Photo credit: Clackers: Museum of Childhood Ireland, Músaem Óige na hÉireann
Brenda Carey’s story, Dublin 1970s
“I was out working by the age of fourteen, but I was still a child.
Clackers came in in the 1970s. I spotted them in a shop on Aungier St, just past Whitefriers St Church, on the opposite side of the road, near the George’s St end. Two brothers owned the shop there and they sold everything.
Myself and Joan, a girl my age who worked in another solicitor’s office as a messenger also, delivered letters from the solicitors we worked for to the Four Courts and to Dublin Castle.
We each bought a pair of Clackers from the brothers’ shop. Mine were yellow tinged and hers were brownish. You didn’t have a choice, sure we only got whatever the shopkeeper handed us!
I was very good at Clackers but Joan – not so much! She couldn’t keep the rhythm and her hand got bruised. She was very frustrated.
My technique you see was that you had to hold the ring between your forefinger and thumb, elbow in line with your side and palm facing upwards. Holding your wrist loosely, like you do when painting, you gently moved the string, from the wrist, up and down, up and down slowly, the balls separating, then back together. The motion had to be steady. Then faster, faster, higher, lower, until the balls hit together above, then below without stopping.
My claim to fame was that I could keep this going from George’s St to the Four Courts without stopping!
I laugh now when I think of my 1970s journey as a fourteen year old child, with important court papers in my briefcase to be signed, and Clackers in the other…Oh and a loose cigarette and match purchased too, and wearing a Bay City Rollers outfit!
Myself ( left) & Joan, 15 years old, 1970s
That photo was taken in Aungier St, at Mr. Drury’s I believe. His studio was situated beside the solicitors office I worked in, which was Stanley Siev, 31 Aungier St.
I handed my wages over directly to my mam, and I got my bus fare back and sometime 1 pound to spend, so Mr. Siev would loan me 5 pounds every 10 weeks. I paid it back at 50p per week and I would go to Penney’s to buy clothes.
That top in the photo was green cord with a floral top, from Winston’s in George’s St. I worked there (before I got the job at Sievs) in the stock room with a group of teens. We could put money off clothes every week.
The flares were light green, bought in a shop on Wallkinstown Green. Elephant flares were all the business in 1970…and clackers! “