I grew up in Rathfarnham (things and people you remember from the old days)

cyprian

There is a similar facebook group, but I dont want anything to do with facebook so I thought I'd start one here. So here ye go:

I grew up rathfarnham in the 1960s. we lived on Rathfarnham rd, a few houses down from what used to be Caltex. I was hit by a car outside Mrs Walls greengrocers whilst running across the road to escape "skinheads" (they werent). We used to play in the grounds of Rathfarnham castle when it still had fields with cows, and a spooky old concrete swimming pool with black water in it, before it was "downsized" and turned into a pseudo white-house (why? bare concrete looks much better for an old castle). There used to be a garden fete /sale of works every year where you could win a goldfish in a bag. The entry at that time was via the main gate beside the giant statue of mary (and Bernadette??).

We used to have a huge bonfire at halloween every year in the field of the old big house at brookvale road. Us kids used to cut down the local trees with our dads hatchets and saws. The area by woodview cottages, close to the dodder we called "the botts", I have no idea why. I remember a big tall lad named harry sheeran- his family ran Sheerans, a fabric shop? in the village. This was all before the bypass or the road was built beside the dodder. We used to fish for minnows in the river and spent hours crawling under the old bridge seperating rathfarnham from terenure (from underneath, you can see where they added a new concrete part to the older narrow stone bridge). There were sticklebacks nests in the river gravel beside the bridge.

There used to be a couple of circus (Duffys and ??) and carnivals in the field by the river where the old oak tree is. We used to sneak under the canvas to see the circus because we had no money. I remember thinking I was glad I hadnt paid because it was crap. The fun part was sneaking under the tent.

I remember when I was really young, going to a shop with my mother, it had dirt floors, like a 3rd world supermarket. It was across the road from the chemists shop, which had a tall blue and gold?? scales that cost a penny. There was a sweet shop run by two old ladies near the public toilets. I think there is an apartrment building there now. I remember seeing blood running out into the street under the big wooden doors of the abbatior?? near the butcher shop.

I remember seeing kingfishers flashing along on the dodder quite frequently as a child. We climbed the "cliffs" between the garden of the big house and the dodder and played football in the big house garden every evening one summer until they tried to stop us. The reason the lower windows of the big house have gratings on them is to prevent them being broken by us kids throwing stones at them (as I remember, this was retaliation for being ejected from the "football pitch").

I remember finding a lot of shells embedded in the soil of these "cliffs" about halfway up and wondering why someone would bury them there. Now I realise that must have been the seashore at some time, and bushy park would have been under the sea.

We played on the concrete pipes for the future extension of the estate onto Brookvale downs. My family moved after this so I wasn't there to see the fields where we used to play cowboys and soldiers, catch bees and butterflies in jam jars, make spears out of sticks, and shoot our gats (slingshots made of red-rubber innertube, shoelaces, and a bit of leather cut out of your school satchel), disappear.

If anyone else was around in those days, I would be glad to hear about it.

Cyprian