Dear Madam Editor,
I’ve been very pleased to read the deserved tributes to Sara O’Reilly over your last few editions (see picture). I first met Sara c1958 when I went to work in the Gresham Hotel. She was then a member of the housekeeping department as were her sister Eileen Finnie and two other young women from the Ringsend-Irishtown area, Betty and Marie O’Donovan.
While I had not met any of them before that, I did know Eileen’s in-laws, the Finnies from Creighton Street, particularly her husband Ossie, his sister Margaret and his brother Dan through my friends Paddy and Danny Costello their neighbours. I also knew of the O’Donovans through their brother Peter, and their first cousin Michael Hanlon who was a neighbour and friend of mine.
Few employments then had sick-pay and retirement schemes and even in the luxurious and busy Gresham Hotel there was need for action to deal with individual problems which were arising in these areas. The above named four and myself were amongst the more active in setting-up a trade union committee which went a fair way to alleviate those difficulties as they arose by fund raising and other means.
Eventually proper arrangements were arrived at, but in the mean-time Sara had been amongst the most active in ensuring nobody went wanting unnecessarily in sickness or retirement. It’s good to remember her, RIP.
Yours etc, Christopher Sands, Collinswood, Dublin 9.
Dear Madam Editor,
We really enjoyed the last edition of NewsFour. I was particularly keen on the article on page 30 by Rodney Devitt: ‘Dublin Four: The image and the reality’. I had read the article in the July issue ‘What would we know about poverty’ by Michael McAuliffe. My first job after CBS Westland Row was as a clerical assistant in the head office of the St Vincent de Paul in Dublin. I lived on Pigeon House Road and I recall the dockers from Ringsend using the ferry to work. I think what has been written in those two articles ought to be kept safely as it is the real social history of Dublin 4. I am tempted to write a follow-up to these two important pieces by the two gentlemen mentioned.
I am still a fan of John Cavendish’s work. I also enclose a poem you might like to publish.
Best wishes from our family here to all our relatives and friends in Dublin 4 and beyond.
Geoffrey P. B. Lyon,
Stafford, UK
We would be very interested in a follow-up article, Geoffrey. Ed
Dear Madam Editor,
I would be grateful if any of your readers could give me some information about the Methodist Church on Sandymount Green. I would like to know what year they replaced the old house beside the church with a new Manse. I was very young at the time, I think it was about 1940. They put tennis courts in many years later. Across the road from the Church lived a family named Powell and Mr Powell was the caretaker of the Church.
All the best and keep up the good work.
Dick Pollard, New Zealand |
