Cabra History.Com

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‘Do you remember all those games and things we used to do as young children, when the Ma’ would tell you to go outside and play? We only had ourselves and our pals and a few bits and pieces, old rope, sticks, a bicycle wheel, an empty polish tin and maybe a bit of string and a couple of empty tin cans. I remember we never played football with anything that wasn’t burst. At night we played ‘Kick the Can’ or hide and go seek, “You’re on it…”. And the bigger girls all playing skipping….”Look a whose comin’ down the street, Marty Coffey with wha wha feet…‘. And the lads with their Bown Arrows and Spears chasing each other up and down the hills by the railway tracks. And sure there’s that Young Fella again with his bit of stick and his hoop and he galloping down the road thinking he’s in a racing car. “Here Young One, get outa  me way…”. And there she’d be playing with two tennis balls up against the wall and one hand behind her back. And there’s her pal playing Piggy Beds and she jumping into number four because it’s a “Rest Bed”. And do you remember the Oul Fella coming up the road pushing his Box Car full of turf and you hoping that some would fall out onto the path so that you could grab it up for your Ma’? Sure there’s the sister and her pal with a red  Hoola Hoop and she shaking her hips all over the place. And the Coal Man carrying the big black sack on his bent over back. And do you remember the dog always getting up on your leg and we never knew why. And look at the brother and his pal talking to each other with two tin cans attached together by a bit of string and they shouting at each other “Hello, can you hear me”, sure the whole road could hear them. And sure there’s your man on his bike with no tyres and one of his pals sitting on the cross bar with another on the handle bars. And do you ever remember your first puff on a fag? And we’d always get Conkers up in the Park or go fishing for Minnow up in the Silverspoon. And then do you ever remember two lads would hold out a long piece of stick and we’d all have to jump over it…”Higher, higher. Ah it’s too high now…”. And sometimes a neighbour would ask you to take the baby for a walk and off you’d go up along the canal all the way to Ashtown and back. And do you ever remember the girls all swinging from the lamp-post? sure that was great fun. I remember the brother making a pair of stilts to walk with and he nearly broke his neck when he fell of a them. And then he tied two old cans onto the bottom of his shoes and walked along with them scratching and scraping on the path. And sometimes we’d play racing and you’d have someone on your back and you holding them up with their arms choking you around the neck. And did you ever try and walk on your hands? And do you remember the lads jumping into the canal in their nude? Do you ever remember the girls playing shop with their big pieces of “Chainy”? And those were the days when we had to wait for hours for a bus into town and you meeting the other half under Clery’s clock, that’s when we were a bit older. And the lads with the hurley sticks lashing the ball all the way up the road and then turning the hurley around and shooting someone dead with it…”Here. I shot you, you’re dead“…”No I’m not, I ducked the bullet’. Sure where would you get it all the same? And that’s how it was, with our imagination and a few bits and pieces we were made up…’