In Reply to: Fantastic Stuff Altogether posted by Castlebarbarian on August 20, 2008 at 10:12:40:

la nua...agus sceal eile.....last night as i began to recal names of old stock mchale road families i forgot to mention the flanagans....the foys........the dowlings....sean dowling was a dispatch rider in the irish army....sadly on his return from running a dispatch to clifden he was killed ...i remember his full military funeral...flag draped coffin etc...their was a burke family...and an ellis family...i think bill ellis and his family went to england in the early '50's.....the devanney family...the is family were unique....bcause if chopin ...glen miller....or philip suosa were to come to castlebar ..they would want to live in the devanney home....jim devanney snr...or swing as he was more commonly known was a musical genius....a virtuoso...on the violin...a regular yehudi menuhin...when he rehearsed in his home i could stay by their front gate for ever...."swing"....was a much talented man...a genius...and no wonder he and nelly produced a musical dynasty.....tommy was one of the finest saxophonistts i ever heard....and brother pat was our local eddy calvert.....jimmy and mickey were in my class...and willywas a local patissiere....noel was the youngest son.....for us on the road watching swing make his way to miss flynn in the employment exchange was an experience ....good morning master killeen....as he walked so stately...was a regular occurence...usually with his trademark umbrella...and beret....i remember been up in galway as a teen meeting tommy on the promenade on salthill....he was living there at the time playing with des fretwell at the seapoint....pat was trumpeter extroardinairwith billy newell and the skyliner orchestra...which included kerr gavin ...a gene krupa if there ever was one...his brother seamus....on the sax ....and bandleader billy on the bass....i bthink i remember nora binklow singing with them....i have a story of a night in partry...with the band that i will share later... the jordan family...teasy jordan way back then was a friend we had alot of fun evenings in swifts house in our teens along with nodie swift .....mary jo moylett ..dolores moylett...brendan and anton lyons...although at the moment my reflections seem to focus on mchale road....indeed the whole town to me is a treasure house of memory....back to the road....way way back once upon a good time it was not uncommon for tenants to rent rooms to unhoused families....why mary mcginty was born in my house number 10....these families would have one room with a small grate fire....to live in sleep in etc...later when the mcgintys got their own house they too had a family living there...the higgins .....i ysed to go over and go up to them....mr higgins had a fondness for the pint...but was quite a singer....so i used to plead with him to sing....ah! please mr higgins ...sing that song...and it did not take too much pressure to get him to burst into..." for there's one engine gone ..but we'll still carry on ....coming in on a wing on a prayer...i can still hear it ...or another of his favourites was ...delia murphy's...if i were a blackbird....there was no speed bumps on the road then....the fastest thing was paddy merricks meyer...mchale park was a swamp....down the side ran this galavanize fence just inside that was a plantation...and more or less just across from fallons in that plantation was a big cast iron vat.....stagnant and full of frogs ...and tadpoles....in my days as tarzan i used to literally swing of the the trees one to another...like johnny weismuller....getting torn legs and torn trousers....but what the hell ....this was living...mickey fallon ...married to my cousin....anne...used to stand on his head ....no hands....yet.....the old clubhouse in the sports field had a cold shower stall...which we used to fool around with ...and not to shower....thats if the oboyles didnt catch us.....but alas greater things were to come for mchale park......re development....gerry mcdonnell ....danny mc ellin....paddy quinn....and more excitement for us that lived on the road....which i will share with you another day....this morning i was driving on the 401 highway...or as its now known ...the highway of heroes...north americas biggest freeway...it goes from montreal to detroit and looking at the build up of traffic i thought about how it was when i was growing up...during the war petrol was rationed ....and i have a story about a gadget they called ...a gas producer that was installed on the front of a car....it was two big cylinders with a fire underneath to burn coal...hillarious....but again la eile....castlebar ...and i suppose even to this day had its characters.....docky mcgreavy....tom joyce...jack cassidy....swing devanney.... paddy kelly...tossy kelly ...and jack elliot....and jim barrett....who owned the a garage and the famous bullring.....and later myself....shakespeare wrote....when to the sessions of sweet silent thought.... i summon up remembrances of things past ....i sigh the lack of many a thing i sought ......with old woe new wail ...my dear times waste......
however every day of my life was an exciting tight rope adventure .....and i did it my way....sin e ....ac amarac sceil eile....perhaps i will relate how henry kenny came to settle in derrycoosh.....and why there is such as he and ...enda.....i have long attachments to the kenny family....but john and annie were more like family.....slan .....agus tog go gog e.....