May 15 2016
‘Two Seasides…’
Cardiffsbridge:…’Now when we were growing up in Cabra West we had two Seasides, one was in Dollymount and the other was at Cardiffsbridge. To the right of this photograph and next to the bridge there was once stood a sandy bank. Once or twice during our school holidays the Ma’ would tell us that she was going to bring us to the seaside and we’d end up here. Sure we were half thick about things like that and we truely believed anything an adult told us. Like the time the Da’ said that he had to fight a crocodile when he was in the army out in Egypt. According to his story the crocodile was at least twenty feet long and had two heads. We’d all be sitting in the dark by our fire of a winters night, mezmorized at the idea and gawking up at the Da’ while the flames from the fire threw dancing shadows across his face. ‘And not a word of a lie am I telling yeah’ he’d say at the end of his story. And sure couldn’t Canon BUrke perform miracles?, well according to our teacher in Finbar’s he could. LIke the time of the Big Snow in Cabra West in the 1940s and the oul Canon working the miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes because there was no food in any of the shops and all the people of Cabra West starving. Anyway back to our second seaside, we really did believe it was a seaside at Cardiffsbridge. Now whatever about the Da’s of Cabra West, sure the Mammy’s never told a word of a lie, that’s why the Mammy’s rarely had to go to Confession…’