Games were seasonal when I was a child - there was a time for 'conkers', street-picky,' marbles, whipping tops, hoops, skipping, tree-swinging, rounders, cricket and rugby… oh yes we 'girls' in the group played our share of rugby and cricket with the boys in our 'gang'.
It was a regular event playing ball games in Sheehan's field, after school, Saturdays and of course summer holidays. Where John Moloney's Garage is today was the 'playing field' for us. Retired local men passed many an hour sitting on Sheehan's wall watching a well fought out game of cricket, rounders or rugby. Caddies sitting on the ESB transformer at the corner of Ballinacurra and Rosbrien Road would cheer us on as they waited to be picked up by the golfers on their way out to Limerick Golf Club.
As it was the very few who had pedal-cars tricycles, train-sets, porcelain dolls, prams and cots, we had to make our own toys and improvise equipment for our sports games back then.
In one way it was excellent for the development of children's minds but of course we didn't see it that way, that was life and we were enjoying it, it was all just good fun. I don't suppose children to day would understand it as all games and toys are supplied readymade for use. Half the fun was finding the things that we needed and could use. It might be a good piece of twine and a straight stick to put together for a whip, so that we could spin our tops. These tops too had to be special, coloured chalk was used to make a design on the top so that when it spun around you got this wonderful kaleidoscope of colour.
Whether it was in our own back garden, making tents out of sheets together with mother's sweeping brushes or making a' house' in the yard shed. Oh yes, we made the most beautiful house in the shed. In one corner we would have the fireplace made with a ring of stones and some twigs - it was never lighting, but, it was able to cook the dinner!! The table was a wooden orange or butter box and the chairs were large stones or cement blocks. Flowers were gathered from the garden and put in empty jam jars and placed around our 'house'.
Our dolls were a big part of playing 'house', they had to be washed and fed and placed outside in the yard to sleep in their prams, or maybe brought for a walk out Rosbrien. The dolls I had were knitted or made with cloth, with painted or embroidered faces stitched by Mary Barry 'our second mother' who lived with us for over fifty years. Mary came to us from The Mount at the age of 16 years and brought with her a number of games that she had played with the girls in the Orphanage, to add to our enjoyment.
We would take the dolls, or the babies as they were known to us, for a walk out the Rosbrien Road and stop at the stream that ran under the road just beyond the Catholic Institute. Maybe some of you know the name of this stream; it appears to be all clogged up now - mores the pity.
We used to throw a dandelion, picked from the side of the road, over one side of the bridge and then run across the road to see it come out at the other side, you could run across the road then as there were hardly any cars, remember I am talking about the late 40s and early 50s. If you made a wish while dropping the flower into the stream and it did float out on the other side, then you got that wish. My wish was always the same, I wished that my father would bring home some sweets for us, usually they were barley sugar sticks or hard fruity sweets with jam in the centres from Widdess' where he worked, they lasted a long time and tasted so good.
There was also a 'Fairy Tree' that we stopped at. It was across the road from the Catholic Institute, just inside the wall of Hayes' vegetable garden. It was a very tall silver birch tree, if you stood under it you could not see to the top and so it was very mysterious up there with all the darkness of branches and leaves rustling in the breeze.
My sister Marie used to tell me and my brothers, Michael and Brendan, when she took us for a walk that the rustling sound was the noise of the fairies' wings flying around the tree. The wish you made here was a little different in that you asked the fairies to leave the sweets under your pillow. It never failed and the fact that barley sugar sticks were the sweets that appeared magically under our pillow the next morning was never questioned until years later.
Going for walks was a big 'thing' in our family, but then, these walks were always made into a game or adventure by my sisters, so were always very enjoyable. I would safely say that during these walks we explored the countryside to within a ten-mile radius of Punch's Cross.
They were always a wonderful experience. Walking around the four-mile course singing while we walked. Marie was the sister who taught me to sing Schubert's 'The Trout,' 'O'Donnell Abu', and the national anthem, which we sung with gusto while walking from Rosbrien to Dooradoyle, stopping to have our bread and butter sandwiches with blackberries, picked from the roadside bushes placed between the slices together with a bottle of milk - no one had a more splendid picnic.
Another time while walking in the 50s, this would have been the time when the Irish were coming back to Ireland from America on holidays and had all the money in the world - even enough to be able to hire a car from Dan Ryan. I recall the occasion when my older sister Dorothy, who had shoulder length black hair and blue eyes and looked every bit the Irish 'colleen', was taking all us younger children for a walk, as we were going up the hill towards Raheen Church, - remember back then, there were no houses in sight just all beautiful countryside for miles around, with the odd farmhouse and the parish priest's two-storey house across the road from the church. Suddenly a car pulled up and this brash Irish American sticks his head out the car window and shouts "Hi colleen - can you tell me the way the Glochamara?" This was to be an experience never to be forgotten as it is still talked about today in the family when American visitors are mentioned.
Playing 'shop' was another great game, Donal O'Sullivan RIP who was a building contractor, had a great yard of building materials, old and new, beside his house in Rosbrien. This was heaven to us children as it supplied all our needs, a huge playing area to play rackets, sheds in which to 'dress-up' and put on 'plays' and materials of all sorts so we could make the most wonderful 'shop'. We had the blocks and planks to make the counters, a brick with a slate balanced on top was the scale, rust pieces off a rusty old oil tank was used for our slices of meat. Sand was flour; we got our tea from a weed that grew there and of course pebbles were sweets, to name just a few. The hours of enjoyment passed there cannot be counted.
Another man with great patience was Alf McDonagh, RIP he owned the Bedford Garage and had a great big house and garden where Chadwicks is now. He had old cars in the garages that were used by us to travel, in our imagination, to all parts of the countryside, there was a loft also and of course the wonderful garden. The McDonagh family went each year to Kilkee for the three months of the summer. During this time the house was minded by my friend Mary's mother, who was Alf McDonagh's sister. There was a clock-golf area on the lawn at the side of the house, there was an orchard, fruit trees of all sorts and a big lawn in front of the house on which we played tennis games, around the lawn were beautiful flower beds and hedges of all kinds.
Today when I walk down to purchase my DIY materials in Chadwicks I feel a little sad when I see what is there now compared to my great memories of Rosbrien House.
I and all my friends in the 'gang' had good fun back then thanks to the kindness, understanding and generosity of both Donal O'Sullivan RIP and Alf McDonagh RIP to name just two of the very many who contributed to my childhood memories. There are many more memories and funny stories of my adventures as a child that will be told at a later time.
I now know childhood memories can be very important to one as you grow older and that is why it is up to us adults to ensure that our children and grandchildren have those memories to cling onto when they reach adulthood and need to look back from time to time.
Perhaps you can recall some lost "characters" from your childhood days?
The Streets of Limerick in the 40's and 50's...
When Christmas came but once a year
The Midnight Baker
I was a TV repairman
Packet and Tripe
Drinking in a Cemetary
The Simon
O Happy Days...My Grandad...Plastered
My Grandad...Plastered
Where are all the "Characters" gone?
