Tripping down a busy Memory Lane

Another long-established survivor and Castleisland flag bearer.

This is an advert for Timoty Murphy aka ‘Mutt’ whose brilliiant cartoons of the local town characters of his day you can see on the walls of Peter Browne’s Bar.

I mentioned Danny Sheehy here last week and his attention to dating his photographs. This is his advert from the Desmonds GAA launch programme from May 4th 1952

Known with great affection as ‘Steveen’ his little bicycle repair workshop at The Back-of-the-Forge was just about big enough for himself and the bike he was working on.

An icon of Castleisland business and recognised as such throughout the province and beyond.

Definitely not a dying profession.

One of the great and widely known survivors and Castleisland business beacons.

It is estimated that over 400,000 people took part in National Heritage Week events throughout Ireland over the past week. And it’s not over yet.

This year’s week opened last Saturday, August 23rd and it will wind-up on this Sunday.

There were some 1800 events planned throughout the country to mark the hugely important week in the Irish events calendar.

Thankfully, Castleisland had its couple of days of participation last weekend thanks to Leo Suijkerbuijk, Maggie Prendiville, Peter Browne and Peggy Reidy and all the people who turned out to participate.

It was a great start for an event that will, no doubt, develop into something to span most of the week next year and I believe that plans are afoot here to do just that.

 “Heritage week has now become one of the biggest cultural events on the Irish Calendar, with 1800 events scheduled to take place across the country over the next nine days. The diversity of events taking place during National Heritage Week is what makes it unique. We expect over 400,000 people to attend events across the country during the week and we hope that towns and villages across Ireland will experience a positive knock-on economic impact as people attend events,” said Ian Doyle, Head of Conservation, Heritage Council said at last weekend’s launch in Dublin.

For anyone who may be planning an event for this locality to add to next year’s programme there will be lots of ideas if you log into the National Heritage Week website at: www.heritageweek.ie

And for The Maine Valley Post’s little contribution for the special week that’s just about to end for another year, I thought we’d bring you a completely different look at the heritage of our town’s business story.

God be good to the late Good Dinny O’Sullivan. He gave me a copy of the programme which was published on the day of the opening of the Castleisland Desmonds GAA grounds at Moanmore on May 4th 1952.

This is a real trip down memory lane and it certainly portrays what an industrious little town Castleisland was in those days. There were so many shops on every road and street and very few of them specialising in any single line of goods. Wasn’t it a philosophy of the business classes that time not to have all your eggs in one basket ?

Some of the adverts are from a race meeting programme in Castleisland from August 1961 and the odd freelancer thrown like the advert for the November 1959 Castleisland Races at Eddie Pembroke’s.

You’ll see notices for long vanished little businesses that dotted the once thriving market-town streets here. And just as importantly, you’ll notice that there are some notable survivors too!

So we’ll tale a look at the advertisements on the pages of those historical documents to round off National Heritage Week for 2014. I hope you enjoy the trip down that old memory lane.