Titanic'. 

Initially Eugene was unique amongst survivors in his willingness to recount the story whenever asked, as most other survivors, no doubt suffering from post-traumatic shock, or grief, rarely ever uttered a word on their brush with death when Titanic sank. Later as he grew older, he stopped talking about Titanic entirely, so painful was the memory.

Eugene Daly died on 30 October 1965 aged 82. He is buried in St. Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx

Notes;
Eugene lived at 7 Johns Terrace in Galway's 'West' district. He played music in Galway at various halls, but strangely rarely played the uileann pipes again, preferring to play the concert flute instead. He was invited as a guest of honour to the opening of the film about the Titanic, 'A night to remember' at The Claddagh Palace theatre in Galway and it is said he attended the showing every night of it's run there. 

Recently, I heard a story of how local children in the early sixties would chide him as having been a coward and dressing up in womens clothing, confusing him with Bruce Ismay, perhaps and not knowing the full story of his bravery and character. They taunted him with cries of  'Did ya get a white feather for your birthday from the Queen?' and worse I am sure. His house in John Street is still there today. 

I tell this story and many more about Galway and its interesting past on my 'Walking Tours of Galway' and my 'Fireside Tours' at O'Connors Pub in Salthill. For more information see the Galway Walking Tours website www.galwaywalks.com or email me at galwaywalks@gmail.com for tour times and booking. Galway Walks - more than just a leisurely stroll!

The above notes and story were prepared by me for the exhibit of the replica Titanic at the Prom opposite the Aquarium in August 2012, a hundred year on from the sinking..

Here's what was on show then:

From Mayo to Galway - with love, ' The Titanic' on the Prom!

Visitors to Galway, and locals alike, might be surprised this week by the graceful presence of the Titanic, 'moored' on Salthill's promenade, one of Ireland's best known seaside resorts. The replica 1/10 scale model of the famous ship, is on loan to Galway from the Mayo community of Addergoole, who celebrated the centenary of the ship's sinking last April. The commemorative events in the tiny Mayo village of  Laherdane were the focus of national and international media coverage, and 'the boat on the bay' is already attracting hundreds of curious onlookers to Salthill. The Titanic replica is 88 feet long, and is accurate in every detail, down to the portholes, smokestacks and anchors, and the decks are fully illuminated at night. 

Eleven young emigrants from Mayo lost their lives on the ship, a tragedy which devastated the local community, and prompted a group of local men from Addergoole to build a model of the liner. They worked tirelessly and in secret over a period of eight weeks, to ensure that the replica was in place for the opening ceremony in April this year. The 'gift' from Mayo is an acknowledgement and mark of respect to the nine Galwegians who boarded 'The Titanic' at Cobh in April 1912, six of whom lost their lives. "It was a real labour of love," according to Brian Nolan from Salthill, who is also a founding member of the Addergoole Titanic Society, "and while the locals are missing it terribly, it's great to be able to recognise Galway's loss on the Titanic too," he said.

Martin Gallagher, from Galway, was one of those who selflessly helped up to nine women into lifeboats before he lost his life. Another of the more well known Galway connections to the ship is Eugene Patrick Daly, a weaver, originally from Athlone, but who subsequently settled in St John's Terrace, Galway., where he worked at the Galway Woolen Mills, and was also a popular local musician.  Eugene testified at the Titanic Hearings in New York, and his credible eye witness testimony of the chaotic scenes and passenger discrimination onboard the Titanic was instrumental in the passing of new Lifeboat laws for passenger ships.

The West of Ireland connection to the ship extends to Connemara where Bruce Ismay, owner of the White Star Line, lived for thirty years.  He escaped the stricken ship on the last lifeboat, but his reputation never recovered.

In spite of it's tragic history, the Titanic and it's present-day replica continue to fascinate and attract the interest of passersby. Managing Director of Salthill Tourist Board Roger O' Sullivan, was impressed by the efforts of the Mayo community to keep the story alive, and he took the initiative to bring the ship to Salthill in memory of the lost Galwegians. "The Titanic is just one of many welcome visitors to Galway this week, and is a continued boost for local business who are delighted with the increase in trade," he said. The arrival of the ship was celebrated at a launch in the Galway Business School in Salthill on Friday, where the Mayor of Galway Terry O'Flaherty welcomed the local tourist initiative.(pics in circulation)  

Situated on the prom, opposite the Aquarium, it's an ideal spot for a fun day out, with many visitors already enjoying close access to the ship for family photos. Titanic memorabilia and souvenirs are available from 10 am in the adjoining tent where talks on the boat's history will take place each evening at 7.pm, beginning on Saturday August 4th,and continuing until August 20th. 
Volunteers who would like to take part in promoting Galway's historic link with the ship, are invited to contact Brian Nolan directly on 086 327 3560.

The replica is now housed in a warehouse in Castlebar, awaiting sailing orders. Who knows where it will go next, after necessary repairs and refurbishment! Watch this space.

Galway meets Gibraltar

Galway meets Gibraltar - The Legend behind one of Lynch's Castle's carvings is strange, but possibly true.

Galway and Gibraltar have quite a lot in common, not the least of which is the connection to the Barbary Ape. 

A friend of mine David Niland who owns the Galway Business School in Salthill, recently took this photo of one such ape and her baby and I was immediately struck by the similarity of the pose of his ape and the one on Lynch's castle on Shop Street, Galway. The real ape is grooming, feeding and tending to her baby. The stone ape appears to be doing a similar task, though to listen to the stories, the stone model is actually holding a human baby. 

Legend has it that Lynch's Castle went on fire some time in the 16th century (a not uncommon occurrence back then) and everyone fled the building, leaving the Lynch baby behind. The family pet, a Barbary ape, rescued the baby and climbed down the outside with the baby in hand. Whether true or not, it is quite likely that there were monkeys in Galway long before the high jinx of Rag week. Traders (the Galway Tribes were mostly traders) had much interaction with England, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy all throughout the 14th through the 17th centuries, when Galway was a pretty major player in traffic of goods and other commodities (including slaves....and apparently apes!). 

Eitherway, seeing David's photos today breathed life and animation into the one of Galway's most intriguing and mysterious carvings. To hear more about Galway's wonderfully colourful past and the characters that made it the 'City of the Tribes', come along on one of my 'Walking Tours of Galway', tell your friends and hey, please LIKE my Facebook Page too, 'Walking Tours of Galway'. 
Thanks; Brian Nolan. Galway Walks
(ps the reference to Gibraltar and Galway is taken from James Joyce's Ulysses...bet that will set your juices flowing!)

The Fireside Tour of O'Connors Pub, Salthill, Galway, Ireland - A Walking Tour With A Twist!

The shortest walking Tour of Ireland, the 50 foot tour of O'Connor's Pub in Salthill Galway.
In Galway for the evening? Raining outside? Just want to hear a couple of good stories over a pint? Want to pass an hour or two in one of the most interesting pubs in Ireland? Hey, maybe you might consider taking a walking tour of Galway, with a twist? The Fireside Tour of Galway is a new tour presented by Brian Nolan in O'Connors Famous Pub in Salthill, Galway. The pub is filled to the cieling with antiques, curiousities, bric-a-brac and historic photos and prints, and it has the most amazing fireplace in Galway, with a turf fire and all the atmosphere you might expect from a 300-year old cottage in the west of Ireland. piqued your interest? Check out www.galwaywalks.com and come along some evening for a really entertaining tour and conversation! Perfect for family groups, reunions, stags, hens, conferences, once off-groups or individuals. All are welcome.

The Fireside Tour of Ireland

Hosted by Brian Nolan, Story-teller and History-buff

  

A one-hour conversational jaunt through Ireland’s past, inspired by historical memorabilia collected by three generations of the O’Connor family at their famous bar in Salthill.

Relax and enjoy your drink around the 300 year-old fireplace as Brian tells stories prompted by items from the bar’s amazing collection of Irish antiques and memorabilia.

You are invited to participate as much or as little as you would like, ensuring a lively and entertaining conversation with a hint of turf-smoke and Irish banter.

A rollicking, engaging and sometimes irreverent look into Ireland’s dark and colorful past.

You won’t be disappointed.

Where? O’Connors Famous Pub, Salthill, Galway

When? Monday – Friday @ 6.30pm. Saturday and Sunday @ 6.30pm

Cost? Admission €10 per person, includes one complimentary drink (beer, wine, soft drink)

Booking Advised; Call 086-3273560 or email galwaywalks@gmail.com

Quid Pro Quo - It's a Question of Money

I came across this old election poster from the mid-1950's lately. I was born in 1956, so it resonated a bit. Political comparisons aside, I had totally forgotten how the 'old prices' were written and this poster, with it's comparison chart of commonly purchased items brought back floods of childhood memories to me.

For instance the 1954 price tag of 2/4 for Cigarettes meant that 20 cigarettes cost 2 shillings and 4 pennies or 2s & 4d, or about 12 decimal pence (The Punt became Irish currency on 'Decimalisation Day or D-Day', 15 February 1971), or about 14 new cents/euro (Euro conversion day 1 January 2002). And the 1954 price of 3/9 for Petrol meant that a gallon of petrol (gas) cost 3s & 9d, or 3 shillings and 9 pennies or about 18 decimal pence/(Punt) or 21 cents/(Euro) for a gallon. 'Course, that would be an imperial gallon, not a US gallon. I'm afraid your ten gallon hat would only hold about 8 real gallons and as for miles per gallon, or MPG, well are we talking a US mile, a statute mile, or an Irish mile?

Confused yet? You should have lived through all three currencies, as I did. But honestly, it was fun and anyway, we never had much money. If you could jingle a few coins in your pocket, anything was possible. We used to get a great giggle out of the confusion our American visitors had with our currency. They were completely at sea when it came to using our money. Their's was simplicity itself, a dollar was 100 cents, and there were only 4 coins, penny/cent, 5 cent, 10 cent and 25 cent in common use (dollar and half-dollar aside). Our currency was quite a bit different.

Just so you know, there were 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 Shillings in a Pound. There were 144 pennies (coppers), or 288 half-pennies (Ha'pennies), or 576 quarter-pennies (Farthings) in a Pound. To compound matters, there were 48 Three-penny coins (Truppenny-bit), or 40 Six-penny bits coins (Tanner), or 20 Shillings (Bob), or 10 Two-Shilling coins (Florins), or 8 Half-crowns (two-and-six), or 2 Ten-Shilling notes, in a Pound. The slang words were in common usage, so one had to know every term for each coin, or be conned or worse in any transaction.

Worse still, if you went to an auction, say to buy a house, or a painting or an antique, they calculated the prices in Guineas, not Pounds! A guinea was worth 21 shillings. Then there was the Sovereign, a one pound coin, made of solid gold, so it was always worth much more then one pound (£!), and is the favoured token of money at a wedding. Finally, a pound, was also more commonly known as a 'Quid', or short for 'quid pro quo', the Latin for 'something for something else'.

Pound (£) was not to be confused with Pound (lb) the measure of weight, in which there were 16 ounces (oz). It's no wonder the older folks were brilliant at mental math! Scrambling in your purse or rummaging through a pants pocket to make change for a purchase was akin to taking a math exam. Not to mention what the shop-keepers did, when giving change, or calculating the price of a bundle of disparate items in a shopping basket!.

Pencils and brown paper bags were the computer/calculators of the day and don't get me started on the butcher's or grocer's scales, for weighing meat or loose potatoes (nothing was pre-packaged) and then calculating how much the purchase would cost, had to be done before rooting in the pocket for change. For instance, if a stone of potatoes was priced at 2/9 and you wanted to buy 8lbs 13oz of spuds, how much would you be charged? Would you have enough money in your hand, or would you have to leave back a few taties 'cause you were a few 'd' short. There were no ATM's then, or credit cards. 'Course you could put the purchase on your 'tab', the be entered into the big 'debtors ledger' in long-hand script by the shop clerk after you'd left, to be 'settled up' on another day.

Each Summer, from when I was about 12 years old, I would help out my aunt and uncle Maura and Padraic Brody in what had been my grand-fathers general store in Killimor, County Galway, or another aunt and uncle Anna and Tom Nolan, in their grocery and souvenir shop in Kilkee, County Clare. I would also help out yet another aunt and uncle team, Josephine and Michael Bourke, weighing potatoes into half-stone (8lb) and 4 lb bags, for the tourists in Kilkee. It was great experience and great fun. I always had pocket-money, and in those days, as you could imagine, your pocket bulged, with even a little money and a little money went a long way.

Money was a physical thing back then. people spoke of 'the heft of a fiver' in your pocket. It would bring you a long way, if you could lift it! Money weighed pounds (pun intended) and it was never so apparent to me as when we were set by dad to counting the church-gate collections for the many charities my dad was involved in. It was always a sight to behold. The kitchen table would be cleared and the money from the collection turned out onto the red formica surface, to be sorted and counted and bagged for lodgment in the bank. It took ages, but it was expected of us kids, to help out, but then there was always the added bonus of picking out and keeping the foreign coins from the pile, for our coin collections, for cataloging or swapping later with our friends. (don't get me started on stamp collecting and the black-babies).

Later on, stints of bar-assistant at the weekends in O'Malleys 'Cozy Bar' in Loughrea, or my sister's bar 'the Kincora' in Salthill, took me through college, always handling the money, scrunched-up notes and chunks of coin, making change, and all in my head. I'm sure I made mistakes, but hey, no one seemed to notice! Can you blame them? The old people were bemused, the young folks just took 'change' in their stride. Money was money. I worked through all three currencies and can only say it was 'interesting'. That and playing 301 in darts kept your mental mind active.Mental math was a challenge back then, but we managed. Nowadays, we just swipe our card and hey presto, your account has been charged.                                                                                                                            

So, my history question today is 'Why were old pennies denoted as 'd', when it logically could have been 'p'?' And yes, you can comment on politics and the price of sugar too, if you wish. You can hear stories like these, and interact if you wish, at one of my Fireside Tours at O'Connors Famous Pub in Salthill, Galway, any evening at 6pm, during July.

Note; (Election photo courtesy of Friends of Ireland. Fireside, courtesy O'Connors Pub )

Brian Nolan - Galway Walks - Walking Tours of Galway - www.galwaywalks.com