The Ballybunion thread

Aero

Old post card of the Castle Green...

Aero

Alfasudcrazy wrote:

So Snow scorpion. Sandhillroad, Aero and A90 - are any of ye planning a return trip to BB anytime soon. Seems like ye all really miss it and have not been back for yonks.

Hi Alfasudcrazy...

Unfortunately I don't have an opportunity to visit BB soon....perhaps next year...in the meantime it is nice to share memories with you all on this blog...

Have a good one....good night from Hong Kong...;)

snow scorpion

Aero wrote:

Old post card of the Castle Green...

I have that very postcard on a bulletin board directly in front of me. It's attached to the front of a Christmas card.

snow scorpion

Alfasudcrazy wrote:

So Snow scorpion. Sandhillroad, Aero and A90 - are any of ye planning a return trip to BB anytime soon. Seems like ye all really miss it and have not been back for yonks.

I doubt I'll be over there for awhile. Although, my mom passed away almost four years ago and we're still trying to get her Irish finances straightened out. The Bank of Ireland moves so slowly sometimes I think I might have to go over for a few days and deal with them in person instead of through the mail.

A90Six

Alfasudcrazy wrote:

So Snow scorpion. Sandhillroad, Aero and A90 - are any of ye planning a return trip to BB anytime soon. Seems like ye all really miss it and have not been back for yonks.

I get back at least once a year, sometimes three or four. This year I made it twice.

snow scorpion wrote:

I doubt I'll be over there for awhile. Although, my mom passed away almost four years ago and we're still trying to get her Irish finances straightened out. The Bank of Ireland moves so slowly sometimes I think I might have to go over for a few days and deal with them in person instead of through the mail.

My mother's second husband (a new yorker) died 10 November 1991 in New York where they lived. She moved back to Ballyb and is still waiting for the estate to be settled after 14 years. The yanks can move pretty slow too when it suits them.

A90Six

Aero wrote:

The "good old days"!

If you look directly left from the castle, you can see the "bathroom" on the edge of the pic.

SandhillRoad

house on Sandhill Rd.

snow scorpion

That's your old house, Sandhill?

SandhillRoad

At one time, yes.
1966-1988
Did you know it?
Did you know anyone down Sandhill Rd ?

SandhillRoad

A90Six wrote:

SR: Thanks for all the excerpts. My uncle was right about the pyrites, I was right about the rust, and the old story of the rocks spontaneous combustion was true!

When Smith speaks of the square pyramid rock with the eagle's nest atop, he says it is just north of Lick and is known locally as the Devil's Castle, is he in fact speaking of the Virgin Rock just north of the gaol with what is locally known as the Devil's Chair behind it? [edit]The Convent was built in the late 19th century. This would mean that The Nun's Strand would have had another title (if any at all) before this. I doubt the nuns would have enjoyed having the Devil's Castle as their nearest neighbour, and therefore, a quick rename to The Virgin Rock would have gone down a treat with all and sundry. This is not fact, just my musing.[/edit]

What is known locally as the Gaol (Jail) is another ruin on the cliffs overlooking the Nuns' Strand. Most of what remains comprises of one small room about 6ft X 8ft with stone shelves, nooks and crannies. It was said to me as a child that this was where those of Bunion Castle would keep their prisoners. I can't see it myself. Why would you have your cells a thirty minute walk away along the cliffs?

I think this would have been another lookout point along the cliffs adding to all the other "castles" and "forts". It would seem that none are out of site of a bonfire of each other and would have been a defense of the coast line. I can't imagine there would have been different ruling lords in Ballybunion Castle, the gaol, Lick Castle, Doon Castle, and Pookeenee, but who knows!

PS My spell checker suggested I change Ballybunion to Bellybutton, but that would make this the umbilical cord, or bellybutton thread!

_________________________________


A90SIX,
I have been looking on GOOGLE for any early maps of that coastline area of Kerry. Have not found anything yet.
There is a post by SNOWSCORPION a few threads back of a sepia photo of the Virgin Rock- what is that fomation in the foreground ? You are probably right with Devils Rock and the Devils Chair been one and the same,. I have never heard of the gaol- then again I was not born in Ballyb and we never ventured up to the Nuns Strand.

snow scorpion

SandhillRoad wrote:

At one time, yes.
1966-1988
Did you know it?
Did you know anyone down Sandhill Rd ?

Sorry, no. Sandhill Road was the one part of the village I rarely strayed into. Until I came here I didn't even know the name of the road. I always thought of it as "the road to Killahenna and the golf course."

Come to think of it, the only roads I did know the names of were Main Street (which I think of as going all the way to Ahafona), Church Road, Doon Road, and the Listowel Road.

There was "the road to Killahenna and the golf course," "the road to Tralee" (the rightmost road at Ahafona), "the road to Tullamore" (the leftmost road at Ahafona), "the upper road" (the one to the left of the Listowel Road), "that road just north of the church" (I still don't know the name of that one), "the road in front of the hotel" (that goes up to Doon Road.)

God Almighty, you'd think I was never in Ballybunion at all!

SandhillRoad

Tribal meeting !
Tribal meeting !
Here and now.!

What is the name of the street in Ballyb that runs from the top of Church Road to the Cliff Road ?
SS and SR want to know.



ALFA: check on GOOGLE for the animations that are included in some of the threads.You did have a question earlier about them?

snow scorpion

Aero wrote:

Hi Alfasudcrazy...

Unfortunately I don't have an opportunity to visit BB soon....perhaps next year...in the meantime it is nice to share memories with you all on this blog...

Have a good one....good night from Hong Kong...;)

I looked it up. (I have a computer, don't ya know ) You're 13 hours ahead of NY.



Hey! All of today's stuff already happened for you, but it hasn't happened for us yet. Can you get NY's OTB results in Hong Kong?

snow scorpion

Alfasudcrazy wrote:

Hey Snow scorpion (what does that user name signify anyway - or is it something that just came in to your head when registering?) where are you getting all those wonderful gif images from - they are really amusing and I would like to be able to use a few of them myself now and again.:cool:

GIF images? You mean the smilies? Here they are:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.fancysplace.com/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dfancysplace%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG

(Click on "others" to get the big ones that Sandhill and I are using.)


As far as "snow scorpion" goes, it doesn't mean anything really. I was on another board and got into a silly discussion with someone. He (or she) started making up these horror stories about "ice termites" and how terrifying they were and so on. And I said, "If you think ice termites are bad, you have obviously never come face to face with a snow scorpion."

I was just acting the eejit, but I thought "snow scorpion" sounded pretty cool so I've been using it as screen name recently. I'll move on to another name someday when I get bored with snow scorpion, but for the time being I still think it sounds kinda cool.

Alfasudcrazy

Yeah Snow Scorpion has a certain ring to it - a good name for a novel

I just thought mine up as I am on several motoring forums and the Alfasud bit refers to my Alfasud pictured below - its easier to recall when I use the same user id and password on every board - but I am 'Alfaguy' on other boards.:v:

snow scorpion

I never heard of an Alfasud until I came here. Alfa Romeo, yes. But not the model Alfasud.

So off I went to do some research and found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_Romeo_Alfasud


I'll read about it in a little while, but things are a bit hectic around here today. (And by "here" I mean America. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, probably the second biggest holiday of the year.)

Happy reading, Alfa. Be back later.

SandhillRoad

A90,
is this the book you have ?
I bought this in Listowel some years ago.

A90Six

SandhillRoad wrote:

A90,
is this the book you have ?
I bought this in Listowel some years ago.

The very same. I jave just started to have a flick through. If I find anything interesting In there I'll post it.

opus

Just came across this thread, am seriously impressed at the length! I went to the convent secondary school there for five years so seeing all those pics has me on a major nostalgia trip

snow scorpion

Welcome to the board, opus. Hope you stop by here regularly. Where are you now?

SandhillRoad

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

OPUS:

WELCOME !

This one is for you.


http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=ZR28836540



Regards,
SANDHILLROAD

opus

Thanks for the warm welcome

Didn't get too far away, living in Cork city these days. Sacrilege for a Kerryman I know

snow scorpion

:eek: The shock! The horror!

A90Six

Up and into the kitchen where my grandmother would ladle a huge dollop of porridge into a bowl for me. After a liberal coating of sugar and a fair splash of milk, I would tuck in. Unlike kids of today, I loved the stuff. My grandmother (whom I called Mother as did everyone else in the house) would have been up for hours lighting the range and making breakfast for my grandfather and two uncles, who had left for work long before I had awakened.

After breakfast, I would get my packed lunch (usually consisting of a sandwich wrapped in part of an old sliced pan wrapper and a small “Daddy’s” sauce bottle full of milk) and stuff it into my satchel with my wallpaper-covered books. Once my coat was on, I would feed my arms into the satchel straps then lean forward to shuffle the heavy weight up my back until I could clip the satchel straps together at the front of my chest.

The long haul would then begin along with my four aunts who were convent bound also. We would turn left out of the house in Ahafona and head for town on the left side of the road. We would stay on this side of grass and gravel, even though the other side had a path/pavement/sidewalk. This was the height of rebellion in the mid-sixties. We would pass the huge “7-Up” sign, in Larkin’s Field on the left, and check that the rope that we would swing on in the evenings was still attached to the bottom.

On reaching the National School the path would begin on the left, just before Joe’s house. We would all wave at Joe, as everyone did, who would always be sitting in the window. I don’t know what was wrong with Joe, but he was almost always in the window and I never saw him out of the house.

We would pass Brosnan’s Bakery on the right. Just next to it and round the back of the house was the dreaded Jack Walsh’s hair-cutting emporium. It was a small, cold, whitewashed room with a barber’s chair in the middle and a small mirror on the wall. Jack would throw a plank across the arms for me to sit on and then pump it up before shearing me with a hand-operated clippers. The mirror was too high for me to look into and I would have to wait till I got home to see what kind of an eejit he had made out of me.

The next attraction on the way was Matty (I think) and his sheepdog. The dog would often be seen sitting atop the pier of the wall with a pipe in his mouth. Matty would send him in to the house to get his slippers, a newspaper, a mouse he had caught earlier, etc. The dog would retrieve any object from the house that he was asked to the amazement of all who watched.

This is where we would cross the road by Bennett’s to see if we could see any of the horses they kept. We would then pass Deenihan’s, where we might on occasion get a “Lucky Bag” if we were rich. The triangular “Man from Uncle” badge I once got was a prized possession for many months.

Before reaching Beazley’s Garage I would always be on the lookout for Johnny Dee. He scared the bejayzus out of me. He was probably a very nice man, but he had one eye closed while the other bulged out from the socket to make up for what its partner was missing out on. With his matted hair and small, stooped stature, he was to me the boogieman epitomised.

Next was the “Souvenir Shop”, which had an array of pipes, lighters, penknives, binoculars and many other shiny metallic things that would draw the eye of a young boy. Michael Beasley would always say hello if he was at the door of his shop. This was where we would trek to get a stone of spuds if Mother had run out, or where we would get the mackerel for Fridays’ suppers.

Bearing right into Church Road we would pass the alley on the right which gave access to the rear of the businesses on Main Street. Dan Shanahan had his abattoir there and it was also another access to the cinema. At the Church Road entrance there was always a maroon trailer made from the sealed-off back end of a Morris Minor van. For some reason it always fascinated me.

A little further along on the right were two small houses that had the fronts painted with a sort of 3D harlequin block effect. For some reason the name Frank comes to mind. Whether Frank lived in one of them or Frank did the painting, I don’t know. Perhaps he’s just a figment of my imagination used to fill this paragraph out a bit. Who knows!

On the left, before reaching Stack’s Wool shop, was a house where a a fella lived who could fix anything. Bicycles, radios, TV’s, you name it. I never actually met the guy, but this is what I was told.. We would pass the church on the right and head up to the Doctor’s Corner where Ballybunion House once stood (for all I know it still might). The doctor’s reception was a scary place full of stuffed animals in glass cases. He even had a stuffed or preserved octopus in a jar, although it was many years later that I finally worked out what the monstrosity was. I spent a long time believing it to be a mutated owl.

On reaching the Doon Road we would, for some strange reason, go down the path to the Strand Road and then walk back up the windy hill to the Doon Road again, passing the house of the man who owned or ran the cinema – Keane was his name I think. It was from him that we got our dog, Tinker. His former owners had called him Stinker and we felt it only right to change it.

The shop on the right, McCarthy’s I think, was the last place of interest to us before reaching the convent gates on the left. I would enter the gates and immediately proceed to chase the girls of my own age with all thought of possible punishments gone from my head until a nun would tweak my cheek and tell me to cop myself on.

snow scorpion

A90,

I liked your memories of the village. Lots of details ... good stuff.

What is it they say about Joyce's Ulysses? If Dublin were ever destroyed, it could be rebuilt brick-by-brick using Ulysses as a blueprint.

Not a big fan of porridge myself, but my dad loves the stuff. He calls it "stir-about." (Maybe that's a Longford expression.)

We would turn left out of the house in Ahafona and head for town on the left side of the road. We would stay on this side of grass and gravel, even though the other side had a path/pavement/sidewalk. This was the height of rebellion in the mid-sixties. We would pass the huge “7-Up” sign, in Larkin’s Field on the left

No sidewalk on the left side of Main Street? I don't remember much of anything on that side of the street. The one thing I do remember is a gas station - as I recall, it was practically at the crossroads at Ahafona. As a little kid, I was with my uncle one time and he said we had to "stop for petrol."

"What's 'petrol'?" I asked.

"For the auto," he said. And that's how I learned different places have different names for familiar things.

I don't see the "petrol station" on Google Earth though. I remember it being where those private homes are now. (I have no idea what that white roofed building is at the start of the road to Tralee.)


I remember Brosnan's Bakery ... red roof, loading bay out front for the delivery trucks.

Is that the bakery just west of the field where all the caravans are parked? (Very neatly parked, I must say.)

A90, do you have Google Earth? If not, then you're in for a pleasant suprise. It's free and very cool: http://earth.google.com/


Sandhill, there's an update for Google Earth now available. I know that chances that more of north Kerry has been photographed in hi-res is almost zero, but sooner or later, it will get done.


Micahel Beasley ... there's another familiar name. My brother and I got into a playful argument with him one time. We had discovered the joys of "batch bread." Scoop out the soft center and smother it with strawberry jam ... heaven! Anyway, one day, my brother and I go into the shop to get the batch bread. And Michael says something about a "turnover."

"No, we don't want a turnover. We want batch bread."

And Michael holds up I think it was a group of 4 loaves of batch bread all still joined together and says, "This is a turnover."

"No, that's a turnover," my brother and I say pointing to some apple turnovers in the display case.

"Yes," says Michael. "And this is a turnover, too."

"No, it's not. That's batch bread."

It went on and on like that. Michael laughing at us while he argued, and us laughing at him while we argued. It was like an Abbott & Costello routine.


When Alfa posted his pics back on page 1, I was sorry to see Beasley's wasn't there anymore. The name above the store looks like "Scanlon's Supermarket."



:eek: I better stop now. Long post and you guys might be tempted to skip over it. Be back later.

A90Six

snow scorpion wrote:

A90,

I liked your memories of the village. Lots of details ... good stuff.
Thank you.

No sidewalk on the left side of Main Street? I don't remember much of anything on that side of the street. The one thing I do remember is a gas station - as I recall, it was practically at the crossroads at Ahafona.
The petrol station in Ahafona was really just a couple of pumps out side Stokes's shop. Old Mrs Stokes lived there, but most of the shop and pump work were attended to by her son John-Joe and her daughter (whose name escapes me) who was married to Diggins. Their son, Joe Diggins was previously mentioned in this thread by Aero I think.

I don't see the "petrol station" on Google Earth though. I remember it being where those private homes are now. (I have no idea what that white roofed building is at the start of the road to Tralee.)
Many years ago it used to be the Dispensary where jabs would be given to the local populace. I'm not sure what it is now, but it might be a garage. If you go west across the Ballyeigh Road towards Ballyb, the third house along, kinda grey looking, was Stokes's.

A90, do you have Google Earth? If not, then you're in for a pleasant suprise. It's free and very cool: http://earth.google.com/
No, but I have it now. Thank you. I can see my mum's house.

:eek: I better stop now. Long post and you guys might be tempted to skip over it. Be back later.
That's what I keep thinking when I start on a memory. Still if they want to skip let 'em skip. It's like viewing googleearth from a mile up; you get the gist but you miss all the detail.

Thanks.

Aero

Great memory A90Six. I remember "Joe in the window" and all the rest of the mental snapshots you write about. I went to the Boys National School in Ahafona so had the chance to wave to Joe almost every school day. In fact I know I have some pictures of the school so must go and find them. Will post one here soon.

Aero

Joe's house....opposite the School and a little closer towards the town...

A90Six

The school looks like a fairly recent shot. There was no portacabin on the right and the fine cladding on the left wasn't there either.

Do you remember:

Kick up tables, kick up chairs.
Kick Ma Molly down the stairs.
If Paddy Allen starts to shout,
Punch his nose and knock him out.

Not that there were any stairs, and the notion that anyone would ever kick Mrs Mulvihill or punch Mr Allen was nothing more than a fantasy.


Do you know when the pic of Joe's house was taken? I can see Buckley's garage in the distance looking all bright and shiny so perhaps Joe had long gone by then.

Aero

Ah yes A90Six...I remember the little poem!
As for the photos...they were taken a few years ago so you are correct...the additional structure on the right of the photo was not there during my time at the school. Likewise the photo of Joe's house. I cropped it from a snapshot I took perhaps four or five years ago.