Having mentally revisited some of the events of my youth, after I read the articles by Michael McAuliffe in June, and Rodney Devitt, last August, I would like to follow up with some social history of my own.

Soon after the Second World War, our family emigrated from North London to Dublin 4. Mother’s family lived on the Pigeon House Road and that was to be our dwelling place also.

As a small boy I arrived into Dublin in shock when I witnessed the poverty. I found many friends as I grew, indeed my first love Annie, is still my most precious, other half. I went to CBS Westland Row and became immersed in all things Irish.

I worked at the head office of the Society of St Vincent De Paul in Grafton Street. My duties in that system were simple, but I often said a prayer of thanks for having a job. I really just set the meeting table with jugs of water for the Council of Dublin committee meetings, and sealed up some of the thousands of appeal envelopes for appeal week.

But I was aware of the huge task of distributing food, fuel and clothing vouchers in various parishes. First hand, I saw so many Ringsend children wearing hand-me-down clothes and some without shoes.

In the late 1940s, I recall also leaving Scothie Byrne’s chip shop of an evening in Irishtown, to regularly find children of about six or seven asking me to spare a few chips, and yes, I gave them some.

They would sit on the old granite wall by the passageway we knew as ‘the drain’ and enjoyed their supper. I also recall that awful odour belching from the tanning factory at ‘The Point’ in Ringsend.

I knew that I was in a better-off family than most, in those days. However, I mixed with many very different boys for outdoor sports. I played lots of football, and swam in the summer months.

I knew about the signs of relative poverty, from my experiences in the world of pigeon fanciers. Just like North West areas in England, Dublin was famous for having thousands of pigeon fanciers, though on a smaller scale.

At 13 or 14 years of age I was quite an expert in all matters relevant to these birds, having studied all aspects of our feathered friends, and loved every minute of that phase in my life. The sport of pigeon racing is the poor man’s horse racing, that is obvious, but it’s funny how our social history changes when the pigeon fraternity reduces in size– the relative wealth of the area tends to increase. I believe this trend would possibly be true in Dublin 4.

Above: Children playing in Ringsend, 1954.