Cabra History.Com

A favourite saying of my mother’s was ‘If you don’t leave me alone I’ll end up in the Gorman’. You know, as young children we never knew what she meant by this. But we did know not to push it any further with her or we’d end up with a sore ear or two. I remember another time she’d often say ‘I’m signing meself into the Gorman’. And once again we didn’t understand what she meant. Now it was only in later years that we came to understand what the ‘Gorman’ was all about. Sure didn’t one of our neighbours work there cooking the breakfast for the staff.

In our early days of living in Cabra West there was often people going around knocking on doors begging and selling things. There was one poor old creature that knocked on our door on a regular basis. The Ma’ would let him sit in on the end of our stairs and send him out a cup of tea and a slice of bread with dripping on it. She told me in later years that he was an old soldier who lived in the ‘Gorman’. She had great empathy for these people and especially so because she had an uncle that died in the ‘Gorman’.

Well it’s all gone now because they’re knocking most of it down to make way for a new Institute of Technology or something like that. People used to say it was haunted so I wonder where all the ghosts will go now. And the poor ould Ma’ can’t threaten us anymore with thoughts of signing herself into the ‘Gorman’. And do you know what it is, the Da’ used to say to her ‘I’ll bring you down on the crossbar of me bike if you like’. What a pair!!!