Fred Espey is a very colourful and interesting character. Fred was reared on South Lotts Road in Ringsend. Back in those days most people in the area had one thing in common– they had very little money.

Things are so different these days. Fred was born at the Rotunda hospital in 1934, one of six children. Swimming was always a big part of his life and still is to the present day.

He went out regularly as a youngster to the south wall. The trip out always seemed very long and the trip back seemed even longer. Fred fondly recalled he learned to swim at the Half Moon with his father. They caught big crabs on the south wall and salmon bass were always plentiful.

Over the years Fred took part in several sea swims it was during one of these swims that he met his wife Eileen McNulty, who was herself a keen competitive swimmer. They have three children including one girl who is an architect married to a Scot. They live in Dar As Salem in Tanzania in East Africa, while the boys live in Montreal and Dublin.

Fred was educated at St Stephen’s National School on Northumberland Road now called the Schoolhouse Hotel. He then went on to St Andrew’s College on Clyde Road, where he played rugby and cricket but his heart was always in the water, either swimming or diving and later sailing.

At the age of sixteen he went to work in Paul andVincent’s on Hanover Quay. This company produced fertilizer and animal feeds. Fred worked in the office in Blackhall Place as a clerk. He would go to the bank on College Green where he would draw the wages on Thursday. He would leave the money in the car, go into Bewley’s for a coffee and the money was always safe.

The workforce numbered one hundred and fifty men. Some of these men would have been seasonal workers and at the end of the season they were laid off with no prospects of getting work. Fred remembers the plant where they made the fertilizer. The heat was unbearable. Even on the coldest days in winter, the men would be stripped to the waist, the heat was so intense.

There was a public house on the grounds of the factory at Hatches corner at Sir John Rogerson’s Quay. Back in those days all the cargo discharged from ships moored at the quayside was unloaded by hand. Fred remembers seeing the dockers going across the lock gates carrying their shovels– they were completely black after digging a coal boat. The men would use their shovels to fill the buckets and this was really backbreaking work.

A lot of these men would go into the bar at Hatches corner and sink a few pints after a hard day’s work digging out coal or any other bulk cargo from the holds of the ships. In Ringsend at that time was the ‘products’ which was a knackers yard on Thorncastle Street where the dead horses were taken in. Fred recalls getting the maggots from the rotten carcasses which he used as bait to catch fish.

Ringsend produced many brilliant footballers down through the years and Fred recalls meeting Sacky Glenn while on holidays in Kilcoole. This legendary local hero was a friend of his dad and even stayed a few nights with them in their holiday home. Fred also knew Ronnie Nolan and Arthur Fitzsimons, who lived close to Fred on South Lotts Road.

Fred Espey’s mother was one of the Blackmore family, who were fishermen. Her father and her uncle had come from Torbay on the Devon coast. Like lots more of these families, they settled in Ringsend.

These fishermen from Torbay were renowned for their knowledge of the sea and were probably the best fishermen in the British Isles, so Fred’s love of the sea wasn’t licked from a stone. Fred’s grandfather was recruited by the Royal Navy, as his knowledge of the sea was immense. He was lost at sea while searching for mines on the north-east coast of England in 1917, during the First World War.

The Blackmore family eventually moved out to Kingstown, as it was known in those days, now called Dun Laoghaire. His mother worked as a telegraphic operator and was involved in the breaking news of the sinking of the ‘Leinster’ in the 1940s. Sometimes she would have to deliver the telegrams herself. Fred’s father worked in Guinness’s brewery. He left to join the British army during the Second World War, later he went into the RAF. Sadly, he passed away a young man at fifty four years of age.

Fred’s grandfather, also Fred Espey, was the manager of Wallace’s coal yard, which was on Ringsend Road facing Boland’s Mills. Fred was a good singer and he joined the boys’ choir at St Bartholomew’s Church of Ireland on Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, which had an excellent choir of young boys. They were renowned as being one of the finest in the country.

Today Fred, pictured above, still enjoys a swim at the Forty Foot. He goes there almost every day for his daily plunge. He is also very keen on walking sometimes he goes out to Djouce mountain in Wicklow, where he spends several hours walking and enjoying the fresh country air. Fred sometimes goes off for the day on the train to Waterford, Rosslare or wherever the fancy takes him.