Cabra History.Com

‘Wouldn’t it be gas all the same if you opened your Hall Door and found yourself looking out at a scene like this one in the above photograph? This one was taken on Dingle Road and they’re all wearing their Sunday Best. Most people were very proud of their little two up two down house that they had where they openly displayed their best Net Curtains and kept their hedges all trimmed and proper. Some of them had a two bedroom “Parlour House” with a toilet upstairs while others had three bedrooms with the toilet downstairs. Do you ever remember some of the mother’s sweeping down the passage inside the gate and then sweeping the footpath outside, some of them even swept the roadway outside their house. And we had neighbours who’d be up at the crack of dawn cleaning the brasses on their Hall Door, dressed in their overcoats and head scarfs. The railings were usually painted silver or black or maybe you had a house with a wall instead of a railings, they were considered the “Posh Houses”. And do you remember the Buntings going from the top bedroom window all the way down to the railings for Corpus Christi or for the May Procession? Some families had a little Altar on the shelter over their front door where Jesus or Holy Mary could see the procession. These were great occasions for bringing the whole community together with neighbours helping neighbours to have their place looking the best in case the parade passed down by  their house. Now I know that a lot of unsavoury stuff went on behind some closed doors and oftimes spilled out into the front garden but in general, most families behaved themselves. There was hardly a road in Cabra West that I’d walk down and wouldn’t know someone or other, maybe a boy or two from school or someone that played the guitar or maybe a Young One that knew one of my sisters, “Young Fella, here’s Young Ones”, and you dodging the Young Ones with their skipping ropes and piggy beds. And do you remember the Young One with the patch on her glasses because she had a weak eye or the Young Fella with the metal things on his legs because he had Polio? And the other thing you had to be careful of was the gang of Young Fellas running down the road with their Hoops and the clink clank noise from them as they rolled along the footpath at 100 miles an hour. And mind you don’t get a kick in the head from them Young Ones with their swings on the Lamp Post. Each road was almost like a small village where everyone knew everyone and each others business as well. If you wanted to play on another road besides you own you had to be invited by someone living there or have a relation down that way. I remember an Oul Fella who used to come around on his bicycle with a grinding stone attached to it for sharpening knives and the scissors and that. And of course there were the women who sold the fresh fish of a Friday with a bread board on top of a basket with wheels, Herrings and Mackerel and she scraping the scales off a the fish for the Ma’. There’s no end to the memories that a photograph like this one brings to mind, for me they were great times…’