TALES FROM THURLES: Up the quarry and down the pike

“Up the quarry and down the Pike That’s the way to ride a bike.”

One of the most delightful of Thurles’s personalities was the late Nan Roche of Lisheen Terrace in Thurles.

SHE heard generations of Thurles people sing that old refrain above. I spoke to her on her 80th birthday and some seventy years of her 80 years had been spent in The Quarry which once produced a World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, Paddy Ryan.

There is a plaque to him erected by the local Durlas Eile Ui Fhogartaigh Memorial Committee who have erected a plaque to many famous local people around the town.

Nan Roche recalled for me that she was born in Flanagan’s Lane in Thurles.

Where? Well, it was actually  Liberty Square in the town and there were two houses up this laneway in 1915 when Nan Roche came into the world.

The lane was situated between Hayes Hotel and Roches Hardware in the town’s Liberty Square.

“I have memories of generals and officers and they were probably Black and Tans,” Nan recalled.

And she remembered days of apples galore and one Margaret Cantwell and being told to mind herself crossing the road in an era when there were no cars –only the animal-powered variety.”

Nan, a great friend of mine for many years, loved to tell me of great yarns of sporting days in Thurles.

For instance, when some folks were not beyond linking doorknobs on opposite sides of the street with string!

I’d hate to try that in Mitchel Street today.

In those days people travelled to Templemore for a pair of new shoes.

Sure that would be accomplished with all the ceremony and hooha that accompanies a holiday.

Nan lamented the departure from the landscape of the old Market House in the town centre of Liberty Square.

I myself well recall going to the CBS from Fianna Road and past the Market House.

And I recall wading in wellies (if you were lucky enough to have them) up the Mall(with a mandatory quick glance at the latest toys or fishing tackle in Kilroys’ window of wonder) across the square to school on Market Day on the first Tuesday of each month.

When the shops were all boarded up for safety and security from the vast and heaving mass of cattle on the streets and sidewalks on the Square.

Indeed I well recall playing hurling in the Square.

In the 1950’s I was always a goalkeeper for matches in Fianna Road just off  Liberty Square. And, though my back faced down towards the river at the junction of Fianna Road and Sliabh na mBan Road,  I never had to look around me for traffic.

There was none. 

Only a car belonging to Detective Garda Pat Wall who was my next-door neighbour and father of All-Ireland hurler, Tony Wall.

And I don’t think there ever was an excuse for being late for school.  There used to be a Minah Bird in a wee shop in the Square near PJ Broderick’s auctioneers now which was forever urging us to “Hurry up, you’ll be late for school.”

I suppose that if a country person knows every corner of every field where he was brought up the ould townies in Thurles will recall a million stories of the street or road or terrace where they lived.

There is not a square inch of the Watery Mall in Thurles where I have not played hurling or Planned an ambush on the enemy of the United States Marine Corps.