Seachtain Náisiúnta na hOidhreachta
National Heritage Week 2024 invites you to explore the connections, routes and networks that link our communities.
A Heritage Week online, and in-person display at Bank of Ireland, Dúnlaoghaire, from the Museum of Childhood Ireland, Músaem Óige na hÉireann.
We have selected seven local people’s stories of childhood to highlight for Heritage Week 2024. Ireland-wide, our stories of childhood are powerful in breaking down barriers, shattering stereotypes. fostering friendships, encouraging empathy and igniting curiosity about our culture, heritage and history.
Highlighting too, the importance of small, and non-traditional spaces in helping promote connections of heritage and culture, and encouraging all to share a snapshot of their childhood as part of the overall experiences of childhood across Ireland. Contact: info@museumofchildhood.ie
The Museum of Childhood Ireland are particularly grateful to Bank of Ireland, and Bloomfields Shopping Centre, Dúnlaoghaire for their tremendous, support in the community.
Go raibh mile maith agaibh.
Sandycove
“My name is Philippa and my twin was Nicola. Our names were shortened to Philly and Nicky. Nicky died of cancer in 2021. I include photos of us both. Nicky was my constant companion throughout childhood.
Nicky and I grew up the youngest of six children. Our father William Monk Gibbon* was an author and a poet. Books were an important part of our childhood. With four older siblings to read to us and keep us amused, Beatrix Potter’s** books were a much loved part of our childhood. Not only did we love the books we also loved the race game based on her much loved characters, Peter Rabbit, Jeremy Fisher, Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs Tiggy Winkle and Jemima Puddleduck. Nicky and I vied with each other to be Jemima Puddleduck as at a certain point on the board Jemima was allowed to fly and reach her destination sooner if you happened to land on the correct square.
My sister Nicky and I were born on the 3rd of February 1946. I am older by reputedly ten mins! We were born in Bray Co. Wicklow. We spent the first two years of our lives in Co. Donegal, on the edge of Fintragh beach, near Killybegs. We moved to Sandycove, Co Dublin in 1948. It was the only house in my father’s opinion, that had a room big enough to house the big wooden bookcase that housed his writings along with other valuable books. The house my father bought was where George Bernard Shaw had attended Nursery school. My mother often wondered if the wooden marbles she came across when digging in the garden had been played with by G B Shaw.***
Nicky and I attended the Hall School in Monkstown**** from the age of five. When we were fourteen we begged our mother to become boarders. We boarded at the Hall School till we were sixteen. I had the ignominy of being expelled at Easter in 1962. I had had a row with my sister and left the school premises at about 8.30 in the evening and roamed around Blackrock but had nowhere else to return to but school as my parents were teaching in England. It was the final straw as far as the school was concerned, and I had to go. I went to Sutton Park in Howth for two years which I greatly enjoyed. Nicky was given the opportunity of a co ed school also, and went to Newtown school.
Nicky gave me the complete works of Beatrix Potter. Her characters provided many happy memories in my childhood and I hope in the childhoods of future generations.”
Philippa Craven
* https://www.dib.ie/biography/gibbon-william-monk-a3451
https://www.rte.ie/archives/2021/0106/1188042-monk-gibbon
**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrix_Potter
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/the-secret-life-of-beatrix-potter
***https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1925/shaw/biographical
****http://www.dlrcoco.ie/dlr-events/event/hall-school-150
Dúnlaoghaire
“My Name is Mary Mc Donagh, I am an Irish Traveller who was born in Dublin City in 1983. I moved with my family to a few different places before I settled in Dun Laoghaire in 1986. My Mother Margaret was from Kilkenny, and my Father Michael was from Athlone. They travelled throughout the counties of Ireland as they were growing up. We had a family of ten, in which we had five boys and five girls. My grandparents, born around the turn of the century (C.1900) are also from the countryside, I can’t really say what county they are really from as they travelled across the length of the Island their whole lives, in tents and wagons. Everywhere was their home.
I also travelled across the land as I was growing up and I saw the beauty of the landscape and rivers, the forests and the fields, but I also had the pleasure of growing up in Dúnlaoghaire.
I first went to school in St Andrews in Booterstown in 1987 for Junior infants, I lived in a small caravan at the side of Blackrock College. Then we moved to the west pier in Dúnlaoghaire also in 1987 just under the bridge and I started school in the Holy Family National School* in Monkstown Farm. This school was an amazing school. The teachers were such brilliant people. Understanding the students and their needs and the backgrounds they came from, which allowed us as students to feel secure and thus allowed us to learn and grow while there.
The children from the area were great. I always got on with everyone. Their parents and grandparents played a vital role in how I was treated in the area. The people and sense of community in Monkstown Farm will stay with me forever. I was helped with uniforms when I didn’t have one, books if the person the year ahead of me no longer needed them and anything else I asked for or needed. The people in Monkstown Farm supported me in many ways. I could never really thank them all here. So, if any of you are reading this, I just want to say I appreciate all you have done for me. While I attended primary school, my family moved to many places around the area and then we finally settled in the Soldiers and Sailors field** at the top of Monkstown Avenue, beside the old Premier Dairies.*** We lived there for many years and I went on to attend post primary in Rockford Manor**** secondary school.
I had so many friends growing up, some of which I have great friendships with to this day. I had this one friend Patricia, who was also a young Traveller. We were the same age, just one month apart. We were the greatest of friends. Sadly, she passed away thirteen years ago. I will always value the friendships I made growing up in the Dúnlaoghaire area. They helped shape me as a person. As a teenager I played so many sports, like Football, Basketball, Handball, and Martial Arts. I was involved in so many community events and initiatives. I brought my school to Aras an Uachtaráin***** to meet President Mary Mc Aleese****** on a few occasions. Over the years I even wrote out our speeches for the president. I was involved in community development projects throughout my school years, a lot within the area.
Looking back at the time I spent in Dun Laoghaire growing up – Even though there was poverty in the area, the community carried each other and helped each other grow. I miss the old days of being able to go to Dúnlaoghaire Baths*******, being taught how to swim in the Blue Pool and going to my first ever disco in the old Castle basement. I miss my old primary school and how Mr Ryan, Mr Healy, Mrs Nagle, and Mrs Duffy amongst others taught me to believe in myself, and helped me with my self-confidence.
In hindsight, they paved the way for who I am today.”
Mary McDonagh, Producer and Actor
*https://www.holyfamilyschool.ie
**https://www.scoilnet.ie/fileadmin/user_upload/WW1_The_Irish_in_the_Gallipoli_Campaign.pdf
*** https://localwiki.org/dl/Abbey_Road
****https://www.rockfordmanor.ie
*****https://www.president.ie/en/about/contact-us
******https://president.ie/en/the-president/mary-mcaleese
*******https://www.dlrcoco.ie/d%C3%BAn-laoghaire-baths/d%C3%BAn-laoghaire-baths
Blackrock and Dúnlaoghaire
Betty (Linda) Eagan, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, Ireland, was deaf from birth, and used sign language to communicate.* Linda, known to everyone as Betty, lived in Blackrock, and at 8 Summerhill Rd., Dún Laoghaire, and in adulthood worked from home as a chiropodist.
She was born at home on the 28th September 1911 in Brentford, Middlesex and died on the 14th June 1999 in DúnLaoghaire.
Her mother’s name was Linda Finlay, and her father was Michael Egan** who worked for Dunlop Tyre Manufacturers.
https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Michael_Egan
They married in Rathdown on the 16th April 1906. After her first husband Michael’s death her mother remarried to a Mr John Burgess on the 22nd September 1919 in Dublin North. Betty’s Grand uncle William Meagher had been Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1884.
Betty loved all animals, especially dogs. A beloved pet dog as a child was called Nell, and later she had a dog called Patsy.
She was educated ( as a boarder) at St Johns school for the deaf in Boston Spa, Leeds, and at the Dominican College*** Sion Hill, Blackrock.
Betty was friends with the teachers and frequently visited them and the children at the Claremont Institution**** for the Deaf and Dumb in Monkstown, Co Dublin.
She recalled the bombing of Dun Laoghaire***** by the German Luftwaffe in 1940 and how a large fragment of stone had landed across the road in her garden from the impact.
*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Sign_Language
**https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Michael_Egan
***Dominican College Sion Hill
Glasthule
“Myself and my four sisters and three brothers, mam and dad, and friends used ‘the baths’ quite a lot growing up. We lived not far from them on Glasthule road beside the old Astoria cinema.* It was just a hop, skip and a jump away. My Mam loved having the seaweed baths. What was great about the baths was that they had lots of facilities there like dressing rooms, showers, plenty of toilets, places to secure your clothes, and a place at reception to store your valuables, also plenty of space to sit around.
Even though the baths had seawater in them if you were a strong swimmer the life guards would let you go off the Jetty to swim in the open sea. There was also a tuck shop in reception where we could spend our pennies on the way out to buy such things as Sailors Chews, Pixie and Flash bars. Sometimes if we had enough we would go across the road and get a Teddy’s ice cream.
When the Rainbow Rapids** came we had even more fun. We would swim in the baths nearly every day until closing time, then we would either go to Bug Rock or Sandycove for more swims or we would go to the Peoples park to play.
Years later when some of us left DúnLaoghaire, we would travel out to meet our families who still lived in Sallynoggin and Ballybrack. We drove from places like Navan, Tallaght, Sandyford, Bray and Westmeath. The Baths have been a big loss to all of us as we used to socialise with family picnics and bring our children with us. We were pleased our children got to experience the fun to be had in the baths. Of course the picnics had to get much bigger when we brought out our children with us!”
Bernie Mulvey
*https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/50252
**https://www.rte.ie/archives/2020/0603/1145144-rainbow-rapids-dun-laoghaire
Carlow and Dúnlaoghaire
“The three dancers in the photo are from the McDarby School of Dancing, Carlow. The two girls in front are Kathleen McDarby’s daughters, Geraldine (the leprechaun), and Colette. Breda O’Meara is the girl at the back…
They were a group of young dancers and musicians from Carlow. My brother, Hugh, and I occasionally accompanied them.
We just went under our own names, Leo & Hugh O’Kelly.
We were asked to perform on Seoirse agus Beartlai,* an RTE children’s television show which also featured later-to-be stars like Twink and Alma Carroll. Hugh normally played piano, but as there was a resident pianist, he played spoons instead. I was fifteen and Hugh was a year younger.
I honestly don’t remember playing anywhere else with them, except for the TV show. I remember now that the school of dancing was at the other end of our street, College Street, so that may be why we were asked.
In 1965 Irish television was just a couple of years old, so it was especially exciting for us. I got Larry Gogan’s ** autograph outside his dressing room and would not let anyone else sign my book after him! My mum, wisely, hired a local photographer, Donal Godfrey, to take a picture from the television set.”
Leo O’Kelly.
Leo O’Kelly, Dúnlaoghaire, was born on the 27th November 1949 in Carlow, County Carlow He is an Irish singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer. He is the co-founder of the Irish folk duo Tír na nÓg : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_O%27Kelly
*https://stillslibrary.rte.ie/indexplus/image/1007/055.html
**https://www.rte.ie/archives/profiles/gogan-larry/
Kilmashogue or Kilmashoge (Irish: Cill Mochióg)
is a mountain in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown
Early childhood story…..
“It all started with my mother saying she’d take me to Scotland to see a pony, but we mightn’t buy it. We went, just the two of us and it was love at first sight. A little pony, he was 12 2, as they were measured in those days. There’s four inches to a hand, so I don’t know the metric measurements…
He was at the end of a lane and Jane Thompson said I could ride him down the lane and come back. I couldn’t believe my luck! I was lifted on to him, I was four years of age, and I walked him down the lane and it was magic, it was freedom itself and I turned him around and came back. It was decided that we would buy him but there was a condition, I was to share the pony with my two brothers and my sister, and it couldn’t have been worse. I considered him MINE! Anyway we bought him and he came and I learned to ride him as best I could and I had lessons. It was very good, and my brothers and sister didn’t pay too much attention at all. I went to the pony club for the first time in a horse box! Now we didn’t have a trailer for the pony and I think CIE was rung for a horse box, and when it arrived it was vast! It would take 8 horses, and ALL it was going to take was little tiny Peter Pan.
We set off with the Pony Club for the first time and we made an absolute show of ourselves, everybody else in tractors and vans, and one pony seemed to be in a hen coop! Peter stepped out of this vast lorry, and I was told I was going to get a lead around the course of jumps by Jack Leonard…He had much experience at such things, and we set off not too fast, and Peter jumped everything… He got a 3rd rosette, I remember that.. I took it to Dodgen’s riding school to Mac Master who was my favourite and he took one look at the yellow rosette and said “That’s no good it has to be red”…I burst into tears. Then Mr Dunne who was good with children took over. That pacified me, and I put the rosette in my pocket.
1950’s Teenager story…..
I grew out of Peter who was so small, and the next pony I had was Little Prince, and Little Prince was grey and a good jumper. We went to the RDS. I was thirteen, and we won a competition and I remember the lady that helped me with the horses Paula Stoke she said “You’ll never do that again ! .. and I don’t think I did.
Little Prince was grown out of, he was 13 2. The next pony was Bonney and she was 14 2 which was the biggest of the ponies. She was a fantastic jumper and she won the Irish Pony Club Championship not once, not twice, but three times in a row and each time she won the championship she was entitled to got to England to jump in the cross country there. I went, and the first time was alright, the second time it was better and the third time I WON The British Show Jumping Cross Country and Dressage Championship. It was a fantastic help to me because I had a miserable time at school, and finally I found something I could do well. I was into every kind of practice or anything that needed doing with horses, I would do it to succeed.
I started at 14, 15, 16 ( RE Horse Championship in England) when I won it and then I stopped. I had to move into the horses then which wasn’t so easy, because they were harder against the adults.
There was one thing I wanted to add. When I went to England having won the Pony Club Championship, it was the first time we’d sent a team to England, and I did fairly well, but I had an ambition…and that was to beat the Brits! It didn’t happen the first time, or the second time, but I beat the stuffing out of them on the third!
Juliet teaches children….. 1970’s Kilmashogue
Word got out that I had been at the Olympics. It got out to riders on the road. They were very young. One day the doorbell rang and there were about ten of them outside!
“What’s this?”
I opened the door and they said
“We’re starting a pony club..”
And I said “Oh hold on I’ll get my handbag..”
“WE DON’T WANT MONEY, WE WANT YOU TO COME AND TEACH US!!!!”
And that’s how the pony club started.. they had all the ponies brushed to the last degree, plaited up, saddled all correctly.. bridles perfect, bits good, and we trotted around in circles correcting their riding..
There was one star turn. It was Neddy the Donkey! He was grey and white and very wise. He knew how to escape. He did it by lying on the ground and rolling his way under the fence. (He) would go off and pester people in their gardens. But he didn’t think much of the pony club, he did two or three rounds, and the rounds got smaller and smaller and smaller until he was standing beside me.
The pony club went on… I don’t know much about it’s history after I stopped. I swapped with the children, I didn’t think it was good for them to get it all free. I said they’d have to come to my farm and pick stones and pull ragweed, which they thought very exciting, and came without bother to do that.
That’s the last I heard of the pony club.
(Kilmashogue pony club… Burkes… children of Ciarán Burke from the Dubliners)
The Apple Loft
My two brothers and myself got into the apple loft when we discovered you could remove a door that opened out on to the yard. We discovered there were some bad apples, bramleys, and that they made excellent bombs! We’d peg them out onto the yard… SPLAT… very satisfying. We did several of those. But there was a head gardener Mr Lee, who didn’t like children. My brothers heard him coming and scattered.….I saw a big apple, and decided I’d throw it out. Mr Lee caught me by the arm. As I resisted I fell to the ground, and he dragged me along, and then down the stairs…bump…bump…bump..on my bottom. At the bottom of the stairs he paused momentarily, and I BIT HIM ! I bit him behind the ankle where it’s meaty, and he let go and I scarpered – ran for my life.
About two days later I found a scab on a cut that I got going down the stairs and I decided to show it to my father. I said “ Daddy, look at this? This is what Mr Lee did to me.” He sat up immediately, and Mr Lee was called in.
He said to Mr Lee “ what’s this about my daughter having been cut on the arm?”
Mr Lee said “well I’ve had to go to the doctor because the bite she gave me festered and I am contemplating suing you”.
“Well“ said my father “ you have a free house, you have the run of the garden, you have two gardeners under you, and you don’t have to do much work, so I think that is very unadvisable. Maybe we could fix it that I pay the doctors fee, and we put a lock on the door to the loft!?”
And that settled it!
The Toy Boat
Mr Lee was brilliant at growing chrysanthemums and won the flower show prize several times over the years.
He was doing cuttings, for the chrysanthemum show, in the greenhouse with the water trough outside. My brothers , completely independently, thought the water trough would make an excellent place for them to sink plastic boats that they had made. They had assemble many boats, but they had one in particular in mind for this – a battleship.
We raided the nursery bathroom for cotton wool, and my brothers got lighter fuel from my father’s mantlepiece. They saturated the cotton wool and they stuffed it into the boat, and they took it to the tank. With a box of matches, they lit it…. It was absolutely realistic. I was there as a bystander. Flames shot up from the lighter fuel, and at first the stern went down, then it sat for a bit, then the bow went up in the air, and then she sank.
Mr Lee’s cuttings failed. He did a second lot of cuttings, and they too failed. Then a friend gave him more cuttings and there was talk of sabotage from the man that had been second for the previous three years. It got very serious. A lock was put on the greenhouse, where there had never been one before. Anyway, Mr Lee kept on with the watering until finally he got near to the bottom of the tank, and THERE was the mangled remains of the blasted boat and its poisonous toxic exhalations!
In the end you couldn’t really blame anybody because the boys were only being boys, they didn’t intend to ‘do in’ the cuttings. Mr Lee got help from a friend but they were too late and I think they missed the show altogether that year.
THAT WAS THE WAY IT WENT!”
Juliet Jobling Purser, Irish Olympian,* Dressage,** 1968 and 1972
*https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/11372
https://www.irishphotoarchive.ie/image/I0000bDwe7bHSDoU
**https://www.dressageireland.ie/
Juliet’s childhood stories as related to Áine Furey, Museum of Childhood Ireland team member in June/July/August 2024.
Dúnlaoghaire
The Guilfoyle Children. Dun Laoghaire, 1969. Kneeling in the back Row: Bairbre, Fiona. Front Row: Ronan, Brendan, Maeve, Conor, Eithne, Darragh (baby)
This Moses basket was purchased in 1956 from the Richmond National Institution for the Industrious Blind*, in O’Connell Street. The basket was bought by May and Brendan Guilfoyle for the birth of their first child. May and Brendan married in October 1955.
They lived in Dun Laoghaire, first in a flat in Tivoli Terrace East, and subsequently in a house in Crosthwaite Park which the family occupied for over sixty years. They had eight children. Sadly Brendan died in 1975 at the young age of forty-eight, but his wife May lived until 2019, when she died aged ninety-two. All eight of the Guilfoyle children slept in the Moses basket (Eithne, Ronan, Conor, Bairbre, Fiona, Maeve, Brendan, and Darragh). May and Brendan had fifteen grandchildren, and twelve of them also slept in this basket ( the other three grandchildren were born in North America). The basket originally had a bamboo and wicker stand – but this is long gone.
When the first grandchild Laura arrived in 1984 a new stand was made for it by Blindcraft the successors of the Richmond National Institution for the Industrious Blind. This stand has also gone, but the original Moses basket remains.
Eithne Guilfoyle
Eithne and Rusty. Back Garden, Tivoli Terrace Dun Laoghaire, 1957
The Moses Basket and Receipt
Thank you for sharing and reading. We’d really love to hear YOUR childhood story – wherever you are from.
Contact us on info@museumofchildhood.ie
