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Posted by urrisk on March 31, 2001 at 10:25:16:

The road to McGoughs and Kearneys ran behind The Yews/Malones and the bamboo plantation with the well in the middle. At the back entrance to Malones the road turned east at McGoughs wood. About 30 yards along was the entrance to McGoughs, a 50's style bunglow which was occupied by Pete McGough and his mother - a strong personality. Opposite the entrance to McGoughs, in the wood, was their ash pit. About 30 yards further along, at the end of the wood was Kearneys hose on the left and the entrance to McGoughs haggard on the right. At the entrance to the haggard, on the right, was a cart house. The cow byres faced the road and had open windows through which the manure was emptied onto the dung heap in the haggard. There were swallows nests galore in the byres with swallows flitting in and out during the summer before congregating on the electric wires before departing for the south at the end of the summer. A sure sign of approaching autumn. There was also a big hay shed in the haggard which was surrounded by trees. Kearneys house face east and had an orchard to its immediate north. There was a big open field across the "street" on front of the house in which Mrs. Kearney used to bleach laundry. Once I received a 'cowboy gun' as a present and it had realistic looking plastic bullets. Noel took one of the bullets to his mother and said I had founsd it. The poor woman was in a state until she found out it was a joke. The road continued east flanked by two big meadow fields - the one on front of Kearneys to one side and the one which backed onto Baines on the other, and then up a little rise where the flanking fields were stonier and used for cattle grazing and not meadows. Then past Foxes and down to the bog which streatched towards the railway. The road finished at a big bog hole near a bank of turf I think Kearneys cut turf here because I remember a 'picnic' with the Kearneys while some work was being done here. Of course back then tea with milk and sugar from a bottle in the bog qualified as a picnic. The bog extended to the drumlin which ran along the Mountdaisy road. McAndrews were the gate keepers and they lived in the gate keepers cottage where this road crossed the railway. In the late 1960's, a tinkers van stalled on this crossing and all in the van were killed when it was struck by a train. Included in the dead was a very pleasant and well mannered young girl named Bridget Mohan who used to occassionally help my mother around the house. She was very highly thought of and very much missed.


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