a cara....many might have thought my abscence on this forum was no loss....others might have thought i might have climbed into a corner in shame.....recently i was asked whether i had anymore embarassing skeletons in the cupboard....to which i replied ...dear boy....i can hardly close the door.....yes....my life has entertained onthe scandal sheets... radios ...and tvs in every corner of the globe...the most current story is the the documentary ...the devil you know....syndicated by the oprah winfrey network....and currently shown on sky....i talk about this not for notorious publicity....but rather to let you know i am in the looop re....all material circulating about me....i dont cringe....or cry foul...but i do want some closeness to fact be in the stories....we all agree tale bearers are worse than tale makers.....oscar wilde said....one should never make ones debut in a scandal.....one should reserve that to give to ones old age....scandal is a great entertainment because it allows people to feel contempt a moral emotion ...that gives feelings of moral superiority while asking nothing in return....i know my life is a secret...for its whispered everywhere......and i hope theres a tinge of disgrace about me .....hopefully though ...theres one good scandal left in me yet......wayback some years ago....someone posted on this board .....asking if people in castlebar had heard of me .....so this brings me to the topic on my banner.....i was born on mchale road.....in number ten.....i was given my first slap on the ass ...by midwife byrnne ...who also lived on the road.....i love mchale road....so much so ...id love to put my arms around it and give it a big hug.....mchale road back in those days....was likened to a plague those in other parts of the town avoided any mention or connection to the road....it was tabled and labeled no better than the workhouse.....referred to as abbysynnia....or bara bing alley..... we were viewed as some kind of leper.....but the road in the late thirties...and early forties and ongoing had it all.....this street was to be the starting ground for priests ...doctors...and others in high places.....so out of the trenches of mchale road rose a rising greatness.....the road had one defining feature ...which drew people to its environs....mchale park....and so way back in those early days ...when mchale park was nothing of its present stature and glory....it still hosted many important games.....the road began at number 1....a home occupied by joe mcging.....local sculptor and monumental geius....joe was indeed a talented man of stone.....i was often intrigued by some of his masterful celtic sculptings.....and he was also a man who certainly made the term ...tog go bog e....a term of worth.....for when his business prospered in the early fifties.....joe bought the latest hillman minx with every conceivable bell and whistle....but the journey from mchale road to main strret....was walked quicker than joe would drive it....the road end at 116...the home of the oboyles....in between those numbers.....were families in a collage of stalwart names......the guthries.....peter horkan....mrs cosgrove....mrs halloran....mrs hughes....mmrs mcnicholas...the whittakers...the creshams....and the ruannes...the cassidys..........etc....during the war things in castlebar were stark....and so neighbours pulled together in helping each other out....borrowing a grain of sugar or tea was as common as burning a worn out shoe for heat and fire.....the bacon factory pre war was just that ....bacon ....the beef drive began after the war....in between the names i mentioned their were homes where music reverborated ....to the heavens....we housed world class entertainers like val donnican....and world class musicians like the reynolds....and devanneys....and my next door neighbour ...was irelands answer to eddie cakvert....willie keane was the man with the golden horn.....mchale road and its peoples were also blessed in kindness....for many homes gave unhoused families a room....the higgins lived in mcgintys....the readys lived in fallons....we were an unique breed ...but all through my years there we were stigmatised.....i resented that label...so i dared played with the heydons ...the oconnells ...and the flynns....my ticket to those families was that i was academic....and though i always knew i was somewhat slighted ....my scholarly inclines gave me a right of passage....our road way back then was one with most amenities...it had its own shops ..pinky prendergasts...and .....peter omalleys...its own barber...willie ocallghan...who happened to be my uncle....our own midwife ....nurse byrnne....during those early years ...farmers trucked their wares ...on the strret....turf vegetables....and apples....it was the first port of call ...for darkie laden and his wife as they hawked their fish on a thursday night....who can ever forget the ...fresh herring...mackerel cry that rang through the street....tom connely would push his barrow too with a similar song....and of course mary maughan....would always begin her concert tour with a rendition of patsy fagan or the valley of knockanure....beirnie reilly ...and dessie wynne ....were as regular as frank griffin delivering their irish press and irish independents.....the comers ...the lavelles ...and the gavins hawked their breads ....nightly....and the smell of hot bread invited most of us boys to try and pinch a piece of the loafs....mchale road houses ....were two bedroomed houses that often reared as many as fourteen ...but that was never a problem....oh there were families who prospered a little in the post war years ....and felt they had outgrown mchale road...and they moved to more upish addresses....mchale road .....housed many of the great orchestra musicians.....like eddie roy ...and dan doyle....and john regan.....and so music was always an everyday exposure.....those years of the early forties and fifties were fun filled days...but were mingled with tears and little upsets.........but as i entered my teens ...i think the those days were halcyon days carefree.....we didnt have money worries....because there was no money...there was always halfpennies...that could be doubled in value....a trip to the railway line took care of that....there was an air iof indestructabillity about our street amongst us way back then....we stood tall about our street...and defended its name without hindrance....oh....we had our own street wars...like the low end against the high end....but that was the definition for street heroes....and we had those...there were the doherty brothers ...john and tom.......there was frank fergus....and festy foy.....there were football heroes ...like tommy byrnne....joe feeney....and bisto.....there were the boxing heroes...like mick and wally basquill....and tommy ..the bomber cresham.....and when all was out of sync we had nellie devanney to restore the status quo.....after the war ....many of the residents became entrprenurial....mrs. hughes made the finest black puddings.....the street had its special dogs.....why there was rommel conway...bubbles walsh....dixie roach....the lawn was a backdrop for the houses on my side....and the daily walks of the nuns and boarders always caught the eye...as they paraded up and down that red stoned drive....on the other side ...clarkes field and the famous fort...was the backdrop......and in the spring those houses were perfumed by the scents of growing wheat and oats.....and when the meadow was cut .....the smells of fresh mown hay was memorable......mchale park....was just that ....and we on the road claimed it as our right of passage and sanctuary.....broken galvanise contained it from hughes to the end....and acroos from fallons was the aquarium for the the greatest tad polls and frogs......this massive iron tank always overflowing with rain water and slime ......the trees in the plantation developed my tarzan qualities as i swang from tree to tree in king of the jungle antics....as i ponder i can still see the streams of smoke rising from the chimneys......i hear the the thunder of countless cattle hooves ....charging down the road....with the trail boss martin dolan picking upo the rear.....paul holmes is in high nmind....as he was when he stoked the fires that drove the factory machinery.....the gates of the factory....and the entrance wall still remain white in my minds eye....the hustle and bustle of workers....ignite passion .....mc hale road rang eith the names of george bartley...and googie kilcourse....jukia holhan....roy lindsay...and sonny delaney.....mousey mchale....and frank deasy....and katie ford triggers...a little fear.....the bloxhams...the ruannes .....were old neighbours and graet road residents....we were a community of solid people who knew exactly where we came from.....we mourned our dead and tended our sick.....we claimed our own in a spirit of undauntedness....we were forever alert to the sound of the steam train whistles....and the far of silhouttes of the partry and croagh patrick mountains....the road has chamged over the yeras but its spirit lives onand on any given moment ...fond memories return.....and the boy of number 10 returns and comes alive again......
.....at last my secret is out....i love that i am from mchale road....

....tog go bog agus ciunnas....e.....
the scandal sheets ....r