Cabra History.Com

Do you know, I remember one day when I was in the Convent School in Cabra West, Sister Mary Oliver sent me up to the Nun’s house on a message. Now being the kind of dreamer that I was I completely forgot where I was supposed to be going and why. Well do you know what??? I ended up in a kind of garden with a cloths line strung up the length of it and there they were…dancing in the breeze without a care in the world. There were pink ones and dark blue ones all waving down at little me as if we were long lost friends. They remind me now of a line-up of chorus girls on stage.

At first it was hard for me to make out what they were because the sun was shining down so hard and bright. Now I’d seen this kind of thing on the Ma’s clothes line whenever she did my grannie’s washing and I know I definitely seen them on the clothes line next door. The Da’ used to tell us that they had reinforced elastic around the waist in case it ever snapped and broke. Passion Killers he called them, of course we never understood what he meant by that. Some of them things used to have a pocket in one of the legs to hide the rent in, well so the Da’ said anyway. The Ma’ told me one time that me granny wore them to keep her knees warm. I’ll tell you something for nothing…there’s no heat in them string things the young ones are wearing today. Somehow or other I can’t imagine the holy nuns or the granny wearing them cheese wire things at all…no heat in them you see…