Annie Finnegan

Interview with ANNIE FINNEGAN (1)

Maudlin St, Kells, Co. Meath. Ireland

DC: Hello this is Danny Cusack on Thursday 21 September 2010 here at Maudlin St Kells talking to Annie Finnegan. We might just go back to the beginning and say a little about your background.

AF: Well, I grew up in Maudlin St here. Four doors up was the original home which my grandfather McCabe built. There were four brothers and myself. And one died then after my father died in 1929. I was the only girl and during World War II I emigrated to England, to nursing. And then later on I am emigrated to America. And I was there for about 7-10 years. My mother got invalided so I came home. I’ve been home ever since. Then my legs were at me with varicose veins so I decided to do a course in chiropody. Then I bought this little bungalow myself and started up chiropody in it. Then my sight started to go so I retired. All my family are dead now – they are all gone, just myself. I have a nephew, he’s a priest; in England at he moment. He’s writing a book. I’m expecting him home any day. So that’s my family on the Finnegan side. There was just three of a family on my mother’s side. There was my uncle Kit, my Aunt Alicia and my mother. My grandfather was Mick McCabe and he became a blacksmith and he set up in a business at the top of Maudlin, in that big house with the six windows in it. And then he became a farmer. He had a great bit of land around the town. He was a marvellous worker. He came from a Protestant background. His mother ‘s people were Huguenots and they came from France. They were driven out during the troubled times. The Catholics drove them out and they came over here. They arrived at Mandistown, Ardee. They had quite a big estate there. I’m not sure how any were in the family but there was my grandmother and other members of the family who I’m not too clear on. She built e house herself. There must have been some kind of scattering in the family because she came up to Meath. I don’t how she got into Meath but she came up and the Tevlins had her as a housekeeper and she met a man called Johnny McCabe. And he was just the ordinary labouring type craytur – he was working in Tevlins – so she married him anyway. There’s a marriage certificate here. Fairly young in life he died from TB so she was left with, I think, four girls and one boy. Now she had absolutely nothing so she decided to build her own little house. That time they were all thatched houses, there was no such thing as slates. And she went to the Cholera[?] River – do you where Brophy’s estate in Kilbeg - well, just at the side of Brophy’s entrance you go right up and at the end of it you come into the area – it was Glebe land that my grandmother had. And she started building a house herself. She dragged the stones from the Cholera River and on this Glebe land she decided to build this little house. Another relation of my father –Gerry Farrelly – he says that the neighbours were good and they helped her. I think they supplied the straw and from that she thatched the house. And one by one she got a cow and she got a pig and a couple of hens and with the result she built up a nice little set up for herself. And she reared the kids. That time there’d be a clay floor and a pig would be lazing[?] in the centre of the floor. The potatoes would be thrown around and they’d all sit down and eat – in abject poverty. But she made sure that they’d all do fairly well. She was a marvellous woman. The only one that didn’t get educated was the eldest fellow. His name was Cathal. He stayed with her and helped her. The other chaps, three of them emigrated to England and they became gardeners and they were in that famous garden … [Kew?] There was a James McCabe. And there was a man that went to America – Edward. And there was a John McCabe. James McCabe had two or three sons and two daughters and three of them went on for the Church. And they got very bad health. Two of them had to leave, so just one (John) he joined the priesthood. He emigrated to Africa with, I think, the Holy Ghost Fathers. My grandfather helped to educate him. He was lovely man. He was here for a short break then he went out back to Africa. My mother kept in touch with him – she was a great woman to correspond. So my mother’s side then … the other side. My great aunt Helen, she emigrated out to Fort CollinsColorado and she met a Scotchman there – McGregor. They married and she had two sons and one of them was attached to the football. He was over in Ireland years and years ago - I was in England working at the time - and my mother recognised his voice on the radio. So she tried to contact him. He had mentioned when he was being interviewed that he was of Irish descent, that his mother was Irish but he didn’t know where she came from. So immediately my mother contacted the radio station but he was already gone back. But she used to contact his mother – her aunt – on and off. Then she was sick for many years and the thing sort of dropped. And later on … the Compeau [?] side … Edward Mc Cabe’s family … he had two sons and three daughters. I met all them when I was out in California . One of them was involved in garages in England and California and the other man was involved in some business … I forget. My granduncle Pat had two daughters – Mary and Josephine. He also had a brother, he was a rambler, he went off … they weren’t much in contact with him. So my grandfather was left there on his own. Josephine married – he was French-Canadian, Compeau [?] was his name, a lovely man indeed. I think he was just of the labouring class. And the other woman was a confectioner and she had a couple of businesses going for herself. She married an Englishman. That’s one side of the McCabe’s. My mother’s side now: They were very musical, they were gifted. And I think it came in through a Bridget Breen; they came from Dundalk. But her mother and father came down from Carrickmacross and he was very musical. He’d be at dances all night, every night of the year. He was a marvellous dancer. So I think the music came in on that side. Nanna was very musical, she used to play the concertina. A lovely singer. My mother was very musical, gifted. And my aunt Alicia was extremely gifted. She only got one year at the piano and she could play it, it was unbelievable. A beautiful violinist and a beautiful cellist. A harpist. And my grandfather supplied all in that house. A beautiful three-cornerd piano and she used tune it herself. And a beautiful singer she was. And she composed music and she was a painter. But she died on her birthday at 22. My mother taught music … there was dire poverty at he time … He [the fathr] died in 1929 leaving no will and the five of us. And she had to turn around and do something because there was no such thing as home help in those days. So she started teaching music and her father put her to a year or two of sewing. Then he put her off to become a nurse. And she sided [?] in Dublin in some hospital … I cant remember which. From there she was affiliated with a Crompson [?] in Manchester. She was there I think for about two years and didn’t she develop TB in the lungs. So they said she was marvellous nurse but they couldn’t have her because she was bad with the TB. So she was sent home. She never took another position after that. She was at home there, she would help them with the cattle and that. Then she learnt how to sew and my grandfather bought a machine for her. And she used to make all thesuits and everything herself. And my uncle Kit was a blacksmith and he had his cousin Gerry Farrelly. Gerry was a first cousin of my grandfathers. I remember when him, he was there when I was a child, helping out. He was a blacksmith as well. He came from Carnaross and died in the 30s. My uncle Kit married … she was from the Midlands … and she was doing book-keeping there in the Farrellys. And she met my uncle Kit and they got married. And then she had 6-7 I think of a family. They were musical. My mother taught Gertie – she was an only girl too. She used to teach music there for a good while.

DC: Could you just say a bit more about the Finnegan’s?

BACK

AF: The Finnegans came from Cruicetown. They had a school … and there was music on that side too …and there was a John Finnegan in it and he was a hunchback. He played the violin and he used give violin classes. He used go around the house dos and play. And there was another in it that put on poor scholars for the church. There was a piece on all this in the Chronicle in the 30s … I don’t remember what year, perhaps 1936 or 37. I remember my mother saying that’s all your school days [?], your father’s. It seems that during the troubled times there was some upheaval there and they died out of it. Some of them got married. And one that married this lassie … I can’t remember her name … they couldn’t find the deeds of the house. And they knew that they were in the crop of cart wheel and it was in the house somewhere but they couldn’t find it. There was great upheaval about it. During the troubled times my father being a direct descendant used to go out and beat all the beasts and that off the land, to take control. But then a curfew came and he was put from doing it so that he never got it back. It was in foreign hands, we never owned the land or anything. And there’s some connection with a family up in Slane. One woman there is up in it, I used to hear my mother talking about it. And she was too a direct descendant of the Finnegan’s. But I think there’s a part of that school there yet. I was out there about 14-15 years ago and there were just remains there. It was the best kept place around Meath I believe in those times. Old Charlie Smith’s place – he’d be a first cousin of my father’s – its just opposite the old school. I think it’s on the main road coming out of Kells heading up for Kilmainhamwood. I think it’s on the left-hand side now as far as I can remember.

DC: There’s still Finnegans, not so much in Cruicetown as in the next towmland, Altmush …

AF: There must be a connection there you see. There was probably a breakaway there…From Ingram’s [?] too there were splits in the family

DC: When did the first Finnegan come from Cruicetown to Kells?

AF: That I’m not sure of. But there was a fellow, a bookie, here once - he’s a descendant of our crowd - he came in from Cruicetown. He was in Cross St I think. But that goes back years. I’m not sure what his name was …John or Mick or what … [Irrelevant chat]

Johnny Maguire’s crowd would be one of the oldest race of people in Kells … the Rourkes … there was an awful lot of them around. I don’t think they ever emigrated in those later years. They were into killing meat …cows and that … and they used to sell it out to the poor. Now there’s a Rourke family in Maudlin Road here. They had a slaughterhouse on the right hand side. And the old folk used to come with their shawls on them when I was a child with little buckets and get the meat from Paddy Rourkes. That’s how a lot of them survived. Johnny’s mother was a Rourke, Kathleen from Climber Hall. There were a few brothers … small little men … and its amazing they were great hoars [?]. His grandfather he was a way into his 90s when he died and the mother she was a Mullan. And I went into them as a youngster … they were only that height the two of them … and they were in they their 90s and they with the little white aprons on them. The two were the one size but a clear intellect they had. They could go back … But there was another woman here … the gasworks was next to me here … they came from the north of Ireland. They were in there and I a child. And the manger took over when my grandfather died. The house was completely finished when he died. So the house was empty and he was approached by the manager from the North to know would let out the house to the management that was taking over. So he was a Mr Sinnott. He lived up there with the wife, they had no family. And he was in it there for quite a while and the next thing a heavy-set man from Belfast. That time to road and the path were all one. There was just flags separating the path from the road so that the old folks with their shawls would come marching up walking along the flags off the rough path. I often heard my mother saying that I as a youngster used to come out … Mr Woods was the last manager of the gasworks. She was a north of Ireland woman. They were Protestants. He had two daughters – Dorothy and May. I remember Dorothy getting married. This was the early 30s and Nan would be sitting in the doorway on a stool and my mother let me out and I’d be walking up and down on the flags and Mr Woods would be walking down and he’d call me “sussy Nan”. And I used to follow him down step by step. And he used to keep a beautiful garden of sweet pea. And he’d bring me down the garden. And I’d have the little white apron on and he’d fill every bowl [?] in the front with the sweet pea. I remember him well and I remember the two daughters. The daughter got married and I remember her bringing me in to take something off the table and I remember I took a bit of sponge or something and went out again. So the following year didn’t her husband poison himself. He was a north of Ireland man. So then when he closed down the Shannonscheme came in – that would be in the early 30s. It was gasworks was supplying the light long ago. Thady Clarke down the road came and lit the lights. There was a light over the street there and there was one over at McAnally’s thats demolished now. And there was a light in the centre square of the town. Sure there were no cars those days, just ponies and traps and carts and asses. Then when the Shannon scheme came in the gasworks closed down.

DC: That’s when the electricity came in …

AF: Yes. There was gas in the house above because he was the gas manager and he’d put the gas into it. The pipes were in it under the stairs. My mother used to have the gas light for him there up till it was finished. Down where those three houses are now built in the past year there was two farms there. There was a Sally Fairchild, when married she was Sally Smith. And she was a character. She lived there and she had a horrid tongue in her head, I remember as a child. And she’d open her two little gates and the people from the country – out Kilbeg and Cruicetown on – they’d come in to the fairs. There was an awful lot of fairs in the town in my young days. And they’d be coming up, the ponies and the cattle and all and the fairs would be held in the streets. Sally would have to open up, that’s how she survived. She would get 3d’s and 6d’s for keeping the cattle up. She knew my great grandmother, Bessie Liscoe. She used to come in with the Tevlins of Horath to get educated. The trap would be put up in Sally’s garden and often she’d tell my mother: “I knew your aunt”. They’d end up with Sally you’d see. So next door then there was quite a few men employed there in the gasworks. And there was a family of Norris’s in it. The father was stoker and he lived – there’s two doors in that house next to me – now the second door down with the three steps up to it, the Norris’s lived there. One big big massive room. And it was just filled with big beds. Nine of a family were in it. There were quite a few boys in it, and girls. There was Paddy – I knew him – he was attached to the gas works and you’d see him with the yoke on his shoulder. Maggie was there, she was a character. She was 100 years of age when she died and she was in possession of all her faculties. She neither wore glasses nor had she a pain or ache. She drank a baby power every day and God’s honest truth it kept her going. I used to go up to them a lot of times and she’d – I got an awful lot of history from her too. She could tell me all the different families that were in the town. She lived down there beside Sally Fairchild and of course Sally was an awful character. As a child I used to be in and out to Sally and she’d say [to her son]: “Now if anyone of these men asks you whose son you are tell them your George Smith’s son” (that was her husband). “Make sure to tell them you’re George Smith’s son”. So they’d come in from around the country: “Now, whose son are you”. “I’m George Smith’s”. Maggie said she had an awful lad made out of him. And he would come out crying then – the mother would be vexed with him – he would come out crying to Sally. And says she: “Go out and tell them your mother you wanted is washing and Sally is going to wash the clothes for him”[?] And he’d be banging on the door, she said: “Mum, mum, let me on. I’m leaving home. I want my washing.” It was unbelievable the things she’d would tell me about him. That was old old Maudlin of course. Then next to that there was another yard owned by the Ryan’s of Headfort. That crowd all came from Tipperary. Two or three brothers came over and they had all that land at the back where Headfort Grove is built. There were a couple of boys in it and one girl. She went to Dublin and married a Dunne. They had quite a few sons and daughters . And they’d come and down from Dublin when they could and spend time below with Olohans. They weren’t married. One of them was very attached to Kells, Jimmy Dunne. He came on holidays and he couldn’t just settle in Dublin. He walked from Dublin to Kells to be with his uncles. So he never went back, he stayed there with them. He married a Smith woman from Mullaghea. They had Cavan background. I just barely remember the uncle, one of the uncles – they were small little men. And he in the bed and me outside looking in the window. Like a leprechaun he was, they were small. So Jimmy then married Cissie Smith of Cherry Hill. They had a fair family there, five or six. They were there for years and I grew up with them … until a family of Grace’s came to live beside them. Gretta Grace was a bit of a targer [?]. And sure Cissie Smith wasn’t a targer [?]. We used to hear it in then in the yard above. And it ended up Jimmy just decided to pull up all and he bought the farm over near Maudlin Bridge where they are to this day. So different families went into it then … Well, Maudlin Bridge, there was no bridge there in olden times. It was stepping stones that brought them into the town that was them times. And Kells was sacked three times. It was thatched houses. But you have the Red Hills below Maudlin. Well there was a road there … there’s a turnstile … the road came in from Moynalty to Mabes Bridge. And you know the steps down … there was a road right across the Red Hills and it came out at Maudlin Bridge. And you turned there and you went down by Dunne’s, the back road, and you went right up Cherry Hill. That road goes right by the wall [on the land owned by Headfort] and comes out at Headfort Bridge. There was no bridge in those days. And you come out at Rushedden [?] and it brings you all the way into Drogheda, Headfort Road, there was no road there. The Taylors came in in the 1600’s. St John’s Cemetery, that came out onto the apex of the road that you see now. The courthouse wasn’t there. That was all fields there and St John’s Cemetery to the left, that came right out to the apex of that road. And the Headforts had the power to dig St Johns Cemetery up, pile it up and make that road. And they bought the land where the [court]house is today. They built the road and the bridge and the grand gates. And the cemetery – hence the hill – is as you see it today.

DC: Are you saying that people were buried where the road is?

AF: That’s right. The bodies were thrown up and they had the power to do it. It was British control, you see. The Reformation days the Catholics were downgraded. And the poor, it was to hell or to Connaught.

DC: The Headforts owned all of Kells at one time, didn’t they?

AF: Oh they did, they did. They could do what they like. Where our church is built now it seemingly was owned by the Headforts. And seemingly the Church was well in with the Headforts and they managed to be allowed build the church. They owned the church and they owned the priests’ house – it was a different house then of course. During the [?] War one of the Headforts was at the war. This other man was working with the Headforts and was in the war with him and saved his life. Dempsey was his name. For his reward he gave him the grant of the land where the convent is now. He also bought where the town hall is now and Dempsey lived there in a three-storey thatched house. And he had one daughter – Catherine Dempsey. And the father died and she was there alone with the housekeeper. And seemingly there was a big sideboard inside in the dining-room. You could see it I believe when you’d be passing up and down. There were very valuable hens and chickens pure gold [painted?] on it. They were Catholics you see. And Catherine was sick, for dying. And she kept asking the housekeeper … she wanted to see the Catholic priest. And different people that would go up to the door, she wouldn’t let them in. That went on so the next thing was there was one woman that came to the door and got in and Catherine said: “Get the priest to come, tell him I want him.” The messages [had been] going out from her but they never got to the priest. But this particular woman did manage to get to the priest. So he came into her [Catherine] and she wanted to will that land that you see today for schools for the poor of the town: the boys’ school and the girls’ school. So that was built with whatever money that the father had left to her. Otherwise the woman [housekeeper?] would probably have controlled everything, she had no connections with the family. That’s the story I died. Actually it was nun that was telling me that. Mother [?], she was from Cavan. She was living down there. She had a whole big book of the history of Kells she told me. And she said she loaned it to Dr Brannigan and never got it back. They had a library down there. Its an awful pity. She was a great historian too. She knew an awful lot.

DC: Catherine Dempsey’s name is written above the school … 1843.

AF: That’s right. She was an only daughter you see. Then you have the Spire of Loyd. The son had that built in honour of his father. The people from the poorhouse of Kells were buried there. To this day they hold Masses above there. And that monstrosity was built by Lord Headfort. Next door to me there was – they’re still there – a family of McCabe’s. Well, their grandfather, they all worked in Headfort and I’d say they were partly responsible for the building of the wall around it. They were big big builders. Some of Jack [McCabe’s] ancestors were at the building of the Spire. They were attached to Headfort you see. My mother and my Aunt Alicia used go up the Spire during the war and bring a bit of a party with them, sandwiches and that, during the summer time. Then it was closed up for years, I think somebody was killed in it some years ago. So its only in latter years [1991] they’ve done it up. The Protestant Church then is the Catholic Church originally and there’s an underground passage there that comes out away in a field in George Armstrong’s at Black [?]. It comes out in one of his fields and I remember Briany my brother and some of the crowd them times going down there and going right in the passage way leading into the church. And I think …does it lead into St Colmcille’s House?

DC: I’ve heard that version as well.

AF: I was in St Colmcille’s House several times. [Armstrongs: Catholics and Protestants]. I was up in the three sections – the rooms where he slept – and there was a stone bed, but it was stolen out of it. And there was a stairs in it that collapsed. Then downstairs there’s a little stone seat set in the wall. And they say that you could get whatever you wished by sitting in it. Down from Colmcille’s House then there’s a narrow lane - it was called Protestant Lane. It was occupied by Protestants. There was a quite a few of them in my young days.

DC: What we call Church Lane now …

AF: That’s right. There were four gates in Kells. One gate at Cross St. They should never have moved the cross out of it. It added great character to the town. All the gossoons could sit on it. It was great life. And the things that used to take place there. It was a great pastime for a lot of men … characters. There was a gate there you see. And there was a gate at the top of Carrick Street

DC: Roughly where Cross Carrick comes down …

AF: Or was it higher? I’m not too sure …

DC: If it was it wasn’t that much higher up …

AF: Yes, I think it was. Then there was an opening here in Maudlin. I think there were old walls there ... sure they might be gone by now.

DC: Do you know exactly where the Maudlin Gate was?

AF: At the bottom of Maudlin there, I think, just below Dunne’s, or further, I think there was an opening over in Farrell Sttoo. There was a mound over there in Bective St. There was house there, there storeys, whitewashed. And it was called The Height. Johnny Maguire’s grandparents lived in it. She was an awful alcoholic. She was always on the bottle and the smell off her, I remember as a child. And the old shawl on her and she smacked out. People’d be afraid of her. They had a cobble [?] in the town those times when I was young. The down and outs lived up from that. Johnny Maguire’s father Patrick was reared up there. And three storeys, two just open door … oh black black like old Calcutta … with mudwall floors in it. Then it was higher then the ground to the back and their was bodies got in it. I believe they used ... that time the pubs would be closed up of a weekend, they wouldn’t be open of a Sunday … they used to bring the beer in and hold it for the characters that would come in for drink of a Sunday. You’d be a afraid of your life in it. I used to cross the road. There was steps up the centre way in it and there was steps up the side and a wall … very old, big big heavy stone. I don’t know whether there was doors on the place at all or not. But you’d look in there ... the black hole of Calcutta. It was called The Height. It was a horrid place. And then there in the 40s they demolished it and built the two bungalows that’s now there idle in it, nobody in them at all.

DC: Next to Hethertons’ garage?

AF: That’s right. They were three storeys high and probably thatched in olden times.

DC: Do you have any memories of when you went to school?

AF: Well, I only went to the convent school. I went to school with the Higgins’s over here and my cousins across the road – the McCabe’s. And then Rosie McGuinness and Micky. They were tailors. Rosie’s still over there, she’s a Mrs Roche. And I went with the Morris’s at the top. The father was a barber. They came in from a town below in Cavan, they were Cavan people. And Lizzie, Peggy and Christina Morris. There all gone out of it, a lot of them dead too. And I went to school with Ethna McGee, her father was a chemist. He was from down the North of Ireland. Then the McEntee’s above that’s still there. Quite a few of the McGrath’s and the Rourke’s. Bridie Rourke, she’d be related to Johnny Maguire. Her father and Johnny’s mother were brother and sister. He was a painting contractor. And she’s still up in that area. It’s a two-storey house built in latter years. Then there was Crying Mairtín, another brother who lived on the Circular road. He’d speak: [Mimics his screeching speech]. I remember him when I was a young one because I used go round with Peggy Morris who was also related, her mother was a Rourke. And they had the barber’s shop at the top here. And that’s how he got his name, Crying Mairtín. He’d be a grand-uncle of Bridie Rourke that lives above in Climber Hall. And she had a brother a priest, he died there a few years ago. And of course the Hannon’s on the Circular Road too. I went to school with them.

DC: And of course some of those families are still around the town and some of them not.

AF: Oh, there’s an awful lot of them gone out of it. Then the Farrelly’s down here. I was just looking at a picture of Nicky Farrelly – the Bomber – he died over in America. There were a lot of Rourkes in Maudlin, there was an awful lot of them around. Then there were lanes too. We had the Malthouse Well down here. They used to go down in olden times. And the men in the council, they were great men; they used to clean up the roads and everything and purify the water. The Malthouse Well, swear to God and if they didn’t do away with it and build a blooming old montrosity of a house on it. Oh, when I was growing up … the water in the terrible hot weather …the cans with the beautiful water …whoever let that go was something desperate. I’m always giving out about it. We spent our youth going up and down to the Malthouse Well. Lovely well, terribly well protected by the council … they were marvellous. And Thady Clarke next door, he had a beehive and the bees, he’d have them outside … just the hedge between him and the path down to the well. It’s desperate to think of it. And then you have Blackwater House. That was just across the field there. It was Canon Williams that built that. His relations are still out Carlanstown way. He was a Protestant minister and put the opening in it as you see it today. He died and it’s a haunted house that’s in it. It’s well known. That Micky Farrelly I was telling you about, his father was reared up on Maudlin Road, he was reared with my mother. He used to tell me himself. He’d come up with another friend that lived on Maudlin Road. They were coming up one day from across the fields and there was a big black dog outside the red gate, the second gate. Well, this big black dog was seen time and time again. And Micky said to the man that they’d better not go up that way with the big black dog there; so they went across Hopkins’ field and away home. It’s still haunted in it. Now recently … I nursed Mrs Brady here for a a short period … and she passed away recently. Now one of the Rourke’s [Joe] … his mother-in-law was in here with me… she was at school with me, she was brought up in the orphanage … her mother died when she was young; so two sisters and herself were put in the orphanage. A bright little one she was – Nan. And her daughter (Marie) is married to a Rourke [Joe] from Maudlin. Their father came from out our country [Cruicetown] and he was an electrician I think. Man that went hard on the drink, and sixteen of a family. She [Marie] was here with me and she says I must tell you what happened the weekend. He [Joe] was below in the house … this only happened a couple of years ago … and she was on the ground floor, to the left was the library …. And I think he [Joe] was in there .. and 12 o’clock struck and he commenced to bless himself and he was just behind the chair where Mrs Brady used to sit. And the next thing was as he sat to say the Angelus he got a [chook?] in his coat. And he went around the [chook?] and he started pulling the coat like this. And he kept looking round and praying that the [chook?] would stop. And the hair was standing on his head. I [ran into Marie Rourke] on the street later and asked her if it was true and she said, yes, I went down to bring [Joe] home for his dinner in the van and when I went down he was outside at the door waiting and as white as a sheet. And he says: “In the name of God, get out of here quick”. He nearly passed out. That actually happened. It is a haunted place, no doubt about that. And I often think of the fellow who’s in it now. He owns the coal yard beyond at the railway. I don’t know his name. The black dog at Brady’s red gate. The gate was painted red in my young days. The New Line going out to Mullaghea, that wasn’t there. No road there, only fields. The road went up the back … there was a cherry orchard in my young days up at the top of the hill there into the right. The Monaghans owned it. That’s where we’d spend our Sundays with our mothers and fathers long ago to get a big big dollop and leaf-full of cabbage out of it and seats around the garden where you could sit and eat the cherries, they were gorgeous. Life has changed so much you know. And above at the Square where Spicer’s is now that was the Town hall in olden days. Big beautiful speakers’ corner with wrought iron front on it. It went on fire and was burned to the ground. And Parnell spoke there. My Uncle Joe told me. “I remember, Annie, Parnell”, says he, “and I a youngster and my father brought me down on his shoulder and they all stood around in a semi-circle and listened to Parnell speaking”. Across from there was a three-storey building where the showroom is now up at the top of the street. The building was just a wreck in my young days, we used to play in it. It was owned by a family named Kiernan’s and I think they were a rough element. There was a thing called The Shambles above at the market yard. There were stalls and if you went to one and not the other they’d read you several generations. These Kiernans were attached. Now on the Maudlin side at the lower end of that building – colossal building it was – there was a slaughterhouse. And my mother said that at night you’d hear the activity going on. And they used to have a man called Dick Aughey, he was blind from birth. A big man and soft-spoken, and he carried the beasts on his back round to the different butchers. She said it was a place you’d be scared out of your life to go up to. On the Carrick St side of the big building there was a shop and a door. And on the Maudlin side then there was a front door and in the summer time … there was two sisters in it then, a Mary and [?]. The Mary one was sitting outside one day and there was a dog … someone from Maudlin Street [top and tied?] the dog and it came running … Mary’s door was open, she was sitting outside getting a bit of sun … The Maudlin Street door as open as well … and this one shouted: “Mary, did you see me dog?”. “Well, all I can tell you”, says Mary, “is he went in the Carrick St door and out the Maudlin St door”. Then on the weekends she used collect stout from the people then. There must have been some kind of shop of in it. The other sister would be fighting with the Mary one: “How dare you have three dozen stout of porter under the counter!” And Mary would reply: “Mind the carpets, mind the carpets”. Mother also told me that when the meetings used to go on in the town hall Mary would be there in the square dressed up. She was scarred. She used to knife fight above in the market yard, in the Shambles. Oh, she said, they were violent. Mary was also scarred from knife fighting. But she’d be all done up with jewellery on her and she’d be going around the crowd as the politicians would be speaking. She’d go: “Hear, hear, hear! … Yes, hear, hear, hear!”. And she’d be circling around the crowd listening to all the speakers. The Kiernan’s and the Keenan’s – a tough element. You’d be afraid of your life.

DC: You said that Parnell spoke up where the hall is but there’s a memorial down at what they call the Parnell Park where the little stump of a tree is, down near the convent. It says he spoke there. But you’re saying that …

AF: Whether he spoke there I don’t know but he certainly spoke at the old Town Hall. My Uncle Joe said that his father brought him down on his shoulder to listen to Parnell. I remember that. He lived just a few doors down in Carrick Street at that time. It was burnt and then Spicers went in. They should have controlled the building again, they should have re-built. It was shocking what went to waste in Kells …

DC: Before proper town planning …

AF: Oh, desperate … desperate. And our church, I often look at the church. The Catholics [? ? ?]. And Colmcille’s House … did you see the seat in the wall? They say you get your wish in it. I don’t know whether I sat in it now.

DC: And Daly’s Garage was here at one time was it?

AF: Yes, next door. That was the stoking are for the gas works long ago. It used to be the bellows would be going, and the fire would be going. And old Willie Daly bought in when it went down in the ‘30s. He got money from an uncle of his in Australia. I’d say he should have sent the money back. It belonged to the parishioners in Australia where his uncle lived. But sure he was an alcoholic and he drank and drank. They lived below Oakley Park on the road out to Moynalty in a big house with the gable end to the road, a big beautiful house. And Rowleys of the Dogs, did you ever hear of that place? It was a big orchard. Protestants owned it and Daly’s was across the road from it. Briany and the lads used to go down with [Cherry?] and they had a big orchard. Rowleys of the Digs, it’s a big estate and there’s dogs up on the entrance gates as you go in. and there’s no tongues in the dogs. And the fellow who designed them forgot to put tongues in them and he committed suicide.

DC: Your brother ran a printery, did he?

AF: It was owned by Frank Smyth now, an uncle-in-law of [Jimmy Finnegan in England] - Bazzie [?] was his aunt. Frank died and Briany took it over, that’s right. And Briany ran it until he died there some years ago. There was no one to take it on then. He wasn’t married and I had no family …Sean became a priest. He’s into writing books. That’s on the Finnegan side now.

DC: Fr Sean is your nephew in England …?

AF: Yes, I’m expecting him over any day this month. He has three churches to look after. And he has a college where he teaches students. And he has a hospital that he looks after. And he’s very musical himself, he’s an organist and a lovely pianist too. He plays all the old stuff, he’s very good … He used to play at Mass down here …He’d be 47. He’s in Showel by-the-Sea in west Sussex. He’s big into history. He’s my old neighbour. Bridgie Smith is his mother. [Irrelevant chat]

Interview 2 to follow: