Beyond The Sea

by Jack Lynch

  Even later, he got a Ford five-CWT van. This jalopy never seemed to have any go in it, and struggled up the smallest incline. It was great at going downhill though! I think daddy’s intention was to use it to move stuff and make a few shillings. It could hardly move itself, and never did make a penny for him.

  Outside Jack English’s repair garage, down in the Bath’s Quay, close to Kidney’s Strand wall, there was an old handoperated petrol pump. Customers had to pump the petrol themselves by using a hand lever. When the lever was pushed backwards and forwards, a one-gallon glass jar at the top of the pump filled with petrol. When full, and when the lever was released, the petrol flowed into the car tank. This was repeated for each gallon of petrol needed.

  Adjoining English’s garage there were about twelve single attached garages, built for private car owners who rented them. I don’t know who rented them or who the owner of the garages was. It may have been Bath’s Company.

  I watched as a car was ready to be serviced in the English’s garage one day. It was up on the ‘H’ shaped hydraulic lift. There appeared to be nobody around and I got too inquisitive. I saw a lever and curiosity got the better of me so I pulled it. Disaster! First of all, I had not noticed a bicycle parked close to the lifting ramp and secondly, the car started to descend on the lift. I saw that the wheel of the bike was going to be damaged, but I was glued to the spot, consumed with panic and I forgot to reset the lever. Crunch! The front wheel of the bike was slowly mangled between concrete and metal. Ouch! A startled mechanic appeared, as if by magic and ran to restart the machine.

  “What’s your name? What’s your father’s name?” the mechanic spat out at me. I told him and he made a note of it. He continued, “Where do you live?” Again, I told him. He advised me in no uncertain language where to go, and that my father would take care of me.

  My intention was to get home before him and to be first to tell daddy the news, and hope he would be lenient and understanding. Shamefacedly, I went home and admitted what I had done and daddy was quite fair. He bought a new wheel, with the proviso that I had to repay the money when I started work. I don’t remember if he ever deducted it from the money I handed up when I did start doing part-time work.

  I was fortunate that Alfie Packham, who worked as a shoemaker at Lena May Connors, used to ride a lovely pony into town from Ballymore. Poor Alfie had a disability and needed the pony. I got the job of riding the pony from Harbour Row, up Harbour Hill, Thomas Street, and into Dan O’Connell’s forge in the Quarry. Dan took care of the pony until evening, when the pony was taken back to Alfie.

  The forge was close by the school and we often went there to watch the blacksmith working. He was well protected from the sparks and fire. His clothing was heavy and he wore a leather apron. It was fairly dark inside the forge and the clinkers from the fire were crunchy underfoot. There was an acrid smell in the air. This was due to the hot metal horseshoe being fitted to the horse’s hoof. On contact there was a sizzling sound and smoke rose as the shoe was fitted. Before the fitting, the blacksmith removed any old shoes from the animal, and pared the hoof, to ensure that there was a good fit.

  The fire was on a raised open hearth and was fed often with coal. This was raised to white heat with the bellows. The tools used were an anvil, hammer, knife, file, and tongs to handle the hot metal. A large bowl of water was kept for cooling the hot metal. The metal was heated until it was white hot, and then it was beaten into shape on the anvil. This beating, and shaping, created lots of hot metal sparks which flew around. There was also a lovely musical rhythm as the hammer hit the metal. Extreme caution was needed at this time. The shoe or any other metal object that was cooled in the water would release sizzles of steam. I liked to watch as cart wheels were repaired, or new metal wheel-bands were made and fitted.

  Occasionally, I went to the local slaughterhouse after school. I saw all types of farm animals being slaughtered in those early years. Bulls were hauled in with a rope tied to the rings in their noses. The rope was fed through another ring in the concrete floor of the slaughterhouse and on to a hand controlled winch machine, which pulled the bull in until he came down on his front knees, with his head at floor level. The fatal sledgehammer blow was delivered between his eyes, and then a sharp knife was stuck into his throat until the jugular vein was severed, and his lifeblood drained from him. As far as I know no humane stun-guns were available in those days and it was all very brutal.

  Sheep had two front legs, and one back leg, tied together and there were up to half a dozen sheep at a time tied like this awaiting slaughter. One by one, they were pulled in and the butcher put the sheep’s head between his legs and stuck a pointed sharp knife into the neck of the sheep until it came out the other side. He then twisted the knife until the jugular vein was severed and the blood flowed freely from the wound. All this time other sheep watched this ongoing butchery. When pigs were slaughtered, it was similar to the operation in my grandfather’s farm in Kanturk, except there was no cart used.

  I took the pig’s bladder and used it for a football. Sometimes, I’d let the bladder dry out, before I blew and tied it, but other times I blew them up straight from the slaughtered animal, blood and all. I don’t know why, but this butchery did not affect me then as much as it did in later lifetime.

  It must have been around 1938 that I started to watch Cove Ramblers playing soccer, up in McCarthy’s field (now the GAA pitch at Carrignafoy.). Some of the players I remember from the first games I watched are; John Coveney, Denis Harrington, John Cotter, David Broderick, Mick Doherty, Baller Wall, P. Burke, Moss Cummins, Fanty Keating, Jimmy O Mahoney, L. Pinkney, Willie O’ Keeffe and Jack Barry.

  The Wanderers also had a team managed by Pake Hurley and there was great rivalry between both these teams. When Wanderer’s went bankrupt most of these played for Ramblers. I followed Ramblers to Cork and had great days at the Mardyke Flower Lodge and Turner’s Cross.

  It was in the late thirties when my father experimented with headphones, and a ‘cat’s whisker,’ as the crystal radio was then known. The ‘cat’s whisker’ was only a piece of wire and this delicately touched a spot on a silicon crystal, to give a directional flow to the signal. He was thrilled when he picked up Radio Eireann for a while. Apparently he heard the Radio Eireann introduction music of ‘Proudly the note on the trumpet is sounding…’

  He passed the headphones to me to listen, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not hear a thing. I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Later, I understood the complexities of trying to get the ‘cat’s whisker’ aligned with the one spot on the crystal, which gave the signal flow. This was to be the forerunner of the crystal diode, transistor, and the microchip. It was sometime later before I realised how involved I was to get in the use, manufacture, and testing of these components. However, this was a long time off.

  In the meantime, lots of families listened to the battery operated Wireless. The main programmes listened to were; Question Time, along with GAA matches. Radio Eireann did not broadcast a full day’s programme. We particularly liked the advertisements, especially those for Imco dry cleaning, and Urney chocolate.

  One of the big events on radio was when the draw took place for ‘The Irish Sweepstake,’ the forerunner to what we now know as the Lotto. Everybody hoped they would be amongst the lucky ones. Tickets were sold everywhere and were even smuggled into the USA where they were illegal. Daddy bought a share at every ‘Grand National’ race. These could be bought as a full ticket for one pound, or a half, quarter, or one eighth shares.

  To operate the Wireless to hear the programmes it was necessary to have good supplies of electricity. This was supplied by a wet cell battery, which consisted of lead plates immersed in sulphuric acid, and these cells were enclosed in a glass jar. A dry nine-volt grid bias battery and a dry 120 volt high-tension battery were also needed. This meant that all these sets were operated by direct current. The arrival of electricity on stream changed all that. All that was n
ow necessary was to connect to the mains electricity.

  Radio Luxembourg was a favourite for music programmes then. BBC and Radio Athlone were our principle stations. Radio stations of most countries were clearly marked on the dial. After Radio Eireann got the name, our station broadcasted from Athlone. It originally broadcasted from the GPO in Dublin. Now we had to twirl the various knobs to tune in a station. I did pick up German broadcasts during the war, with Lord Haw -Haw giving his spoofs. “Germany calling, Germany calling, this is station Bremen on the Reich…”

  To receive good reception daddy and I fitted a long aerial out in the back. Daddy used a weight at the end of the copper wire aerial, and swung the copper wire and insulator up vertically to Harbour View. Two ceramic insulators were used, one at each end. A down lead copper wire was connected to the radio. Wireless was the name given to it in those days, but the term Radio was used later. The reception was usually very noisy, and crackly, due to local electrical interference and thunder, and lightening. Sometimes, signals faded and later stations began interfering with each other, due to bandwidths overlapping.

  All in all these were very happy days and I learned a lot about life and its good and bad sides. School was never a chore and I vowed that the cruelty dished out by some teachers would not affect my admiration for the rest of the teachers. My home life and the townspeople in Cobh were a positive and great influence on me, and the pace of life was brilliant. People nowadays work nonstop and have not the time to fully enjoy life. There was still a lot to learn and cope with and I looked forward to meeting these challenges.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Electricity seemed to be in our house since I was very young as I can remember some rooms that had brass switches and there was a candelabra in the sitting room. It’s possible that some electricity may have been supplied by the old Power House down in the adjacent Baths Quay prior to the arrival of power from Ardnacrusha.

  Growing up I worked in McIllwraith’s electrical shop in East Beach on a casual basis for no pay, in order to learn about electrical wiring, battery charging, and other useful things. Anthony also worked there, much more often than I did. Mr McIllwraith rewired a lot of the houses in Cobh and used to service, and sell, wireless sets. The Fitzgerald’s, too, had a shop on East Beach and they were also involved in this type of business.

  East Beach, The Beach and West Beach are streets in Cobh. From the junction of Harbour Row and Harbour Hill the street which joins this junction is called East Beach and this joins The Beach where it links to West Beach. The whole series of buildings which occupy this street were originally built above the High Water mark of the adjacent beach before the British built walls, quays, slipways, and piers and reclaimed part of the beach for road-building, and to assist their military operations . The street is the main shopping centre in Cobh along with Harbour Row. Mr. McIllwraith rewired our own house for electricity soon after it was available in Cobh from the main National source. All the wiring was taken up on the surface of the walls, and sometimes the wires were stapled to the walls. Other times, wooden channels were used to encase the wires. However, at the beginning, only the rooms were wired for lighting and there were no lights wired for the hall and landings. The wiring for the landings and hall was carried out in the same way later on. Until then, we had to carry on going up the dark stairs at night, with lighted candles. A number of nasty things happened amid the joy of lights on command. The switches had brass covers, which gave a shock to unlucky ones from time to time, due to dampness and condensation. Likewise, the kitchen walls and water pipes were alive due to bad earthing and dampness. We got many shocks before the full dangers of electricity became known, and long before safeguards were implemented.

  Light bulbs did not last too long. On regular occasions there would be a sudden flash and the bulb was kaput. When a fuse blew it was the usual practice to repair it, with silver paper from a cigarette packet, if the correct wire gauge was not available. At first we had no idea of what a dangerous practice this was, but we soon learned.

  Up to this point we had only the solid fuel stove for our cooking and heating requirements. This meant lighting a fire and cleaning the ashes every day in order to keep us all warm and fed - a tiresome and messy chore. Daddy also had to go to the flue on the outside wall and light papers to make sure there was enough of a draught for the fire. It was a game of chance. Now, with the arrival of miraculous electricity Daddy went and bought an electric cooker and dismantled the old stove. He cemented and bricked up part of the open space and built a smaller fireplace instead. It was at ground level and was no more that about one foot wide and a foot deep. It was a miserable little fire but conserved fuel, which was the objective, now that we had the new cooker. The new cooker though, for all its modernity couldn’t make toast and trying to toast a round of bread on the now tiny fire was hard work. A slice of bread was attached to a fork and held near the fire and we had to wait for the miserable little flames to do their work. Often I gave up.

  When flashlights later became available with the increased popularity of batteries we had great fun on ‘All Souls Night,’ more commonly known as Halloween night. From a dark corner, behind bushes, or from behind a tree, we popped out in front of people, clutching a flashlight under our chins whilst pulling a gruesome face. The results were spectacularly hideous! Before the spooked people knew what had happened we would have disappeared, leaving them screaming with fear. We also got large turnips and hollowed them, carving faces out of them, and would place a lighted candle inside – slightly less sophisticated pumpkin. These even frightened us! In those days people genuinely believed in ghosts and spirits so our pranks were all the more satisfying to us!

  Down the Beach, in the centre of the road at the Camber, there was a big electric light stanchion. This was a very high metal lamppost, with the light at the top. This was originally erected when electricity first lit up the town. There were others placed in the middle of junctions of the Bench, at the top of King’s Street, and on Harbour Hill. There were others placed on the footpath at Harbour Row.

  The street lighting lit up from the main source of power now meant that we could wander around town at night and see the different views of shops lit up with electric lights. Some of the displays in the windows looked different than they looked in daytime. One such shop was the local fish shop down town, in the Beach, where Molly Dorgan sold fish. Mackerel, cod, herrings and plaice all reflected the light. As the fish were all freshly caught that day the sight was wonderful. We used to sing a song about her and it went like this:

  “They’re in, they’re breaking.” The shouts were heard throughout the town. The summer months brought the mackerel into the harbour. The seagulls and gannets were the first indicators that we were about to enter a period of constant fishing, a period of productivity, plenty and enjoyment. These birds squabbled and fought as they dived into the shoals of fish throughout the harbour. Everybody; men, women, boys and girls, scurried down to the various slipways and quays, to cast their lines out and to get a good seating or standing location. It was frightening at times to see very young children as they sat on the quays with their feet dangling over the edge. Crowds converged on the town from all over the county, and further afield. All kinds of boats moved up and down the harbour as they followed the mackerel breaks. The sight of mackerel breaking, and the activity of birds and people on a sunny day, once seen, was never forgotten. From the deep-water quay, along the beach to Lynch’s quay, across the Baths, and down to the Camber in the Holy Ground, there were hundreds of lines in the water. In the slipway at Lynch’s Quay the water was thick with sprats, and the mackerel came in almost to the edge of the tidemark. The sun sparkled on them, and the speed at which the mackerel moved was unbelievable. One minute a shoal of mackerel, their green backs to the surface, went by, cruising, and swimming in formation. I remember this sight as a thrilling and beautiful memory. Suddenly, they came upon the sprats and they broke out of the water and travelled at very fast sp
eeds, with silver streaks glistening. Injured sprats flapped around on the surface and were gobbled up by the frenzied mackerel.

  Boys and girls waited on the slipway, knee deep in sprats, and when the mackerel followed the sprats, the kids all kicked together and dozens of mackerel and thousands of sprats jumped and flailed on the slipway. It was a feast for all but sad to say lots of the fish were left to die and were thrown back into the sea. Normally the conger eels and crabs feasted on these carcases.

  With normal fishing, everybody pulled in the fish as fast as they put their lines into the water. We always seemed to catch lots and never had an empty line. Even silver paper was used as bait and worked. Sometimes, overexcitement caused amateurs to pull too quickly when they got a bite and the mackerel ended up overhead, dangling on the telegraph wires. Some unfortunate children and a few adults too, had to go to the doctor or chemist to remove hooks from different parts of their bodies. Kids went from house to house giving fish away because they had too many – it was a plentiful time - cats and dogs had the time of their lives. There was not a hungry animal in town during these days of silver enjoyment. Occasionally, some of the lucky fellows caught a Johnny Dory, which seemed to follow sprats. My clothes used to be regularly soaking wet and covered with fish scales but I never noticed and would wear the same clothes the following day. It was a common sight to see boys, girls and adults walking around with dried silvery fish scales on their shoes.