Cabra History.Com

If only this poor old gate could talk, I wonder what stories it could tell. It is situated on the lower end of Carnlough Road, a couple of doors away from Mister Mac’s Shop.  I wonder would it remember me  and all my pals running past it on our way home from the Cabra Grand on a Sunday afternoon. Or perhaps it would recall a time when my Ma’ passed by pushing the pram and all us Coffey’s trailing behind her like little ducks on our way to town. This was probably one of the first batch of houses built in Cabra West, if so then that gate is over seventy years old. And it still has its two pals, the ould pillars holding it up like some ould fella coming out of the Homestead pub.

Of course our house on Killala Road had railing at the front and we always considered the houses with walls like this one to be posh.  I wonder how many times the Postman opened that gate carrying a letter full of good news from abroad or perhaps a load of Christmas cards. When I look at this photograph I think of that song ‘Nobody’s Child’ and see how sad the gate looks. It stood on guard with the two pillars ensuring that the house and family were afforded some protection from the outside world. Now even the house has gone. Somebody should open up a home for old and retired gates…