“In Ringsend, the school around the corner is not just the same, in fact, it’s not there at all now! The accompanying photograph was taken in the old Boys National School in Thorncastle Street where the houses of Cambridge Square now stand. No-one I’ve spoken to about it is sure what year the photo was taken. I think it was somewhere between 1944 and 1947. The names of the boys in it are listed. I haven’t a lot of information about any of them - just bits and pieces about some of them. Taking them in the order listed, I met Liam Aherne over in East Wall a few years ago, as far as I know he lived somewhere in that area at that time. Luke Heaney lives in Tallaght and works in UCD. I don’t know what happened to John Redmond, but I remember him telling me when we were still in school about going on a boat to Iceland. I remember too that John was better than me at arithmetic and algebra but I was tops in English and Irish composition. Billy Dent still lives in the Ringsend area. Billy has written a little piece about his life which I hope the Editor will include in this issue. It’s a pity we couldn’t have something similar about everyone in the photograph. John Knott went away to England to work. He worked first in a brewery in Blackburn and later in the telephone exchange there. He still lives in Blackburn. His sister Julia Murphy (married to the late “Thumbs” Murphy) lives in Pembroke Cottages. Like a lot of Ringsenders before him Philip Murphy went to sea. I’m not clear about the details of his career, but I understand that in the course of his life at sea he was Skipper of his own ship. Philip has a daughter, Joanne, who is a Classical Greek Scholar lecturing in a University in the United States, not bad for a Ringsend boy don’t you think? He lives with his wife Angela and family in Ringsend Park. Angela is a sister of another boy in the photo, John-Joe Tierney. I’m sure that when they were together in school John-Joe and Philip never thought that they would finish up brothers-in-law. Another in the photograph who still lives in Ringsend is Jack Mordaunt. Jack, I would say, has more work experience than anyone I ever knew. He tried his hand at many different things including freelance photographer. Jack was nothing if not versatile. George Rooney now lives in Laytown. Willie Egan finished up a Stevedore in Ontario, Canada. Tom Caulfield and Michael Mullen still live locally. Hugh Egan is the man who discovered the photograph and has distributed many copies of it. He too still lives locally. Mickey Maguire, I believe, is alive and well in Leamington Spa. Christy Cleary lives in Capetown, South Africa where he had a very successful career. Dessie Bissett lives in Coolock. There’s a little thing maybe worth mentioning, Dessie’s father and mother are buried right beside my father and mother in Deansgrange Cemetery.

A few of us were Altar Boys. Seán Kennedy, the Principal of the school, used to teach us the Latin which of course was used in the Mass then. I’m not completely sure of all who were altar boys, but I know definitely that there was me, Luke Heaney, Larry Mullen, Peter Ince and (maybe) Harry lnce, John Redmond and Dominick Boileau. We used to get turns serving the 10.00 am week-day Mass which of course meant a break from school. Whoever was “on” the 10 o’clock Mass didn’t go into school till after Mass. When I was on duty I used to dread a funeral because I had never properly learned the responses to the De Profundis which in those days was said after Mass down in the Mortuary Chapel before the remains was taken away for burial. So, I used to get the morning paper to look up the deaths and if there was a funeral for Ringsend I would get Peter Ince to serve the Mass that morning. It would have made more sense to learn the responses, but for some reason I didn’t.

I’m not sure whether everyone had a nick-name, but some that I remember were as follows: Eamon Donnelly was called “Bah”, I haven’t the faintest idea why. Thomas Kinsella was called “Ming”. John-Joe Tierney was called “Wags”, Robert Pullen was called “Butch” and I was called “Sherriff’. At least four in the photo (that we know of) are dead, Paddy Knott, Peter Ince, Michael Rackley and Robert Pullen. Michael and Robert or “Butch” as he was affectionately known, died only recently. Paddy and Peter died some years ago. Paddy’s son is now caretaker in Whelan House and Butch’s son, Larry, works for News Four.

Like everyone else when I look at the photograph the years slip away and many memories return. A few of us in the photo got together recently and were swapping school-days reminiscences and it was very enjoyable. Every new boy into the school had to be “initiated” (none of us would have used that word needless to say). The “initiation” consisted of being subjected to the “torture brick”, that is, he would be held by two boys and thrown back against the wall where (we thought) a very sharp point stuck out and that was the torture brick. Every boy had to go through it, some perhaps with considerable trepidation. Years later, as an adult, I visited the school and I made a point of going over to look at the “torture brick”. It looked fairly harmless! I remember on that visit also being absolutely amazed to discover how small the school-yard was. When we were kids there we thought it was huge.

There was no central heating or electric light in the school in our day. Senior boys used to have the job of keeping the coal fires in each room stoked up. Luke Heaney tells the story of how he was lighting the fire on one occasion and he was standing at the grate with his jacket held against it to try to create a draught to get the fire to light and he was crowing over some of the others who had to go out in the cold and - his jacket caught fire! The others had the laugh on Luke then! Other memories that come back are the collection for the “Black Babies” and the efforts of the teachers to get us to save. We used to buy 1d stamps and put them on a card. When you had 12 1d stamps you got two 6d stamps which went into a book. I remember one boy who, when the rest of us were struggling with our 1d cards, had five or six 6d books full. He later did very well in life!

In those days most boys wore short trousers at least until they left school. You didn’t get into “longers” until you were fourteen or fifteen and some went barefoot especially in Summer. Which reminds me of one boy who was frequently missing from school as I remember. His excuse often was that he had cut his foot on broken glass, but it was never a piece of glass, it was always “half a bottle” - “I stood on half-a-bottle Sir” was often heard from this particular individual.

Of course, we played various games in the school yard. We would play until Mr. Kennedy, the Headmaster, rang the bell for assembly. Then we all had to take our places on “spots” that were marked out in the yard. Each class had its own area and then we would march up to the classrooms, class by class. A few “seniors” i.e. boys in seventh class, would act as stewards to make sure everyone kept good order going up the stairs to the class rooms. If a boy misbehaved in any way he would be told by one of the stewards to “stand out when you go up” and the boy would be “biffed” as we used to say, i.e. would get a slap for misbehaving. I’m not sure that the “stewards” (I was one of them) didn’t abuse their awesome powers. I’m sure we weren’t the most popular boys in the school anyway.

Then there was smoking in the school-yard toilet. The smoking was harmless, a small “butt” would be passed around between maybe five or six boys - one “pull” per boy and if anyone “put a gut on it” i.e. made it too wet there would be murder.

In those days every boy got a bottle of milk and a sandwich every day. There were three kinds of sandwich in the course of the week - cheese, meat and jam. Friday was jam day I remember. I remember an old woman in charge of the issuing of the milk and sandwiches - her name was Mrs. Nolan. I don’t know anything else about her.

Of course we were all picture mad. It was one of the biggest priorities in our lives to get the 4d entrance into the “woodeners” in the Regal. 4d was about 1/3 of the present 5p, but it wasn’t all that easy to get it together. However we had ways and means of managing. Breezy Baker was a great stand-by in that context. Breezy Baker - that’s all we knew him as - was a gentleman who dealt in scrap and had a yard in Thorncastle Street, quite near the school in fact, and you could get a halfpenny or a penny maybe for a bottle of some kind or some other kind of scrap. Most of us visited Breezy’s yard, not once but many times, in our efforts to get the picture money. Anyway we usually managed to get the necessary 4d one way or another. If you happened to be well off at a particular time you could go into the cushion seats at the back of the cinema for 7d and if you were really “carrying” you could go upstairs to the balcony. We got excellent value for our 4d. As well as the main feature we would often get five or six “shorts”. Some of the “shorts” I remember were, Laurel & Hardy, of course, Leon Erroll, Vera Vague, Charlie Chase, Edgar Kennedy, Our Gang, Passing Parade, Crime does Not Pay, Screen Snapshots, Behind the 8-Ball and The Three Stooges. We never pronounced the latter correctly, we used to say the Three Stewdies. I would love to see all those shorts again for sheer nostalgia and to see in retrospect what there was about them that made us enjoy them so much. As for the main features that we saw “Cowboys” were probably tops. All the better if there was no girl in it - that was considered a definite plus. Of course there were many other films we enjoyed too, any kind of adventure stories or what you would probably call action films. Some of the titles I remember from those times were, Count of Monte Christo, Man in the Iron Mask, Corsican Brothers, Devil’s Island, Blood and Sand and many more. I often wondered in later years what effects, if any, those films had on the formation of our minds. I think our own innate innocence saved us from any harmful effects they otherwise might have had. Our frequent picture going doesn’t seem to have had any harmful results - I wonder? There was one teacher in the school who was very insistent that we should not go to the pictures during Lent and the story was he used to keep watch and if any boy went to the pictures any given night during Lent he would be in serious trouble the next day. Can you imagine that happening nowadays?

Those are some of my recollections. I have no doubt that I have not done justice to all the memories of all the boys in the photograph. Each would have their own particular reminiscences, but I hope I have touched on some, at least, of shared recollections. To get the full picture each person would have to write their own account of things and of course that is not possible.

It’s funny where life takes different people and everyone in the photograph would have a story to tell. The pity is that we don’t know all the stories, they would make very interesting reading. If anyone reading this article has any further details of any of the class please send them on to Newsfour. Finally, all I can say is - God Bless and a Very Happy Christmas to them all, wherever they are now.

Back row (l to r): Liam Aherne; Luke Heaney; John Redmond; ??; Willie Redmond; Billy Dent; Johnny Martin; Thomas Kinsella. Second Row from Back: John Knott; Philip Murphy; Jack Mordaunt; Eamon Donnelly; Harry Ince; Roger Lawler; Peter Ince; Michael Meleady; Seán Murphy; George Rooney; Teacher John Eager. Third Row from Back: Liam Gilsenan; Willie Egan; Paddy Knott; Michael Rackley; Larry Mullen; Eddy Byrne; Tom Sheridan; Tom Caulfield; Micheál Mullen; Paddy Nalty (Slightly above); Ronnie Bissett (below him); Michael Kinsella. Front Row: Hugh Egan; Dominick Boileau; John Tierney; Robert Pullen; Mickey Maguire; John Healy; Christy Cleary; Dessie Bissett. Does anybody recognise the lad on the left hand side of the middle row of the photograph whose left arm is only visable?

Six members of the class pictured above as they are today (standing from left) Tom Sheridan; Christy Mullen. (seated from left) Hugh Egan; Luke Heaney; Billy Dent and Tom Caulfield Ringsend Boys School on Thorncastle Street which is now replaced by the Cambridge Square housing complex opposite Whelan and O’Rahilly House.