Glendree - Feakle -Feb-2000

The games we played when we were young was mostly hurling, and pitch and toss. Pitch and toss went like this: you stood back about 3 or 4 yards from where a very small stone was placed, you pitched a penny, the nearest penny that was to the stone, had to toss the coin, head was winning, harp got nothing, you collected all the money, when the head came up. At that time, some would weld together the pennies, there was a head on both sides of the penny so they couldn't lose. There might be 3 or 4 pitching pennies and the nearest penny to the stone, you tossed. You had to get the head to get the money.

They used make hurling matches, there were certain fields they hurled on, but the hurleys were not great, they were very rough. They made matches then, between two teams or two villages, and they'd be sitting on the side, and they had goal-posts on both ends. We had teams at that time, we went down to Killaloe and hurled against St.Senan's for a Clare Junior at that time. We went from Scarriff and beat St.Senan's.
Hurling home was the old time hurling, that's something they do in the Cooley mountains now, the long puck. They hurled over ditches and everything. I think there was 17 on each side.It was Killanena that won it at some time and I think the prize was a horse and trap.
There was a good song about that, that Mrs.Dooley used to sing, she was a very old woman. But Killanena won it anyway and I think it was a horse and trap.
They made the slitters themselves out of everything. They get a sponge ball, it was supposed to be solid, so they put it into this leather cover, the harnessmaker would stitch it, it would last for a long time.

We also did a good share of fishing and a good share of fowling, when we were about 14. Fishing in the Graney river, mostly perch, pike and eel.You'll eat the pike if they were about 4 or 5 pound, if they were too big, you wouldn't eat them. I killed one with a dungfork one time, I was cutting turf and the pike was lying on the ground and I put the four prongs in 16,5 pound weight.
I cycled to dances but mostly we went on foot. Dances here used to be a small little cottage where they used to have a gramophone all night and it was packed out to the doors with dancers.
There were the Wrendances, you went out on St.Stephen's Day and collected money and you had a dance a few nights after. The crowd that went out with the Wren there was 2 left out to go around to get a house for the dance. It was very hard to get a house because it always ended up in a row, like someone in the crowd they got too much drink. The Wrendances were good, you had good music and everything in them.
There was a good share of housedances in them times because there was a lot of very good musicians and a lot of good dancers and the young crowd was told to sit down they were not able to dance.
There were platform dances in the summer there was one in Uggoon. Then there were the dances in Killanena, that was the time that the dancehall started there, that was great, great bands like the Tulla Ceili Band, John Reed was over the Tulla Ceili Band and he used to collect the musicians from all over. Father O'Dea started the hall in Killanena and when the dances were over, Broderick's took over, well over 40 years ago. Everyone went to the dances, the old people were dancing just the same as the young ones and there was a line down there where the women were sitting, and you went down the side and you asked them to dance and you might have to go to the lower end of the line to ask someone to dance if you weren't a good dancer. We went on the bike to Killanena, it was nearly always raining, very wet in them times.

We got a radio very late, we got it from Brendan Hickey, it was one that worked on a dry battery. There was no electricity, there was electricity in Glendree a year before I came down here in 1955, it was the Hasset's that done it. They had it in Raheen years before that, they had it at Mc Lysaght's, they had their own and there was electricity there even before they had it at Ardnacrusha. I went to the cinema in Scariff the 1st night it was opened, I remember it well, it was Jimmy Tracey who put up the cinema in Scariff. I remember that night that he opened the door, and he let in everyone under 14 years for nothing.
And they put in the film and whatever happened they put in the film upside down and they were walking on their heads, they put in the film wrong. He was a grand lad, Jimmy Tracey, he owned the limeworks down there, he put up that cinema and I suppose he didn't have too much money. There was a concrete roof put on that and we all gave a day's work, mixing concrete. The Astor Cinema wasn't anything as good as the one in Tulla. We used to cycle to Tulla, to Byrne's and come back around 12, 1 o'clock over Laccaroe. There were some fine pictures in it, I've seen "The Count of Monty Cristy" and "The Man and the Iron Mask". They started with silent movies, no talk, it was John Byrne's uncle who started that probably in the 30's.The films in Scariff were on Wednesday and Sunday, twice a week, but it was never as good as Tulla. The cinema in Scariff was turned into the Astor Ballroom in the early 50's.
I went to drama several times, there were some good plays in Scariff in the Old Hall. The Shannon Players used to come there and have a variety, they'd have music and plays. And the Arousem came a few times and he played on the uillian pipes and there was O'Connor, a stepdancer, there were some great nights in it.
Timmy Hayes was a great actor, he used to make up songs about everyone, he used to stand on the stage, 'twas great.

There is a man of this musical clan
Whose name I must reveal
He has done for this band all a man can do
And his name is Padraigh O'Neill

A song made up by Timmy Hayes about the founder of the Scariff Piper's Band (1923) There was a feish there in Timmy Hayes field there years and years ago, there was a hurling match in it as well, Feakle v O'Gonnelloe.