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Nostalgia : Home Thoughts Last Updated: 2, Apr 2018 - 10:02


McHale Road Memories
By EH/TB
9, Aug 2005 - 01:25

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Picture this, two people who have never met find themselves in small town in Dorset. They meet only by chance in August 2003. Walking from a swimming session, two ladies exchange names and one remarks, "You sound Irish, so is my husband".
"Oh yes, I'm from Castlebar".
"So is he, he was born on McHale Road".
"So was I".
She invites me to meet him. He is Tom Burke, born 1938 to John Burke and Mary Ainsworth. She is Eileen (nee McGreal) Holden born 1939 to Tom and Mary McGreal, 25 McHale Road. He left for England in 1950. She left for Rush Street in 1948,Turlough Rd 1951 and UK in 1956.

Their parents knew each other, they may have passed each other on the road. Even though they lived in various parts of the UK, it has taken them over 50 years to catch up on old times.

eileen_and_tom_burke.jpg



Tom Burke relates how he met Eileen through his wife who had joined the same exercise class:

"What a coincidence to find that we lived only a couple of streets away from each other in Beaminster, Dorset, but had both come from the very same road in Castlebar. We got together and had along chat about the old days and the people we remembered."

"My grandparents on my mother’s side were William and Lillian Ainsworth who had lived at number 3 McHale Road. My father’s family were Burkes and lived in New Antrim Street. My Grandfather on this side had been killed during the First World War and the three Burke boys Tom, Lawrence and John (my father) had been reared by their mother who I remember as a strong and kindly lady. My father John had been a keen football player and was well known in the town for soccer. His brother Tom had been a goalkeeper in Gaelic football and I believe that Lawrence also played football."

"I was born in 1938 and on the outbreak of war my father joined the Royal Navy, so I didn’t really have a lot of contact with him, until he returned at the end of the war. In the winter of 1947, like many others, he was unable to find work and left again for England and Oxford. My mother followed him shortly afterwards and so we, myself and my brother Jack and sisters Monica and Pat, were taken care of by our grandparents helped by our Aunt Lillian."

"I attended national school but cannot say that my school days were happy. I had a stutter in those days, which did not go down well with some of the teachers of the time."

"In 1950 my father came to fetch us and take us to Oxford where my parents had found work and lodgings. I remember the excitement of the train journey where my brother and I stood with our faces out of the train window for most of the trip, arriving with faces black with soot."

"I have memories of many of the characters of the town of Castlebar and of many companions from school days and of course my parents talked of people of their generation so often that I felt I knew these folk too. To name a few, Botha Roach, Francie Philbin MC (WW 1), Star Thornton and of course Docky McGreivy who used to give me a ride on his ass and cart. As children we swam in the lakes and helped stack turf down in Pontoon, and drank buttermilk on hot days. These are my earliest memories and always remain strong in my mind."

"My mother Mary is now 91 years old and she would like to join me in wishing all the family and residents of McHale Road every good wish on this 70th anniversary."

Tom Burke.


mchale-road-tn.jpg
McHale Road Celebrations 2005



Eileen’s Grandmother Margaret (nee Ruane) and her father Tom left New Antrim Street to settle in a new home at 25 McHale Rd in 1935. She died in 1937 and in December Eileen's parents married and moved in. The rent was then 7/6 a week. My first memories were when my brother Kenneth was born in 1942, also the severe winter of 1947 when her father had to deliver the post in drifting snow down the country.

Eileen sends greetings to Patsy Ainsworth who along with her sister Jean studied dance with Mrs Redmond at the Forresters Hall, Market Square and ran home to catch up with ‘Dick Barton Special Agent’ on the BBC Light Programme, also to the girls and boys she worked with at the Connaught Telegraph in 1955/6, Joan McDonnell, Carmel Ainsworth, Tom’s Aunt, Margery Mee, Esther Waters, Joe & Aidan Redmond, Johnny Mee and her old friend Pat Ludden and his wife Ann. Also a special hello to Nell (Roach) Ludden who looked after her and her sister Jean and brother Ken in1951 when they came to stay with Miss 0'Dwyer in Castle Street, Peggy Flanagan, Ita (O'Malley) Slattery USA and her sister Margaret Ballina, not forgetting my cousins who lived at No 34 do get in touch.

E.H.


McHale Road 70th Anniversary Web Page



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