Friday, January 31, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 16

Dad represented farmers in Wicklow, Wexford, and Carlow for many years. In today's clip he tells us about the Beet Grower's Association (BGA) in Carlow, and his involvement with the Irish Farmer's Association (IFA). Part of this was taking part in the national march to Dublin in 1967 - the Wicklow farmers marched from Arklow. All of this took a lot of time and eventually he had done enough - you can hear in his voice that there was his own work to be done and he ended his involvement with the BGA and IFA.

Click below to listen:

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 15

Today's audio clip sees my Dad telling us about his early life in Ballingate in the 60's, and his faith - especially when my Mum got sick. He found this time (mid-1960's) hard going, but his "get on with it" attitude saw him through.

Click below to listen:

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 14

As I recently discovered, when your father dies it is not an easy time. Dad's father PJ O'Loughlin died on 19th June 1965 at the young age of 60 years. In today's audio clip Dad talks about his relationship with his father, which he describes as "formal" and his sadness surrounding his passing. 

Click below to listen:

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 13

In today's very short audio clip, my Dad explains how the family farm that he grew up on in Tomacork had to be sold as debts piled up. His father PJ's auctioneering business also suffered and had to be closed. This must have been a sad time for all the O'Loughlin family in the early 1960s. While Dad stayed behind  on his own farm in Ballingate, his family moved to Shankill in Dublin.

Click below to listen.

Monday, January 27, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 12

Dad spent most of his life living in Ballingate from 1960 until 2024. In today's audio clip he tells us about how he acquired the farm in Ballingate from his uncle Pat Hurley. He goes on to tell us about his move from Tomacork to live in Ballingate and the "sense of freedom" he felt being out on his own. He needed help on the farm and Son Holmes came from Tomacork to work with him.

Click below to listen: 

Sunday, January 26, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 11

The late 1950s was an eventful time in my Dad's life. At this time he was working on both his father PJ's farm in Tomacork, and his Uncle Pat Hurley's farm in Ballingate. He also got married!

In today's audio clip you can hear about when he proposed to Mum, going to Spain on their honeymoon, and living in Tomacork during the first two years of marriage.

Click below to listen:

Saturday, January 25, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 10

Some of my Dad's fondest memories from his time as a young man was when he was threshing corn around the Carnew and Gorey areas. It was a big piece of team work to thresh, Dad's main role was as the tractor driver, but he mucked in with all the tasks of the day. He usually started in August and almost always it was Doyle's in Ballingarry (near Gorey) that the first threshing of the season took place. He loved this work and you can hear it in his voice on today's recording.

Click below to listen.

Friday, January 24, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 9

Travelling during the 1950s was not a common thing for Irish people to do, but my Dad managed a couple of trips to see a little bit of Europe still suffering after the end of World War II. In today's clip, my Dad tells us about travelling to Lourdes on a Dublin diocesan pilgrimage with his Uncle Charles (Mons), and to Paris, and Arnhem in Holland with Macra na Feirme. During the latter visit he and the Macra lads went to see the still bombed out city of Essen in Germany.

Click below to listen:

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 8

In today's clip my Dad talks about his love of singing. He tells us about singing in the Shillelagh Courthouse before joining the Gorey Operatic Society, where he performed in The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. He also tells us about meeting a chorus girl named Phil Byrne!

Click below to listen:

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 7

In the 1950s, my Dad joined Macra na Feirme. This was the making of him as a young man as it brought him out of the shyness of his teenage years. In this clip he talks about how he joined Macra (by accident) and how he quickly became Chairman of the local Carnew branch. He became Secretary and then Chairman of Co Wexford Macra na Feirme - a position he held for five years (1959 - 1963). This is a record number of times that has not been bettered!

Click below to listen.

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 6

Once my Dad had left school it was time to start working full time on the family farm in Tomacork just outside Carnew. In today's audio clip he talks about delivering milk to Carnew, milking cows every day, and later driving to Dublin to deliver vegetables and eggs to hospitals. His father PJ was an auctioneer and it was assumed that Dad would follow in his footsteps, but Dad tells us why he turned against auctioneering after selling just one house.

Click below to listen:

Monday, January 20, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 5

In this very short clip (part 5 of 24) my Dad talks about leaving secondary school in Roscrea at the end of 5th year in 1948, and his regret at not going on to complete the leaving certificate or going to university.

Click below to listen.

Sunday, January 19, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 4

Dad lived through the Second World War - he was eight years old when it started, and fourteen when it finished. In this audio clip he tells us about seeing German war planes on their way to bomb Belfast, sleeping though the North Strand bombings by the Germans, sentiment towards both the Germans and the British, how the war united Irish people for the first time since the Civil War (which had only ended 16 years earlier and was still fresh in people's memory), and petrol bombs in Tomacork! There is also a lovely story about listening to The Archers radio programme with his sister Breda.

Click below to listen. 

Saturday, January 18, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 3

In part 3 of my series of short clips from an interview with Dad in 2011, he talks about sport (he was not sporty) and his time in secondary school in Cistercian College Roscrea in Co Tipperary from 1944 to 1948. He also tells of cycling, with his father PJ, all the way from Carnew to Roscrea and back!
   

Friday, January 17, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 2

In this second of my 24 part series of interviews with my Dad to mark his 80th birthday, he tells a story that he told us many times about his father's involvement with Jim McCrea and Arthur Quinn in the opening of a cinema in Carnew in the 1940s. The local parish priest, Canon Prandy, had "sex on the brain" and fiercely opposed the cinema. 

Here's Dad telling the story:

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Monsignor Charles Francis Hurley - 40th Anniversary

The Mons.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the death of my grand-uncle Monsignor Charles Francis Hurley who died on 16th January 1985. I remember his funeral on a very cold day - he is buried in Deansgrange cemetery just a few hundred metres from where I live. My second name (Francis) is in honour of him.

Charles Hurley was my grandmother Kathleen's older brother. He was from Newmarket in North Cork and attended Cistercian College Roscrea. He was ordained a priest in the Irish College in Rome on 28th February 1920. Later that year he attended at the execution of Kevin Barry in Mountjoy Jail on 1st November 1920. In the photo to the right you can see that his photo is stamped by the British Consulate. It may be that the photo was for a travel document or an early passport (these were only first introduced in 1920). I can't tell if this was for the trip to his ordination in Rome - I'm sure the wide white collar means something, perhaps not a full priest yet. 

One of my favourite walks is through Deansgrange cemetery, and I often stop by his grave to remember him. I tidied it up a few days ago in advance of his anniversary - he is the only close relative that I know of buried in this cemetery. His headstone states the he was Parish Priest (PP) for the St Kevin's Harrington St parish, which is just off the South Circular Road in Dublin. He also served as parish priest in Ballybrack for many years. The VC on the headstone stand for "Vicar of Christ". I have no idea why he has this title as it seems to be mostly used for bishops. I also know that my late father was very fond of him, and that he was treated like royalty by everyone in the family anytime he visited.

Rest in peace Uncle Charlie.

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Interview with my Dad - Part 1

Several years ago I sat down with my Dad and talked to him about his life. I recorded our conversation (with his knowledge) and have chopped it up into 24 separate short audio files. This post shows the first of these files which is about his parents PJ and Kathleen and his early days in Tomacork - it is just under seven minutes long. I plan to post the remaining 23 audio files on a daily basis over the next few weeks.

Thursday, January 09, 2025

Eulogy for my Dad

At my father's funeral in Tomacork church I was kindly allowed by Fr Casey to give a short eulogy at the end of the requiem mass. I have to admit that I had written a lot of it some time ago and refined it as the end for Dad drew near. I ran it by family before the mass and modified as requested. 

The mass was streamed live, but this broke down after 30 minutes - Storm Daragh was having its way on Dad's final journey. Luckily, I still got a recording. I thought for a long time (it's five weeks since Dad died) as to whether it would be appropriate to publish it here, but a lot of people could not come on the day due to the storm. I am also very proud of Dad's achievements and his life - so here goes:


Many thanks to KMcE and LDMcE for recording.

Wednesday, January 01, 2025

Joe O'Loughlin (1931 - 2024)

It's been almost a month since my Dad passed away, and in the meantime I have put this video tribute to him and his life together. The song he is singing is If I Can Help Somebody originally composed Alma Hazel Androzzo in 1945. Piano accompaniment is by Lar Duffy. 

If I Can Help Somebody was one of his favourite songs. This recording was made in 1990, when he was 59 years old, as part of an Askamore Sings collection - his voice is at its best. We played this at his funeral Mass, not many people get to sing at their own funeral!