Down Memory Lane

WARNING : VERY, VERY LONG !!

I floated the idea last night while out with Derek and Rita, and actually followed through on it. The plan was to drive down to Carlow, the town in the Irish Midlands where I grew up, and to ferret out places connected with my childhood. It all worked out wonderfully. I left home at 2:00 pm and got back home at 10:15 pm after a most brilliant day.

Carlow has changed a lot since I lived there (I left in 1961 to come to Dublin to study architecture). One positive aspect of the Celtic Tiger is the improvement out of all recognition of our road network. From the moment I got onto the M1 near home until I parked in Carlow I only encountered one set of traffic signals, and drove on motorways all the way. Purely by chance I parked the car on Tullow Street. The first place we lived was on that street - number 103, in accommodation above Lawlor's drapery shop. I stopped a passer-by, I asked staff and a customer in a pub, I enquired in the town museum, and finally found out in the hardware shop they directed me to that the building we lived was demolished and re-developed long ago.

There's a story attached to the early days there. Our back garden was separated by a high stone wall from the Presentation Convent. We were burning some rubbish shortly after moving in, the nuns didn't know the building was occupied, and they called the fire brigade - so, an exciting start to our time in Tullow Street. The Convent building is still there, though part of the grounds were sold off and the building is now the town library.

Memory was a bit fuzzy, and at first this afternoon I thought my primary school days were spent there. It was only much later in the day that I came across the real building, which, by a fortunate trick of memory, I instantly recognised. Earlier, I'd stumbled on the building which housed the Christian Brothers School where I underwent my secondary education. I do not remember this being right beside St Patrick's College and Carlow Cathedral, but that's where it is. As I stood outside I had flashbacks of walking home along College Street and Green Lane to Larkfield, where we lived after our time in Tullow Street.

I also wanted to find the Town Hall, where my Dad was Town Clerk during our time in Carlow. It wasn't mentioned on the Maps app on my iPhone, but I had a vague recollection of the general area, turned a corner, saw the spire of the Protestant church and remembered that the Town Hall was close to that. Sure enough, I found it, though (like much of what I re-visited today) it turned out to be much smaller than I remember it.

I'd paid for two hours Pay & Display in Tullow Street, so made my way back there to rescue the car and move it to a spot close to the Courthouse, another landmark on my must-see list. My only failure on my expedition was not being able to find the site of the Ritz cinema where I remember being gob-smacked when I saw The Robe there, the first film made in Cinemascope. (Those were the days when curtains opened to reveal the screen, and I still remember the gasps from the audience as the curtains opened and opened and opened and opened and finally revealed the massive screen. I also remember going to see a really scary film with my Dad and being so upset by it that I left early and made my own way home, which was a most unusual display of independence.)

By this stage I was thirsty and hungry (there was more wall-to-wall sunshine all day, with temperatures in the mid to high 20's), so I stopped first at the beer garden in the Carpe Diem pub, after which I moved on to Mimosa Tapas Bar for a lovely bite to eat. It was 8:15 by the time I left there, and I still had to check out our old house in Larkfield, off Green Lane. I pulled over, got out of the car and took a few photos of the old homestead. That's when I heard a female voice from across the road, asking me something. I went over to the owner of the voice who wanted to know why I was taking photographs. I explained about my background and that I'd lived in the house way, way back. We got chatting, I mentioned the names of people who lived on the road, and we were best mates by the time I left her, walked up to the door of our old place and rang the bell. I introduced myself, I had a short chat with the lady of the house, she asked me in, I sat down, I was given tea and introduced to the hubby and the two teenage sons, and we got on like the proverbial house on fire.

When the hubby joined us he said he 'just knew' that someone from our family would turn up some time. He said he'd come across some old papers while he was insulating the attic, including my Dad's discharge from the Irish Army and his letter of appointment as Carlow Town Clerk. He went off searching for the papers while Valerie and I chatted and chatted and chatted. When Jim came back he handed over a couple of documents and promised to send on more when he found them. I spent an hour with them, and was delighted that I'd gone up to their door rather than just taking photos and driving off.

I left Larkfield at 9:25 pm and was back in my own house at 10:15 (talk about flying home!). What a day !!!

The blip montage features the following, starting at top left and going clockwise: (1) The site of our first Carlow home in Tullow Steret; (2) The Town Hall where my Dad performed his duties as Town Clerk; (3) The convent school where I completed my primary education; (4) Our second Carlow home in Larkfield, from where I left for Dublin after finishing school in 1961; (5) The interior of Carlow Cathedral, where Dr Seeldrayers, my music teacher and one of the formative influences in my life, was organist; and (6) The building which was the Christian Brothers school, which was where I received all my secondary education and encountered my brilliant English teacher, another formative influence.