The Bells… the bells
St Joseph's Boys Club 1947 (click to enlarge)
Cockneys boast of living within the sound of Bow Bells. For the people of Inchicore the sound of the ‘Lourdes Ave’ ringing on the quarter hour from the Oblate church tower was an ever present part of life. I suppose that now and then it brought our minds round to Our Lady, but for the most part it was just that the bells were there.
So too of course were the Oblates themselves. Everbody, but everybody went to Mass, and there were “devotions” and the various sodalities—packing the church once a month with men or boys, women or girls on their respective Sundays. Each branch had its own priest; the iconic Fr “Pop” Devine was prefect for the boys, Fr Sweeney for the men and Fr Buckley for the women or girls.
It was a regimented sort of religion that suited the times. Two sodality memories come immediately to mind: the thoughtful joy of my father, God be good to him, on hearing Fr Sweeney preach on the mercy of God—“He shall not crush the bruised reed”—and the relief it brought to him from a theology of justice. What a pity he had to live into his forties to really hear it!
And there was the Irishman I met at a wedding in England, who turned out to be from Inchicore. He told me a story that illustrates the gift of careful listening. He was having something of a wild youth, in with the wrong crowd. But he still went to confession in the Oblates on his sodality Saturday, because his mother insisted.
The late, gentle Fr Breslin listened to him and advised him to get into sport before he got, maybe, into jail. But all the sports the priest mentioned were rejected brusquely by the young man. However, Fr Breslin then said, “When I said ‘rowing’ you hesitated a second—why?” “Because I don’t know it.” “How can you dislike it until you try it. Will you promise me to go tomorrow to Neptune Rowing Club and introduce yourself to a certain man.”
The young man kept his promise, was put into a boat by Fr Breslin’s friend, and immediately fell in love with the sport. He went on to train hard in the early mornings and the discipline rubbed off on the rest of his life. He studied, got a good Leaving Cert. and his prowess as an oarsman appealed to those who interviewed him for his chosen profession. So, listening and sodalities did work!
That young man’s love of the Liffey came from rowing on it, but it was a magic place for us too as we grew up. A few minutes bike ride down the hill by the memorial park and there it was—a great gently flowing sweep of water. At the near bank was the submerged tree which gave its name to the swimming place, “The Log “. Because the river was deep at this point, only competent swimmers graduated to here. You would have served your apprenticeship in the canal. This too was a magical place for us. It seemed cleaner then and the canal barges were still plying their trade.
I can remember my first swimming examination. Somewhere between the third and fourth locks you had to swim across the canal. It seemed a long way to a seven-year-old but it was only fifteen yards; besides you had a minder on either side of you in case you lost your nerve and sank splutteringly. Next exam was to swim from the third to the fourth lock and finally The Big One, from the sixth to the fifth. This was a half mile.
I can still remember finishing it with Pete Mooney (now Pete St. John) only to have him turn round and swim all the way back.
The canal and “The Log” bring back memories of warm summer days, although there must have been cold ones too. There was one marvellous swimming gala organised by St Joseph’s Boys Club. I don’t think there were many smooth American crawls on view that day, but flailing arms, bursting lungs and endless enthusiasm made up for lack of technique. Most of us, maybe even all of us, went proudly home to show off our prizes, donated by Brother Lacey, owner of the treasure trove shop we knew as The Grotto House.
Mr Lacey became ‘Brother Lacey’ because he was a member of St Vincent de Paul. We did not realise it at the time but we were blessed with a local VdeP conference which put time and effort into running the local boys club—St Joseph’s. Over the years I have seen all sorts of youth schemes and strategies but I know of none as effective as that small place under Mr Lacey’s shop, with its boxing club, football teams, library, athletics and a marvellous summer holiday in the country.
Away back in 1936 or ’37 when I began school we had in Scoil Mhuire Gan Smál a brand new school where desks, floors and even the granite front gleamed. I was privileged to be taught by Peadar O’Donnabhain, a young teacher from West Cork. He spoke Irish all the time so that long before we ever heard the term we had a language taught by immersion. He had us enter and win feiseanna competitions for speech and for drama—at seven for God sake! He made us educationally competitive, marking every lesson all the time. To get into the top six in that class was something. Many did very well academically afterwards but one, who shall remain nameless was cleverer than any of us. He had to leave school at fourteen since the family needed his thirty shillings a week. A sign of the bad old days! Peadar O’Donnabhain went on to become one of the youngest ever inspectors in the Depart-ment of Education. Inchicore was a good place then. It still is.