Cabra History.Com

This is a stretch of the Royal Canal that runs alongside the railway line in Ashtown near Cabra West. A train can be seen in the picture heading off towards Mullingar. It was along this stretch of the canal that my pals and I would ramble in search of an orchard. Somewhere along this canal bank we’d come across the rere of the girls home run by the nuns and it was here that we’d climb into their orchard. Once we were in we’d tuck our jumpers down the front of our trousers. That was so the apples we shoved through the neck of the jumper wouldn’t fall out. One of the lads would stay outside on the canal bank and watch out for any rossers or Garda who just might happen to stroll along. Everyone shared their apples with him. Like a small band of locust we’d pick out a tree and proceed to strip it clean of all it’s apples. Most of what we robbed we gave away to other kids that we’d meet on our way home. Other times we’d make a raid on the Ashtown Tinbox Factory nearby. We’d always take armfuls of round tin discs that were used as lids on cardboard tubes. Or else we’d fill our pockets with them. On our way home along the canal we’d skim the lids across the surface of the water just for fun. The stone bridge that spans the canal at Ashtown is actually called Longford Bridge and was built in the 1790′s. When we came here as young boys Ashtown was out in the middle of the country. Now it has it’s own new village of shops, apartments, houses  and quite a large population.

Tony Gorman, James Rogers and Michael O’Gorman in Wexford.

If you were lucky enough to have a pal or relative working in one of the many cinemas or picture houses around Dublin they would sometimes give you a free pass into the pictures. One friend of mine had a sister that worked as an usherette in the Carlton Cinema in O’Connell Street. She would often give us a free pass each or sometimes she’d just sneak us in and bring us up to the balcony. I think that the cinema staff may have been given a certain amount of free passes every month or something like that. I remember in the 1970′s there was a bomb scare in the Savoy Cinema and as everyone was leaving the building they were given a free pass for another night. The curtains closed over as the lights came on and the manager walked out onto the stage to make the announcement about the scare. The Da’ often had free passes for the Deluxe Cinema in Camden Street where he worked in the bank next door. Every Friday night himself and the Ma’ would get all dolled up and take the 22 bus straight over to Camden Street from the lower end of Carnlough Road. You don’t see many Free Passes into anywhere these days.

In our house the Ma’ always had a special drawer where she kept all of her odds and ends. Sometimes she’d call it her ‘Button Drawer’ because that’s where she kept a round tin box full of old and used buttons.  I think it may have been an old sweet box or something. Any garment or shirt that the family no longer wanted to wear was stripped of all its buttons and they were placed in the Ma’s button box.  There was always plenty of old shirt buttons, blue and pink buttons from my sister’s cardigans, black ones that might come in handy for a funeral or great big brown buttons from someones top coat. There was even a few old F.C.A. buttons to be found in it. My mother would also keep old zips in the drawer that she would have rescued from an old dress or courdery jacket that was put in the back porch for the dog to sleep on. This drawer was a treasure trove of shiney bits and pieces. You could even find pieces of old thread, odd bits of wool, a nappy pin and sewing needles of all sizes in there. But most of all the Ma’  stored all of her coupons  in this drawer for safe keeping. There was the Lyons Tea Minstrels coupons that she was supposed to send in with an application form for a free draw. The Kellogs Cornflakes coupons got a special place at the front of the drawer because they could be exchanged for a set of cutlery. For quite a while all the blue rent receipts were kept in this drawer too until they started to take over so they had to be housed in a box that she kept under the stairs in the coal hole. This was the box that housed all the insurance policies. The Ma’s button drawer had a strange smell of old things and odd things, things that didn’t belong anywhere else. Sometimes you might find an old rusty screw or a bent nail that might come in handy some day. No matter what it was you were looking for the Ma’  would always send you off to the button drawer first because if it wasn’t there it wasn’t anywhere. Sometimes of a winters evening if we were bored or just fed up we’d take out the button drawer and empty it out onto the kitchen table and sort everything out into little bundles or groups. I remember one time the Da’ took a few buttons out of the tin box and set up a game of push penny or push button. He let us use his good comb that he kept in his Sunday suit and the comb that he kept in his back pocket for work to push the buttons with. It was like a game of table football for two players. I suppose in a way the Ma’s button drawer was a magic sort of drawer. Well now, she’s gone and the Da’s gone and all the buttons and things from her button drawer are gone. They’re all gone to Button Drawer Heaven.

  Frank Carr & Olive Jackson 1953

  Olive & Frank Carr 2009