Joe Manly, Ballina shares his memories of growing up and living in Ballina. Joe was born in 1916 so was 75 years of age at the time of this interview in 1991. He passed away in 1999, aged 83.
You can listen to the full interview here through Soundcloud!
Joe talks about his early life helping his father –
“My father was a Land Surveyor and he surveyed the land for all the local farmers, measuring for bogs and involving turf and all that. Years ago people used to cut turf and he could tell by measuring the stack of turf how much was left in the ground, the same thing applied to the land.
I often helped my father when he was measuring the land. He used to measure the land with a chain, and if you wanted to measure a perch, say, I would hold the rings of the chain and put a mark there and he would come along then and measure the square, the area of the land. He was paid by the farmers.
He used to draw maps. If there was some dispute over land, he would draw a map and mark on it where the land was and that map would be taken maybe to court. He often had to attend court”.
Joe attended Derrycastle National School in Killary. This was formally the Derrycastle Model Farm School – an agricultural school for the local community which was established in 1851 by Francis Spaight of Derrycastle Demense.
Both Joe’s grandfather Thomas, who was born in 1834; and his aunt Teresa who was born in 1863, taught in the Model Farm School.
Joe left school at 17 and went on to complete an apprenticeship –
“I didn’t finish school until I was seventeen and then I went to serve my time as a Carpenter in Newport with a man called Martin Rainsford, and I worked there for no money for two and a half years and I had to pay a fee; when I was coming to have learned something, I might get five shillings a week. I used to cycle to Newport, about nine miles and I might have to cycle further to Murroe. I used to cycle to Abbington below Murroe while I was still serving my time. When I started on my own I had to buy my own tools, I bought them by degrees.
I worked with the Council for some time doing maintenance and I worked for Jimmy Rafferty. I did a lot of work. I never had a permanent job until I came to McKeoghs. I was with McKeoghs for 28 years before I retired in 1974”.
Joe talks about the changes in the lake and fishing in Ballina & Killaloe over the year. In the early 20th century, Killaloe was known all over the UK as one of the best fishing destinations among the aristocracy who used to stay in the local hotels and hire boats or local fishermen who would take them out fishing –
“When I started fishing on the lake, the fishing was very good, before the Shannon Scheme When the Shannon Scheme started in 1929 and when all the water was dammed down in Ardnacrusha, the fishing was never as good, never as good after that.
There was no problem getting a trout or salmon in the natural flow of water, there was plenty of fish to be got. The lake has changed a lot from our time, it is much more polluted now, the fishing is not as good. When we would go up on the dapping, we used to go up, maybe on the even shore and get some flies. There would be plenty of flies on the water, you could go in on any part of the shore and collect some flies and you were sure of getting your trout, now you have no hope at all”.
“In the old days a lot of English People used to come here fishing. There was about four or five hotels in Killaloe, I remember them. The Shannon View was one, the Kincora down where John O’Shea lived. They all used to be packed with English fishermen.”
The Killaloe Railway (1864 – 1948) also brought a huge amount of goods and passengers to Ballina & Killaloe, especially for the Regatta’s –
“There were passenger trains at that time and they came into Killaloe, one from Limerick and one from Nenagh. When there was a regatta or something like that, the trains would be packed. One would come from Limerick and one from Nenagh – Roscrea and by the time the first of it would be in Killaloe Station, that’s what it was called, the last of it would be out near Forthenry and the crowds that used get off that train and go across the bridge, and by the time the last of them were out of the train the first of them would be down near the Pier Head. There would be a thousand people, surely a thousand people on the trains.”
“All the goods used to come by train here. They used to bring everything in the line of tea, sugar, stout, coal, everything! They were unloaded at the store, where Peter’s Restaurant now is, and all the goods were taken in there and the Merchants used to have to draw the coal from the wagons, whatever way they had. And even to bring the stout, they’d have to do that themselves.
There was a man here one time named Paddy Gissane and he used to do all that with his ass and cart, and he’d bring my father his two or three barrels of stout, and he’d get paid so much for each barrel – maybe he might get about six pence a barrel. There was other men doing that aswell, but he was the one that I remember anyway”.
The Canal also provided an important means of transporting goods – mainly the infamous Guinness stout –
“The stout used to come mainly by canal on the barges and I remember the barges coming down the canal and unloading the stout here. There was a good few men working on them and they used to stay in Killaloe that time. There is still some of the barges around, they have been converted. There were several, the St. James and the St. Kieran and all that kind with different names.”
“There has been a lot of changes since I was a child, the area has improved wonderfully in the line of scenery and buildings, there has been a lot of improvements.”
This interview with Joe Manly was taken from the “Killaloe Heritage Collection” which includes 80 interviews of Ballina & Killaloe’s oldest residents sharing their memories in 1991 & 1992. This collection of cassette tapes is housed in the Local Studies Centre in Ennis.
However, the Killaloe-Ballina Local History Society has digitised almost all of these interviews so that the fantastic social history contained within can be shared.
Killaloe-Ballina