by Joe O'Toole
But Dingle had electricity before the arrival of the national grid; a local man called Jimmy Houlihan provided it. Jimmy had his own distribution and generation system, which was mainly intended for lighting purposes, and he was constantly dissuading people against using it for heating. He would dart into my mother’s shop and, seeing the single-bar electric heater plugged into the supply, he would go into apoplexy about the drain to the system and threaten to cut her off. Jimmy supplied electricity to the town of Dingle for thirty-three years and it was his proud boast that in all that time there were only two nights when the town was without power. Those two nights were during his final year when he had partially handed over to the new service. Some of my mother’s family still refer to electricity as ‘the Jimmy Houlihan’. Not a bad legacy by any standards.
The Temperance Hall, no doubt constructed at the height of the temperance movement, was a hive of activity even if by the time I got to know it, its name was the greatest misnomer of all time. In fairness, Mikey Quirke, who was in charge, was certainly a non-drinking Pioneer, and for the short few years when we were probationary Pioneers there were irregular meetings upstairs to confirm our commitment to abstinence. We viewed those meetings more as a legitimate excuse to engage with the opposite sex and a possible occasion to sin than an opportunity to eschew alcohol.
The weekly Whist Drives were also held in the upstairs meeting room. These were a real test of nerve. I think it was Aunty Sheila who talked me into getting involved, although it wouldn’t have been difficult, as I loved cards. Whatever, I was one of the youngest players; most of the pals just weren’t interested.
Whist was played in tables of four and after each game you moved to the next table. The tension was amazing and to be successful you needed great concentration. The players mostly comprised polite, middle-aged to elderly ladies. They were the ones who attended all the church activities and supported every charitable and Christian cause. In their normal conduct and deportment they were demure; the very models of perfect behaviour and considered by all to be highly respectable. But when they sat at the whist table they became pure monsters. It was not overt. In fact, between deals and during the short breaks there appeared to be great, good-humoured banter going on, with seemingly innocent teasing and a lot of tinkly laughter.
‘Well, Sheila, diamonds are for ladies all right the way you won there.’
‘Ah, hearts are for lovers, Patsy. Is there something you’re not telling us?’
But underneath all that was a war, waged silently and uncompromisingly.
The strictest rule for partner whist is that you are absolutely forbidden to communicate with your partner. The skill lies in being able to read the game and deduce the play. But, by playing a high card at a wrong time you might bury your partner’s best card and even though the ‘trick’ was won, it meant that your partner had now lost the opportunity of taking a separate trick for you both.
Mistakes were scorned, mocked and punished by the other players. So when it was your turn to lead a card you really concentrated. The whole table watched and waited. In your head you counted the number of trumps gone; you tried to remember who had reneged. Even after doing all that you might still have no clue. Your partner waited, stony-faced; staring directly and unblinkingly at you. Then she might suddenly develop a strange and urgent itch under her left boob.
How embarrassing! Stop it. Oh, I get it now! That’s where her heart was when she had one. I lead the two of hearts. I got it right. Stonyface lights up; she hammers out the King. We win the trick, but we are cheats.
A new partner might seem friendlier, but make a mistake and those soft, female eyes would turn into daggers. Pointed fiddling with her engagement ring during full eye contact should have prompted me to play a diamond.
Those Whist Drives with the matrons of Dingle were pressure cookers of learning where I acquired a whole new range of tricks and dodges.
Downstairs, the Temperance Hall boasted two snooker tables with spotless green baize and the shiny balls reflected the light from the bank of spotlights over each table. The table near the door was where the youngsters played. As your skill and age advanced, you graduated to the newer table to play with the adults. We called this ‘the Big Table’ even though it was exactly the same size as the other one. The negative opinion that always seems to attach to snooker did not apply in Dingle. It was not a class thing, nor was it seen as a sign of a misspent youth. It cost sixpence a game to play, but only the loser paid, so if you were on a winning streak you could play all day at no cost. I had a bit of an advantage in that there was a full-size billiard table on the top floor of Foxy’s shop. It had been left there by the previous owner of the house and was in reasonable condition. I spent many a Sunday evening there, and while I was never going to be a challenge to the Ken Dohertys and ‘Hurricane’ Higginses of this world, up there in Foxy’s attic I did develop some skill at the game of snooker which helped me to survive.
On Sundays after the eleven o’clock Mass there was always a big crowd in the Temperance Hall waiting for the pubs to open. Well, in all fairness I suppose they were always temperate when there was no drink available!
Rather than have the table monopolised by two or four snooker players on the Sunday morning, the custom was to have a game of pool. This allowed for an almost indefinite number of players. Each player paid sixpence and was given an identifiable snooker ball. As well as the normal colours, there was a range of balls of differing shades and markings available. The rules were simple: each ball had three ‘lives’ so that each time it was potted a life was lost and after the third one the player was out. The order of play was important; the sooner your ball appeared on the table the more likely it was to be potted.
The order was decided by each player cueing off down the table so that it came back off the top cushion and returned towards the baulk cushion. All the balls were left on the table until everyone had cued off. Then the order of play was chalked up on the scoreboard, depending on how close your ball was to the back cushion, with three Xs after each name signifying the three lives.
This was the only time we youngsters got to play with the older, experienced role models and had a legitimate reason to talk to them. Along the wall beside the big table was a long church form. We would sit up on the back of it with our feet on the seat and our backs against the wall. We were above the level of the table, so we had a great view of the play. We would say significant things like, ‘I’m playing after you, Tony’, or, ‘That was a great shot, Liam,’ and he might nod affirmatively, ‘It wasn’t bad, was it?’. On a slack day you might feel encouraged to keep the conversation going with serious adult talk in his area of special interest.
‘Spurs did well yesterday, beating Arsenal at home. Blanchflower was man of the match’ – even though you were no Spurs fan, had nothing whatever against Arsenal and did not particularly like Danny Blanchflower.
But usually the banter among the personalities and hard men ruled us out of the chat, so we would concentrate on laughing loudly at all the jokes and comments, though we didn’t understand half of them.
‘You never spotted the “in-off” there, Packy, too much porter in Jack Neddy’s yesterday, I suppose.’
‘The hole in that pocket too tight for you, Jackie? I’d say you didn’t have any trouble finding the hole last night. Jesus, I thought you were going to ride on the floor of the dancehall the way ye were going at it.’
If the guy at the table was lucky enough or good enough to pot the ball of the main smartass, there would be general rejoicing. The crowd particularly loved it if it was rattled into the pocket with a vicious, venomous shot, which was the mark of the expert.
‘By Jaysus, but you rattled the brass there, Pluggy. Scratch a life off there, Mikey.’
You had two choices when it came to your turn to play. You could try to pot another player’s ball and be sure to get a cheer from the crowd, or else play safe and be ignored.
The game could last for
an hour, with the number of players reducing all the time and the tension rising in inverse proportion. Finally there would be only two. Stalking each other and playing cat-and-mouse. Each waiting for the other to make a mistake and finally one of them executing the winning shot. The winner took all, which in those times was not insignificant. If there were twenty playing, then the twenty sixpences made up a very attractive ten shillings for the winner. A day’s drinking!
The nuns bought a film projector and showed films a few times a month on winter Sunday afternoons in the convent hall. They were all nunnishly prudish and boring films, but at least they were an attraction and somewhere to go for a few pence. The films were invariably flickering black-and-whites with indistinct dialogue made even worse by the constant whirr and clack of the reel-to-reel projector.
If the on-screen protagonists got too close in any kind of suggestive way, the nuns would protect our innocence with an urgent, loud intervention.
‘Look away children and I’ll tell you when to look back again.’
They were usually on the ball, but now and again they were caught out. In one film, I think it was Naughty Marietta, the nun censor was outwitted by Nelson Eddy, who, in one sudden movement, swept Jeanette McDonald into his arms in a passionate embrace and kiss. The good Sister had not anticipated the action; neither was she the projectionist, so she had no idea how to control the machine.
With a cry of ‘Oh my God!’ she stuck one hand in front of the lens, blackening out the on-screen image, and with the other she unplugged the projector, which groaned to a halt and threw the hall into darkness and disarray. As far as I can remember, that was the last time Pat Neligan, John Francis and myself attended.
The only place to see real films was in the Phoenix Cinema, which was another brainchild of that enterprising man, Jimmy Houlihan, who had brought us our electricity.
Posters advertising that month’s offerings from the Phoenix Cinema were distributed to every shop and pub in the town. We made a mad scramble for the posters, and decided which we would see. Teresa had strict rules. You could go to two films a week during the holidays and one a week otherwise, provided it was suitable.
Excitement built as we queued up at the ticket office to pay our money to Mr Moore. The sight of Mikey Callaghan going up to the projection room was a sign that it was getting near showtime. When the lights went down, Dingle was left far behind. This was another world. The glamorous advertisements enticed us with ‘select drinks in luxurious convivial surroundings’. These were usually followed by boring travelogues that just happened to arrive in Jersey or wherever in time for the annual Festival of Flowers. We fidgetted through these prleminaries even though we knew well that they were part of the happy anticipation leading up to the main feature. But first came the short film. It was never listed, so it was always a surprise. We hoped it would be the Three Stooges, or, if not, Woody Woodpecker was a favourite.
Then the main event. Westerns or comedies were the ones we most looked forward to. Big Biblical films, like The Robe, were a great draw. Believe it or not, Ben Hur drove that chariot round and round every night for a full week in Dingle. Unprecedented! Elvis and rock-and-roll films were rare but great fun, and we couldn’t resist Dracula or Frankenstein, even though they guaranteed nightmares.
War films were always high on our list of choices. Considering the nationalistic background we all had, and our unquestioning and unwavering commitment to ‘Brits out’ and the return of the ‘Fourth Green Field’, it is astonishing that when we were watching a war film in the Phoenix Cinema we were all true Brits. The Tommies were our heroes as they fought valiantly against the dastardly Huns, or the inscrutable Nips. Even into our early teen years, when we should have known better, we could still get totally behind them. They were at their finest in The Guns of Navarone. It was pure magic. For a couple of hours, the only thing of importance in our lives was to blow up the huge guns that were wreaking havoc on the Allied Fleet passing through the strategically crucial Sound at Navarone. There was a mighty roar at the end when the German guns and fortress went up with a bang. We cheered and clapped, and why wouldn’t we? Couldn’t we claim some local credit? Sure, didn’t it take Gregory Peck, one of our own, to blow the shite out of those Germans in Navarone?
I well remember when Gregory Peck visited Dingle. That created a bit of a stir. His grandfather was an Ashe from Kinard, near Dingle, who had emigrated to the States many years ago, but Gregory kept in touch with his roots. Gregory is very much a clan name among the Ashes. By a strange twist of fate, Gregory Peck, freedom-fighter in The Guns of Navarone, was a first cousin to Tomás Ashe, the real-life Irish freedom-fighter, poet, officer and teacher who died from forced feeding by the British authorities while on hunger strike, shortly after the 1916 Rising. Tomás, the fearless brigade leader in North Dublin and Meath during the Easter Rising, was a folk hero to us in Dingle. At one time one of the three GAA clubs in the town was named after him, and many of the players, especially the Devanes, were close relatives of his. The football pitch in Dingle is still called Páirc an Asaigh in his honour.
An academic who had met with Gregory Peck told me, many years later, that Gregory was a great admirer of Tomás Ashe, who he invariably referred to as General Ashe. This type of accelerated promotion through the ranks comes naturally to West Kerry folk!
LIGHT MY FIRE
Lyney had a plan.
‘We’ll join the Fire Brigade.’
Thomas Lyne’s ideas were always worth considering. The Fire Brigade in question was the local voluntary fire service. And he had done his homework.
‘There’s brilliant training trips, payment for any call-outs and it’s a great way to impress the women.’
It sounded fine, especially the last bit; status and cachet were desperately needed by two gauche teenagers. No sooner said than done; we joined up. The senior members, who had been there for decades, were delighted with the injection of young blood. There was a great welcome for us. The town could look forward to a safe future.
We duly got the call for fire-fighting drills and practice. Invariably, they took place on Sunday afternoons. The first outing dampened any romantic notions we might have had about tearing through the streets with bells ringing, whistles blowing and sirens resounding. Sad to say, the fire engine was, in fact, a trailer, which had to be hitched on to a small tow-truck. Mind you, it had all the gear. The hoses, ropes, uniforms and equipment were neatly stored and stacked on board. With much bonhomie and good humour we crowded into and onto the truck and trailer and rattled our way west of the town, along by Milltown bridge, past Glens, over the Maam and down into Feochanach, going all out. We stopped on Feochanach bridge; that was the practice site.
The routine was always the same: jump out of the truck, drag the hoses down, uncoil them with speed and sweat. Everything was done ‘at the double’. Two of us would connect one end of the first hose to the pump inflow while two more would take the other end with the filter on it and lodge it in a deep part of the river. That was the dangerous bit, because if you weren’t careful you could easily get wet. Still, we didn’t shirk it. The big, brass end-piece of the second hose was connected to the outflow. Thomas and I would take the other end and charge off down the road towards Feochanach village, dragging the hose behind us, in the direction of the make-believe fire. By pure coincidence, all this frenetic activity of unrolling the hose, connecting extensions and fitting the nozzle brought us just level with the village pub.
At this point our gallant leader would inject calm and control into the drill, shouting, ‘Fair play, lads. Ye made great time there. The two new lads know their stuff. Ye deserve a drink, and–’
Paddy Ollie always finished the sentence for him, ‘…and remember to drink up, ’cos the farmers are paying for it!’
With that, the brigade would adjourn to the pub for more than a few free drinks before casually emerging to roll up the hoses, tidy and store the gear before going home at our ease. A genuine fire a
larm at that point might have created more risk for the fire-fighters than the house occupants. Thomas and myself lasted for about four training sessions, but as neither of us had yet begun drinking, we did not get the full potential value of membership.
Unfortunately for us, perhaps fortunately for the local populace, there were no fire call-outs during our stint with the service, so we never got the chance to save the town and it will never be known how we would have coped under fire. But we were treated very well by the team, and not long after that the whole operation went professional.
That voluntary fire service was typical of its time; members of a community supporting each other. You could be sure that however casually and lightheartedly they seemed to take their training exercises, you could depend on them for your life in an emergency.
During my teenage years there were numerous possibilities for involvement in the town’s activities. Dingle was a town with a declining population, which posed problems for an infrastructure that had become dependent on a greater number of people. For that reason, the different clubs and organisations in the town were forever headhunting new members.
As well as I can recall, my first involvement was with the newly formed swimming club. Swimming held, and indeed still holds, enormous appeal for me. With the exception of Pat Neligan, all the gang of friends were keen swimmers. As well as the enjoyment of swimming as an activity, it was also a very attractive social event, providing us with legitimate opportunities to spend long periods with girls from the town. Serious swimming was done at Slaudeen, a tiny little beach between the Tower and the Lighthouse. At that time it had separate bathing areas for men and women. It was a private place, unknown to all except locals, until the arrival of Fungi, the Dingle dolphin, which brought hordes descending on the place – but that was many years later. Slaudeen was where I learned to swim. My uncle Thomas, who was a Christian Brother, was the one who taught me.