Memoirs of Courtmacsherry
by Niall Archer
For my Mum & Dad
and the wonderful holidays they gave us.
In 2004 Kitty O’Mahony wrote a fantastic account of her experience holidaying in Courtmacsherry – a modest fishing village in West Cork. Despite her memories being from the late 1940s, much that she described rang true with me. I holidayed there through the 1970s and 80s.
‘Courtmac’ was a magical place to me. It was like nowhere else I knew. Umpteen generations of relations lived either there or across the bay in Kilbrittain. My grandparents had a house on the ‘terrace’ in the middle of the village, and every year the 5 of us, Mum, Dad, older brother and sister, and myself, the ‘baby’, would descend on them.
My uncle’s family of 7 likewise visited the village, as did his sister’s family, again of 7 - the Cochlains and the Currans. Many other families, such as the Sheehys and O’Sheas, Walshes, Minehanes, deFouberts and FitzGeralds made Courtmac their regular place to summer holiday.
Courtmac was a place to meet family and friends year after year. If you walked down the street you’d forever be greeting folk. So much so that it would rarely be more than a word or two. Perhaps just a tilt of the head. We used to play the game of trying to predict who the first face we knew would be on entering the village for the first time that year. I was never right.
It was an age when boredom was the norm for kids. Parents went on holiday so that they too could have a good time. Our parents enjoyed long golf matches away from kids and late games of 110, a card game unique in my experience to Courtmac, played invariably into the wee hours. Us kids were NOT allowed to interrupt them unless at least a limb had been severed or a sibling swept out to sea.
It was OK to let the kids do their own thing, and we were happy to do so – as long as we still got fed and driven to Dunworley beach regularly.
Accommodation & Shops
In the early 70s we stayed on the terrace with my grandparents. Their house was called ‘Arigideen’ after the nearby river. The house was white with blue shutters on the windows. It had a petite retaining white wall around the front ‘garden’, which was all gravel. It felt funny walking across. With a porch and a chimney it was the house every 5 year old draws and ends up on the fridge.
The house was dark and musty inside, especially the kitchen. The horsehair that insulated the walls gave it a uniquely oldy-worldy aroma. There was a ponderous grandfather clock in the hall. Granny had a piano and there were ancient, alien things to me, like Grandpa’s badger-hair shaving brush and cut-throat razor.
Us ‘littlies’ shared a dormitory style bedroom which I can best describe as an upstairs greenhouse cum log cabin. It opened onto the steeply terraced garden that went far out of sight all the way up to the old ruined coastguard station several house heights above. There was a balcony out back with a rusty old iron wheel – something to do with laundry perhaps? To me it was the bridge and ship’s wheel. Every day the ship was in mortal peril, but Captain Niall steered her to safety and a hero’s acclaim.
Granny also had a cottage about a mile up Ramsey Hill on the way to Barryroe. She described it as somewhere she could retreat when all the relatives invaded Arigideen! It was a single room. It had a stable front door and 2 tiny square windows set in its whitewashed stone walls. Exactly what an Irish cottage was supposed to look like. Granny and Grandpa bought it in 1970 for £40. It is now on the market (admittedly greatly modernised and extended) for £250k!
When staying with granny became impractical we B&B’d with the Burrells. Their place was directly opposite the lifeboat station. The house was a vivid yellow. It was great because we all had to get up for breakfast and be out of our rooms by 10am, so that they could be cleaned. No adult lie-ins till 1pm!
Behind the house, a few yards up the ‘wet lane’, was the Mace supermarket, which the Burrells also owned. I say ‘supermarket’ because unlike other shops it had aisles. It was a corner shop. It was part of the same yellow building. At the time the Hodnetts also had a shop. This was 2 houses away (where today’s community shop is). So sweets-a-plenty just seconds away.
Hodnett’s became Dorman’s became Duffy’s. It was the go-to shop as it was closest to the tennis court wall – the epicentre of village life. The Dormans were an English family. There was always some scandal afoot regarding them; but this was adult stuff of no interest to me. Their son, Jeremy, was very well spoken, academic, skipper of the Moby Dick and lifeboat crew. I thought this was very cool indeed.
Mr Duffy, briefly, sold chips, burgers and the like from a sash window into what would, I presume, otherwise have been their front room. The chips were interesting because they were more McDonalds fries than end-of-the-pier soggy door wedges. Such counted as exotic back then. Duffy’s then became a post office. Postcards and stamps didn’t do it for me.
Elsewhere in the village Peggy Whelton had a shop with a green door. You didn’t know if she was open until you tried at the latch. The original post office was Fleming’s, and close by were O’Driscoll’s, O’Donovan’s and Harte’s the butchers, all at the other end of the village. Unlike Peggy’s, these were undoubtedly shops as they had their names emblazoned above the door. Harte’s had that traditional blue shiny glazed brickwork beneath its window.
O’Driscoll’s never seemed to close. Late at night you could knock on the door to the adjacent accommodation and, confusingly, Mrs O’Donovan would attend to your evening munchies (or was it Mrs O’Driscoll serving at O’Donovan’s?). One of my cohorts used to love the late night visits. He would engage her in seemingly no end of chit chat and gossip. He would mimic and even better her thick Cork accent until I had no idea what either of them were prattling on about. I just wanted to eat!
In the late 1970s Burke’s caravan park opened at the seaward end of the village. This had its own shop which opened relatively early of a morning. There was also a well maintained tennis court which you could book. It was very popular. You’d sometimes have to wait hours for your turn.
The caravan was my favourite place to stay. Every meal was up close and personal. The view of the boats entering & leaving the bay was second to none and I got to sleep in the living area in a choice of directions. And our dog was able to come with us. The ascent to the van was a challenge and its distance from the village centre was a drawback. I started taking my bike on holidays to help lessen the effort. I never locked the bike, leaving it quite safely wherever.
About the same time the Coastguard station reopened as holiday lets. I dreaded staying there because it was such a mighty climb up the wet lane to fetch swimmers, fishing rod or, most likely, to be fed. The place was owned by a British couple, the Mearns. They lived in the central tower. It was beautiful inside. Occasionally, my mother and I would be invited in when buying homemade, frozen lasagnes, chicken pies and the such. Delicious.
For a few years there was a boat outside which lifeboat coxswain Sammy Mearns was working on. The boat used to be local fishing boat the Moby Dick. That meant, of course, that Sammy had to get it up the very, very steep, bumpy, narrow, wet lane. We have a photo of its epic slow ascent. I suppose more fraught was its descent after countless hours refurbishment.
We also spent a few summers in ‘Sea View’ holiday lets. They were very like the Coastguard cottages, only at street level. There was a bus stop outside simply denoted by a lollipop-style sign stuck in a concrete block. One morning an old lady walked in on us having breakfast. “Oh”, she said, “what a lovely bus shelter.”
Once my brother and sister were of an age when they did their own thing for Summer, myself and my parents lived it up somewhat, staying in the Hotel. We had the room directly above the entrance. We used the roof of the porch as a private balcony. The hotel back then stood alone - no adjacent flats or holiday homes. Outside the dining room was a grass tennis court. There was a residents’ library opposite reception and the bar was a modest affair tucked away at the back. It was far more serene. I imagine it was much the same in Kitty’s day.
I also spent a few summers staying with cousins and friends in houses they had rented, such as White O’Morn, the Blacks and the Chaillets house - and at Miss Love’s.
Miss Love’s was incredible.
Brother & sister, Robbie and Tina Love were like characters from a Dickensian novel. Robbie was, seemingly, the only villager that got up before 10am. I would see him with a yoke across his shoulders, a wooden bucket either side, off to fetch water from the well half way up the wet lane. This puzzled me because I knew Loves’ guest house had running water so how come the other half of the house didn’t? There were also several bright yellow water hydrants throughout the village providing water on tap. I think the buckets may, actually, have been for potatoes, and his proximity to the wet lane coincidental. Or maybe he just liked fresh spring water.
Tina had poor movement – bad legs. She shuffled about using her walking frame, but for the most part chose to sit in her shop window, amongst display cereal boxes bleached as white as her hip length hair by umpteen years exposure. I can confidently assert that they were, indeed, Kellogg’s cornflake boxes, because I remembered from one year to the next – and they never moved. Miss Love would sit among the boxes, surrounded by her cats, equally white and menacing, for hours on end, just observing the village comings and goings. Nothing escaped her scrutiny.
On the last day of our holiday my dad would make his annual call to stock up on ‘Old Time Irish’ marmalade for the 50 weeks till next time. These were stored behind the counter. Everything was behind the counter; except the tin posters promoting the virtues of Pear’s soap, Lifebuoy and Fry’s cocoa. One of them depicted a sailor complete in bright yellow sou’wester and galoshes.
(I found this photo of Robbie & Tina in Miss Love’s the day the house was being demolished. It may have been taken directly outside their house sometime in the 1950s? I have sent the original to her nephew in Canada)
My cousins, the Currans, rented the holiday let side of Loves’ all summer. It had been bought by Tina & Robbie’s grandfather in about 1910 with his severance pay from the Boer War. He had kitted it out with Zulu shields, spears and even a massive stuffed python mounted on the wall going up the stairs. All were still there.
The only toilet was outside. It had a fixed, woodworm-riddled, horseshoe seat. The flush was courtesy of the rain tank above, which formed the roof. Toilet visits were greatly frowned upon during the long hot summer of 1976.
Terrifyingly, there was a connecting door between the 2 houses. It was locked, of course, but you could peer through into the adjoining bedroom. All it had in it was an iron bedstead and a chair. Was this Tina’s bedroom? Could she unlock the door and come to us in the middle of the night?
When it was a wet summer we spent a lot of time in the Currans’ parlour room playing cards. This would often get very raucous, especially when playing ‘Pig’. Sometimes our late night yelping and hollering would be abruptly interrupted by a sharp tapping at the window. I still shudder at the revelation, as the blinds were drawn up, of Miss Love’s gummy wizened face, her long skanky white hair and beady bespectacled eyes pressed up tight against the window, walking stick held aloft, telling us to be quiet. After the screaming had subsided and our heart rates had dipped below cardiac arrest we’d find something more sedate to do, our enthusiasms curbed. Imagine waking in the dead of night and finding that same face peering down at you in your bed. That inter-connecting door scared the bejaypers out of me.
Next door was the Pier House pub. I remember the day the landlady, Nora Young died, and the hearse was parked outside. A crowd gathered to show their respects. Myself and Brian Curran had to pass by it to get to their place next door. The hub caps were very highly polished and curved such that looking into them was like the Hall of Mirrors. Big face, little face, upside down. Great fun.
Uncle Phil, one of the attendees, grabbed us both and hauled us away. It was the only time I recall anyone being cross with us on holidays. My father happened to come along later and remarked to a stander-by what an impressive turnout it was to ‘see her off’. “Oh yes,” said the man, “she had intercourse with everyone in the village”…..
Next door again was Burke’s, later Aubin’s. It looked like a garage to me. There was a single, red fuel pump in the front. It clearly hadn’t dispensed anything for a very long time. Jim Burke seems to have been the local entrepreneur. He had an abandoned boat moored alongside the pier. This was great fun to play on. You had to make sure though that you didn’t play on board too long. As the tide went down it got increasingly hard to get off. I was hauled up to safety on many occasions.
There were numerous abandoned properties. On the pier was ‘Ken’s Kabin’. Said so on it. Doorway, window, bench platform. About the size of a small car. No idea who Ken was or what he used his cabin for. A few doors away from the pier there was an abandoned house. All was exactly as the occupant had left it, in some considerable haste. The table was still laid out with breakfast.
There was also the boathouse on the way to the point where my mother and I buried a treasure of seashells and the twin fronted boathouse in front of the hotel. I found a huge Waterford cut glass crystal bowl in there (I left it there, obviously).The most remarkable though, was Kincraigie House.
Until I was 15 or so I had never even heard of it. One day, in search of lead for fishing weights, my friend took me to a laurel bush to the side of the hotel. We crawled through the bush. Seemed very ‘Stig of the Dump’ or ‘Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. A path then opened up, a sort of tunnel through trees - increasingly exotic trees such as Cedar of Lebanons. All most surreal. Then a magnificent mansion. .
We climbed through the sash window. On the desk was a Bakelite phone, still plugged in. There was a strong-room with an iron studded door. There were bells to call the servants to attend the various rooms. In the hall was a very grand, sweeping oak staircase. In the bedrooms above, ornate rose ceilings. In the grounds outside livery stables, pigsties, garages, courtyards, a tennis court, orchard; the works. All just crumbling away (much hastened by missing lead!). There were tales of owners fleeing post-war Germany….
Sweets & treats
Chocolate! So much chocolate. We were on our ‘hollyers’ as my dad would say. That meant we could eat whatever we wanted. And as much as we wanted. For me, that principally meant chocolate. For months I’d squirrel away pocket money to build up my holiday fund. It was so much I could comfortably afford to buy the rest of my gang, my cousins, goodies too.
Cadbury’s Ireland produced all sorts of pocket-sized bars that just weren’t available in the UK (no ordering on the internet from overseas in those days). There were the trusty stalwarts still thriving today - Tiffin, Golden Crisp, Mint Crisp and regular Dairy Milk, Wholenut and Fruit & Nut. Then there were the flavoured fillings. Lemon & Lime, Turkish Delight, Butterscotch, Rum Butter, Caramello and one which was dark chocolate and milk chocolate with a fondant centre. What was that called? I’m thinking ‘Black & Tan’, but surely not!
A boy can’t live on chocolate alone though. There was also ice cream. No such thing as ‘HB’ in England. My favourite was Iceburger, but I’d sometimes mix it up with a Brunch instead; or possibly a Wibbly Wobbly Wonder. My cousin was a strictly Loop the Loop sort. My mum just liked the taste of plain HB. Boring. As I recall, plain white HB on a stick was marketed under a rather inappropriate name. And let’s not discuss the picture on the wrapper!
And, of course, Tayto crisps. Oh my.
My uncle had a thing for ‘hole-in-the-wall’ pubs. I didn’t know what this meant (still don’t), but he and I, aged about 16, went to visit some, in Kinsale. He bought me pints of cider in each one. I had never drunk pints before and felt pretty rough on the long, winding drive home along the coast. The same uncle took my brother along the same coast road to pick mussels which my brother eagerly consumed later that evening. He was so, so sick. I thought he was going to die. He thought he was going to die.
In my uncle’s defence though, it was only last year that I discovered that ‘Cidona’ was/is a soft drink. I don’t know why it took me so long to figure this out. My kindly uncle may have been buying, or I may have been asking for, fizzy apple juice all along. Can’t think of any mitigation regards the mussels, except that eating such had never poisoned my uncle before. He didn’t eat mussels. The site they harvested was immediately downstream of a pig farm.
The end of the holiday, or the last day the branches of the family would spend together, was celebrated with a treasure hunt. These were epic events set by my father & mother. All the clues were cryptic and the answers up for discussion. If you argued your case well, you could get bonus points even though you were wrong! Teams were selected randomly-ish. Basically my parents put us in teams of an older cousin with a younger one. Then we’d be driven to different points around the village with staggered starts so that we didn’t just follow one another. Other villagers were always intrigued why we were all wandering around gawping up at lamp posts, interrogating manhole covers or counting bricks!
The final clue always brought us to the sweet shop for our bounty – a huge bag of sweets. Then we’d gather to hear the answers and argue the toss. Every year each team thought they’d nailed it. Never so. In its final incantation I, in the ‘baby’ group, was paired with my brother’s friend, Courtmac novice & treasure hunt virgin, Tim Smith. The others laughed but I was wise to my parents’ devious ways by then, and we won. My sister swears we didn’t go round in pairs, but groups. I think, maybe, she was cheating.
The whole venture was a vehicle to get rid of all the kids for several hours whilst the parents enjoyed a last supper together. Alternatively, If we had an esteemed guest, such as a visiting grandparent, (or I suppose my parents couldn’t face setting a treasure hunt) we dined out miles and miles and miles away. It felt like a day’s drive – at the West Cork Hotel in Skibbereen. A best behaviour, best bib & tucker event. There was an iron bridge outside that was the backdrop of many staged family snaps.
More often though, thankfully, the Pink Elephant was the venue of choice. The place was dark and complicated then. It was a shrine to disaster at sea nearby. Needless to say, the Lusitania featured heavily and the owner, Mr Wafer, was quite an authority. Ask him anything you like. Go on.
For some reason you ate round the back, away from the magnificent view. I remember lots of pink frilly napkins, lace and tablecloths, and eating a lot of breadsticks. Waiting, waiting, more breadsticks, still waiting.
(l-r: Cathal Minehane,Brian?, Feena Cochlain, Rebecca Archer, Stuart Dudley, John Curran, Sue Archer, Marc Archer, Niamh Minehane)
For lesser occasions, there was the Hotel. Duck a l’orange. Always Duck a l’orange. The 70s, the 80s, the 90s. I stayed there again in 2011 and 2015. Still Duck a l’orange, And still, amazingly, served by the same waitress. She must hate the sight of duck a l’orange.
If your timing was right (or wrong as far as my parents were concerned) the holiday would coincide with the Harbour Festival. As in decades past and through to the present this meant a week of competitions and activities. Lots of people and ‘chipper’ vans dispensing well into the night. The highlight for me was the sea angling competitions where, across the numerous categories over several days, 1000s of fish could be caught.
If both your timing was right AND it wasn’t raining you might get to play in the tennis competition at Ummera. This combo didn’t happen very often.
(l-r Mary O’Shea, Gemma Oloyede, Marc Archer, Mark de Foubert, Eugene Curran, Tim Smith – blue jeans, Robin Walsh, John Curran, Rebecca Archer)
Dunworley
Places seemed so much further away in the 70s. A trip to Dunworley beach involved a huge amount of organising. Not only was there the logistics of how to get there, whom to take and what to pack, but you also had to consider the tide. In all the years, we never seemed to master what the tide was doing. I think this may have been because there was such a lag between having the idea and actually getting there.
If you fancied going in the morning – forget it, never going to happen. For starters, no adults even woke up before 11am, let alone got themselves organised. Many a lunchtime outing to the beach was scuppered by my aunt & uncle still being in bed, well into the afternoon.
Dunworley was far more dangerous back then. The cliff edges were unfenced. You parked wherever you dare. The slip was a mixture of natural near-vertical shards of rock and highly polished weed & slime-strewn slabs. Ascending was hard work: so much so that many opted for the ‘cross country’ route up the cliffs.
The sea was, of course, always freezing, but there were numerous huge pools under the cliffs. These were much warmer and entirely on sand. You could fashion all sorts of waterways coming from them. I always felt slightly uncomfortable in them because they were stagnant – didn’t seem quite right. And they were deceptively deep. Water cascaded unabated from fields above. Lord only knows what sort of chemicals the water carried. The pools aren’t there anymore. Better farm management?
Having invested so much in getting all and sundry there, you could bank on being at Dunworley for a long time. The adults would find their spot and hanker down for the day. Books, newspapers, knitting. Sometimes the tide coming in and engulfing the beach was welcome relief.
(l-r Phil Curran, Brideen Archer, Brian Curran, Cumain Curran, Clare Power, Rebecca Archer at back, Declan Curran?, Marc Archer, John Curran, Phillip Curran. Boy at back fiddling with his pants – Me) The car is probably the one we all got there in!
Today there is an abandoned pub in absolute prime location on top of the cliffs. I don’t recall this ever being open as a pub. Maybe I was too young. There was, however, a house on the way to Blindstrand that sold ice-creams from a chest freezer in the front porch.
Although it is only 6 miles from Courtmac to Dunworley the journey could take a long time. At some point it was inevitable that you would get stuck behind a tractor, or have to stop in your tracks whilst cattle crossed, or get stuck behind a traditional horse-shoe shaped horse-drawn caravan or horse and trap, which were quite commonplace. If you journeyed on a Sunday then you ran the additional risk of having to stop altogether whilst a road bowling match took place. Road bowling is basically golf played on public roads.
When we had a free run, my cousin and I used to enjoy sticking our heads out the windows and ‘nee-nahing’ at the top of our lungs like emergency vehicles. It must have been so annoying. When it was us 3 siblings we used to kneel on the back seat with our hands behind our backs at all times (very important) looking out the rear window. We would then fall about as dad drove at speed round corners to fling us about. As the baby I was always on the hump in the middle. This meant I got squished whichever way the bend went; but never that badly.
Boats & Fishing
I would dream all year of fishing adventures. I had a green rod which I took to Courtmac every year. I never used it anywhere else. No matter how much care I took it used to get in such a tangle. I fished off the pier, at the coves on the way to the point, at the point. I was hopeless. I never caught anything on it- except seaweed.
I also had a string line, with multiple feathers, wrapped round a square frame of wood. This was for fishing off the side of a boat. I caught plenty with this.
The boat I used to go out on was the Valhalla. It was owned by Eamon Beechner. He didn’t really operate it as a business, more a leisure pursuit. As such, he would go out when it took his fancy. My friend, however, Conor Hyde, was his neighbour and used to crew for him. He would give me the nod when a trip was likely.
On such a morning I would awake early. I was staying in the coastguard cottages at this time so I had a good view of the bay. I’d commandeer the binoculars and fix my sights on the Valhalla’s mooring, looking for signs of a rowing boat approaching. Then, it was a mad dash to get to the pier before they headed out to sea without me.
My place was never guaranteed – depended on how many guests they had and who was crewing. Fulfilment of my dream was at old man Beechner’s whimsy. If Mrs Beechner was on board though, I was a shoe-in. She had a soft spot for me. The Beechners had been good friends with my grandfather, Paddy Cochlain, whom they held in high esteem. I didn’t let them forget I was his grandson!
Unfortunately, I was pretty rubbish at catching anything other than suicidal mackerel who flung themselves at my feathers. I would try to get more interesting, bottom-dwelling fish like cod. I just ended up getting stuck and losing loads of weights. It really annoyed old man Beechner.
We would be out all day and I LOVED it. The rougher the better. One time, fishing was dire so we all took up our lines, very disappointed, to head home. One of the guests then discovered he had an enormous cod on his line. It was jigh-blummin-normous! After much flapping about with boathooks we landed it. It was nearly as long as my out-stretched arms. I remember a buyer back at the pier paid him a small fortune for it. More than my entire holiday fund.
Another time we pulled up alongside what looked like a whale’s tail sticking out of the water, its flukes horizontal. It stayed like that for quite some time, just wafting gently. Maybe it was a Basking shark? We even went shark fishing once. We mashed up loads of mackerel into ‘rubby dubby’ to entice the sharks; but we didn’t catch any. I’m kind of relieved.
Shark fishing was big back then. This was the post Jaws movie era and there was no consideration for preserving stocks. Sometimes charter boats like the Moby Dick, St. Molaga, Mark Anthony, Blue Whale and Lowlander would land several Blue Sharks. Beautiful creatures. I would rub their skins – smooth as silk from gills to tail, sharp as sandpaper the reverse direction.
They’d be weighed, photos taken, teeth often cut out for keepsakes, and then left to rot. Their stomachs would emerge from their bottoms and their eyes frost over. Eventually, someone would kick them over the edge of the pier. For the next few days you could, at low tide, see the crabs consuming them. Horrendous waste. Similar happened with conger eels, though, bizarrely, on more than one occasion I saw a ‘dead’ conger kicked into the sea swim away.
My favourite fishing boat was the Larry O’Rourke. It was wood clinker-built and I thought it looked the business - shiny jet black with white ‘go faster’ rubbing strakes, 2 wheelhouse doors and an unnecessarily showy, huge whip aerial. It was the bad boy of fishing boats. Every year I would check the plaque outside the Lifeboat station detailing call-outs. The Larry was always just ahead; always getting into trouble. This added to its mystique.
(anti-clockwise: Waving, Brideen Archer, Cumain Curran, Mary O’Shea (?), Claire Power (?), Brona and Feena Cochlain)
Its skipper was quite the roguish type, but his name wasn’t Larry, nor was it even O’Rourke. It wasn’t owned by Larry, or O’Rourke. There wasn’t anyone, as far as I knew, with that name resident. ‘Twas all a bit of a mystery to me.
So it was that whenever I entered the Harbour Festival fishing competition I hoped & prayed I would be allotted to the coolest boat ever. One year it actually happened. I was so thrilled. But then, just moments before cast off, an event organiser called down to us assembled anglers asking for 2 to swap to another boat. They needed to even the numbers. My aunt, THE FOOL, gleefully volunteered us. I was gutted!
I never got to set foot on the Larry again. Last I heard, he (aren’t boats supposed to be female?) had been sold to a man in Cape Clear.
Throughout all these years the lifeboat was the Helen Wycherly. A regal looking boat – classic lines. A visit to Courtmac just wasn’t the same unless the lifeboat was called out. So exciting. The enormous firework flare and thunderous crack put the whole village on high alert. Myself and Dervla Sheehy happened to be chatting outside the lifeboat station one time when the signal was set off. Perfect timing.
The most memorable such ‘shout’ came on the 14th August 1979 in response to the infamous Fastnet Race disaster. My mother and I watched the launch from our caravan vantage point. We continued to follow them well past disappearing from sight via a shortwave radio my mother had tuned in to the coastguard frequency. Off they went, into the storm.
News of the disaster, and how many boats were affected, began to filter through. Unusually, the lifeboat had not returned by bedtime. It was the early hours of the next day, the 15th, when my mother woke me from my makeshift crib beneath the caravan’s front window. The lifeboat had rescued a yacht, the Casse Tete V, and was towing it into the village!
When we got to the pier the place was heaving. People had come from near and far to welcome the heroes back. It was like Regatta Day but in the dead of night. The Pier House opened. There was a tremendous collective pride. The place was buzzing.
Not quite on the same epic scale, we had a few nautical adventures of our own. One fine day my Dad took us out in a boat. My poor mother - watching as her husband, perpetual fag in mouth, set out to sea in a rickety borrowed rowing boat with her 3 kids on board, plus a visiting cousin. Naturally, there were no lifejackets or safety equipment of any description.
My Dad had the boat for the day. He no doubt wanted to get his money’s worth and he was never one to do things by half. He rowed us out a LONG way. My kin weren’t quite the seafarer I was. I got to eat all the jam sandwiches.
I recently discussed this photo with my brother (in yellow, head down trying to block out the horror of a future adrift mid-Atlantic). “What land is that in the distance?” I asked. “Barry’s Point? The Old Head of Kinsale?”
“Greenland, I reckon”.
Then there was the Currans row boat, ‘Be’. It had an outboard motor as well but, on its first ever launch, cousin Declan dropped it in the surf. It continued to work, but when it felt like it. It never worked both outbound and back. We became quite adept at rowing. As the eldest of the young group of cousins and friends I was deemed the responsible one. I hadn’t a clue!
The ‘Frying Pan’ was a favourite swimming and sunbathing spot beyond the point, round the headland. The slate grey, smooth, near-vertical South-facing cliff acted as a heat trap and the deep waters were relatively sheltered and clear. Great for diving – if you were brave enough, and fit enough to descend to the diving areas and confident you could get out again. I wasn’t. But I was fool enough to venture there by boat; Curran boat.
Getting in was straightforward enough – we just lined the bow up under power and rode in on a wave. We anchored and went for a swim. Getting out of the Frying Pan was another matter. For starters, the anchor wouldn’t budge. My dad had to haul it free from the cliffs. The outboard then failed and we had to row out against the surf, which was picking up. I later crossed the Atlantic in a yacht and sailed all over the World in ships of various size and condition with the Merchant Navy, but this was the only time I felt certain we were going to come-a-cropper. Somehow, after much shouting and frantic oar work, we got lucky and slipped out to sea…to do it all again another day.
The tennis court wall
For the most part we stayed within the confines of the village. In fair weather the tennis court wall was THE place to hang out. All gangs, young and old, would gather atop the tennis court at the heart of the village, ostensibly to watch those playing below.
The tennis court was between the shore (obviously at sea level) and the main road through the village, which was about 12ft above. It was at the very heart of the village, opposite the Anchor Bar and close to shops. If you wanted to find anyone, try the tennis court wall. Hanging out there kept you in the loop of comings & goings. You’d not miss out on a trip to Dunworley if you were at the tennis court wall.
The court was owned by old man Noble Ruddock who lived in the house adjacent. His had once been a boat-builder’s yard. The front of his house was at road level, the rear was held aloft on stilts coming up from the foreshore. In front of the stilts, seaward, was a line of posts. I think these formed part of a boat pen many years beforehand. Similarly, there were the curved remnant ribs of a sizable boat immediately in front of the tennis court. These acted like dip measures for how far in the tide was. Between Ruddock’s and the tennis court was a slipway.
Watching was free – no charge for sitting on a wall; but you were supposed to pay Noble for the hire of the court. Doing so would give you precedence over the freeloaders. Paying wasn’t cool.
If you were wuss enough to pay, you first had to call at Ruddock’s place. I was such wuss. His front door opened onto a large, highly polished wood-floored room. Noble, with a slightly stooped posture, would make his way slowly toward you. It reminded me of butler Brackett’s long and deliberate walk to answer Lord Belborough’s phone in ‘Chigley’.
When he did finally get to the door you were met by a softly spoken dignified gentleman. His speech was even slower than his walk. When you’re a teenager time is of the essence. I left feeling sorry for having disturbed him so.
Of course, the cool thing to do was just to wait your turn and take over from the departing incumbents. I use the word ‘turn’ loosely. It wasn’t a linear arrangement. The order of play was highly flexible. Negotiations were constant and, oh my goodness, woe-betide an absentee player buying a drink or arranging travel to the beach when his or her time was called. The queue, therefore, loved a 6-0 thrashing. Deuces, lets, second serves and, let’s face it, rallies, just kept you waiting. Humdinger matches weren’t appreciated.
One Summer I was holidaying with the Chaillets who lived across the road from the tennis court, up on the ‘terrace’, another layer up again. The tennis court was like an extension of their living room. Theirs was the go-to house if you needed to borrow a racket or ran out of balls. They stocked an arsenal of tennis gubbins and every other match seemed to involve a member of their household.
I had arrived early. My hosts were out so I whiled away my time on the tennis court wall – just watching, no intention to play. There was a fierce match going on below. The losing player was using an impressive array of expletives. Very naughty words indeed. Some I’d never even heard of. It was enough to make a pirate blush. My host, Marc Henri, soon arrived and joined me on the wall. “That guy’s really angry. Who is he?” I asked. “Oh, that’s Dave. He’s staying with us as well. You’re sharing a room. He’s a priest” !!
And talking of ‘cool’, there was the wuss way and there was the proper way to enter exit the tennis arena. At some point there had been steps directly from the road to the court. All that remained in my day was a single step at the top and a wonky steel handrail, highly polished by 100s of grasping young hands. THIS was the way from wall to baseline. Unfortunately, for a weed like myself, it was the only credible way to get back up as well. Oh the shame leaving court via the gate and ascending the slip.
Fortunately, it wasn’t a sheer wall. About 3 foot from the top was a ledge about 2 foot wide. It was easy enough to toss your racket onto this step ahead of hauling yourself up the rail, monkey-style. Throwing loose tennis balls up was trickier. From the ledge, player, racket and balls reunited could then make the final assault and re-join the village collective. Anyone who had dropped from the roadside wall to sit on the interior ledge was clearly planning to take over the court.
If your tennis was wild enough that you hit the ball over the wall onto the road, no problem – there was always someone up there to fetch it for you. If you hit the ball over the fence seaward, more problematic. You’d have to run down the slip and carefully thread your way over slimy seaweed-strewn rocks. All without getting your runners (trainers) covered in slippery gunk. If you were lucky, a kind spectator would do so for you. It was something to do. When the tide was fully in, however, the sea lapped at the base of the court so I’m afraid it was adios ball - unless you had a well-trained dog.
There seemed to be a lot of dogs in the village. My grandparents had a very aggressive mutt. It looked like a tired, used mop head, with teeth and attitude. His name was pronounced ‘Roadie’. He guarded the terrace, living from one fight to the next.
Noble Ruddock had Rover, a springer spaniel with seriously matted hair and docked tail, always furiously wagging. Not sure if owner or pet was the older. And there was an elderly couple called the Jacobs. They holidayed with their Kerry blue terrier, Oscar. He looked ‘posh’, but was always in a bad mood.
My aunt had a scruffy, docile, black & white shih tzui called Ming and the Sheehys had a lovely chocolate Labrador called Max. For trips to Dunworley, myself, mum Katherine, Dervla and Maurice Sheehy, plus Max and all the beach paraphernalia such as picnic hamper, blankets, towels, chairs, swimming cossies and the such, somehow, all squeezed into their modest Fiat coupe. Good job Max was so amiable. And Maurice, for that matter.
There were other dogs besides. You’d pass them trotting down the road, usually in the middle of it, owners far behind - or still at home. Car drivers would have to anticipate where the dog might choose to drift. Some gave chase. One year there was a beautiful looking stray with alluring ‘please love me’ eyes that followed me around. Very cute. In fairness, she probably did so because I was always with food.
We even bought our own puppy, Ruadh, one Summer. Living in central England we had no idea how much he loved being in the sea. It was a struggle to get him away from Dunworley. Whilst us kids and our Dad endured a cramped 15 hour drive and ferry crossing to and fro, young Ruadh, accompanied by our mother, got to fly over. Pretty neat trick Ma.
The adults afforded us marvellous freedoms back then. We headed out to sea in all manner of dodgy craft. We had night time barbeques at the coves. That meant walking through pitch black woods, a potential fall into the sea just feet away, playing with fire and eating meats that were simultaneously burnt and raw. We were allowed to explore dilapidated buildings, race bikes on the pier, hang out with whomsoever, play anywhere. The sort of liberties that keep social services busy these days.
Times have moved on. The days of nothing much happening constituting a great holiday have passed. Kids being left to make their own entertainment doesn’t really cut it any more. But Courtmac is still as beautiful as ever. Perhaps the next generation will form different, new memories. I hope so.
and the wonderful holidays they gave us.
In 2004 Kitty O’Mahony wrote a fantastic account of her experience holidaying in Courtmacsherry – a modest fishing village in West Cork. Despite her memories being from the late 1940s, much that she described rang true with me. I holidayed there through the 1970s and 80s.
‘Courtmac’ was a magical place to me. It was like nowhere else I knew. Umpteen generations of relations lived either there or across the bay in Kilbrittain. My grandparents had a house on the ‘terrace’ in the middle of the village, and every year the 5 of us, Mum, Dad, older brother and sister, and myself, the ‘baby’, would descend on them.
My uncle’s family of 7 likewise visited the village, as did his sister’s family, again of 7 - the Cochlains and the Currans. Many other families, such as the Sheehys and O’Sheas, Walshes, Minehanes, deFouberts and FitzGeralds made Courtmac their regular place to summer holiday.
Courtmac was a place to meet family and friends year after year. If you walked down the street you’d forever be greeting folk. So much so that it would rarely be more than a word or two. Perhaps just a tilt of the head. We used to play the game of trying to predict who the first face we knew would be on entering the village for the first time that year. I was never right.
It was an age when boredom was the norm for kids. Parents went on holiday so that they too could have a good time. Our parents enjoyed long golf matches away from kids and late games of 110, a card game unique in my experience to Courtmac, played invariably into the wee hours. Us kids were NOT allowed to interrupt them unless at least a limb had been severed or a sibling swept out to sea.
It was OK to let the kids do their own thing, and we were happy to do so – as long as we still got fed and driven to Dunworley beach regularly.
Accommodation & Shops
In the early 70s we stayed on the terrace with my grandparents. Their house was called ‘Arigideen’ after the nearby river. The house was white with blue shutters on the windows. It had a petite retaining white wall around the front ‘garden’, which was all gravel. It felt funny walking across. With a porch and a chimney it was the house every 5 year old draws and ends up on the fridge.
The house was dark and musty inside, especially the kitchen. The horsehair that insulated the walls gave it a uniquely oldy-worldy aroma. There was a ponderous grandfather clock in the hall. Granny had a piano and there were ancient, alien things to me, like Grandpa’s badger-hair shaving brush and cut-throat razor.
Us ‘littlies’ shared a dormitory style bedroom which I can best describe as an upstairs greenhouse cum log cabin. It opened onto the steeply terraced garden that went far out of sight all the way up to the old ruined coastguard station several house heights above. There was a balcony out back with a rusty old iron wheel – something to do with laundry perhaps? To me it was the bridge and ship’s wheel. Every day the ship was in mortal peril, but Captain Niall steered her to safety and a hero’s acclaim.
Granny also had a cottage about a mile up Ramsey Hill on the way to Barryroe. She described it as somewhere she could retreat when all the relatives invaded Arigideen! It was a single room. It had a stable front door and 2 tiny square windows set in its whitewashed stone walls. Exactly what an Irish cottage was supposed to look like. Granny and Grandpa bought it in 1970 for £40. It is now on the market (admittedly greatly modernised and extended) for £250k!
When staying with granny became impractical we B&B’d with the Burrells. Their place was directly opposite the lifeboat station. The house was a vivid yellow. It was great because we all had to get up for breakfast and be out of our rooms by 10am, so that they could be cleaned. No adult lie-ins till 1pm!
Behind the house, a few yards up the ‘wet lane’, was the Mace supermarket, which the Burrells also owned. I say ‘supermarket’ because unlike other shops it had aisles. It was a corner shop. It was part of the same yellow building. At the time the Hodnetts also had a shop. This was 2 houses away (where today’s community shop is). So sweets-a-plenty just seconds away.
Hodnett’s became Dorman’s became Duffy’s. It was the go-to shop as it was closest to the tennis court wall – the epicentre of village life. The Dormans were an English family. There was always some scandal afoot regarding them; but this was adult stuff of no interest to me. Their son, Jeremy, was very well spoken, academic, skipper of the Moby Dick and lifeboat crew. I thought this was very cool indeed.
Mr Duffy, briefly, sold chips, burgers and the like from a sash window into what would, I presume, otherwise have been their front room. The chips were interesting because they were more McDonalds fries than end-of-the-pier soggy door wedges. Such counted as exotic back then. Duffy’s then became a post office. Postcards and stamps didn’t do it for me.
Elsewhere in the village Peggy Whelton had a shop with a green door. You didn’t know if she was open until you tried at the latch. The original post office was Fleming’s, and close by were O’Driscoll’s, O’Donovan’s and Harte’s the butchers, all at the other end of the village. Unlike Peggy’s, these were undoubtedly shops as they had their names emblazoned above the door. Harte’s had that traditional blue shiny glazed brickwork beneath its window.
O’Driscoll’s never seemed to close. Late at night you could knock on the door to the adjacent accommodation and, confusingly, Mrs O’Donovan would attend to your evening munchies (or was it Mrs O’Driscoll serving at O’Donovan’s?). One of my cohorts used to love the late night visits. He would engage her in seemingly no end of chit chat and gossip. He would mimic and even better her thick Cork accent until I had no idea what either of them were prattling on about. I just wanted to eat!
In the late 1970s Burke’s caravan park opened at the seaward end of the village. This had its own shop which opened relatively early of a morning. There was also a well maintained tennis court which you could book. It was very popular. You’d sometimes have to wait hours for your turn.
The caravan was my favourite place to stay. Every meal was up close and personal. The view of the boats entering & leaving the bay was second to none and I got to sleep in the living area in a choice of directions. And our dog was able to come with us. The ascent to the van was a challenge and its distance from the village centre was a drawback. I started taking my bike on holidays to help lessen the effort. I never locked the bike, leaving it quite safely wherever.
About the same time the Coastguard station reopened as holiday lets. I dreaded staying there because it was such a mighty climb up the wet lane to fetch swimmers, fishing rod or, most likely, to be fed. The place was owned by a British couple, the Mearns. They lived in the central tower. It was beautiful inside. Occasionally, my mother and I would be invited in when buying homemade, frozen lasagnes, chicken pies and the such. Delicious.
For a few years there was a boat outside which lifeboat coxswain Sammy Mearns was working on. The boat used to be local fishing boat the Moby Dick. That meant, of course, that Sammy had to get it up the very, very steep, bumpy, narrow, wet lane. We have a photo of its epic slow ascent. I suppose more fraught was its descent after countless hours refurbishment.
We also spent a few summers in ‘Sea View’ holiday lets. They were very like the Coastguard cottages, only at street level. There was a bus stop outside simply denoted by a lollipop-style sign stuck in a concrete block. One morning an old lady walked in on us having breakfast. “Oh”, she said, “what a lovely bus shelter.”
Once my brother and sister were of an age when they did their own thing for Summer, myself and my parents lived it up somewhat, staying in the Hotel. We had the room directly above the entrance. We used the roof of the porch as a private balcony. The hotel back then stood alone - no adjacent flats or holiday homes. Outside the dining room was a grass tennis court. There was a residents’ library opposite reception and the bar was a modest affair tucked away at the back. It was far more serene. I imagine it was much the same in Kitty’s day.
I also spent a few summers staying with cousins and friends in houses they had rented, such as White O’Morn, the Blacks and the Chaillets house - and at Miss Love’s.
Miss Love’s was incredible.
Brother & sister, Robbie and Tina Love were like characters from a Dickensian novel. Robbie was, seemingly, the only villager that got up before 10am. I would see him with a yoke across his shoulders, a wooden bucket either side, off to fetch water from the well half way up the wet lane. This puzzled me because I knew Loves’ guest house had running water so how come the other half of the house didn’t? There were also several bright yellow water hydrants throughout the village providing water on tap. I think the buckets may, actually, have been for potatoes, and his proximity to the wet lane coincidental. Or maybe he just liked fresh spring water.
Tina had poor movement – bad legs. She shuffled about using her walking frame, but for the most part chose to sit in her shop window, amongst display cereal boxes bleached as white as her hip length hair by umpteen years exposure. I can confidently assert that they were, indeed, Kellogg’s cornflake boxes, because I remembered from one year to the next – and they never moved. Miss Love would sit among the boxes, surrounded by her cats, equally white and menacing, for hours on end, just observing the village comings and goings. Nothing escaped her scrutiny.
On the last day of our holiday my dad would make his annual call to stock up on ‘Old Time Irish’ marmalade for the 50 weeks till next time. These were stored behind the counter. Everything was behind the counter; except the tin posters promoting the virtues of Pear’s soap, Lifebuoy and Fry’s cocoa. One of them depicted a sailor complete in bright yellow sou’wester and galoshes.
(I found this photo of Robbie & Tina in Miss Love’s the day the house was being demolished. It may have been taken directly outside their house sometime in the 1950s? I have sent the original to her nephew in Canada)
My cousins, the Currans, rented the holiday let side of Loves’ all summer. It had been bought by Tina & Robbie’s grandfather in about 1910 with his severance pay from the Boer War. He had kitted it out with Zulu shields, spears and even a massive stuffed python mounted on the wall going up the stairs. All were still there.
The only toilet was outside. It had a fixed, woodworm-riddled, horseshoe seat. The flush was courtesy of the rain tank above, which formed the roof. Toilet visits were greatly frowned upon during the long hot summer of 1976.
Terrifyingly, there was a connecting door between the 2 houses. It was locked, of course, but you could peer through into the adjoining bedroom. All it had in it was an iron bedstead and a chair. Was this Tina’s bedroom? Could she unlock the door and come to us in the middle of the night?
When it was a wet summer we spent a lot of time in the Currans’ parlour room playing cards. This would often get very raucous, especially when playing ‘Pig’. Sometimes our late night yelping and hollering would be abruptly interrupted by a sharp tapping at the window. I still shudder at the revelation, as the blinds were drawn up, of Miss Love’s gummy wizened face, her long skanky white hair and beady bespectacled eyes pressed up tight against the window, walking stick held aloft, telling us to be quiet. After the screaming had subsided and our heart rates had dipped below cardiac arrest we’d find something more sedate to do, our enthusiasms curbed. Imagine waking in the dead of night and finding that same face peering down at you in your bed. That inter-connecting door scared the bejaypers out of me.
Next door was the Pier House pub. I remember the day the landlady, Nora Young died, and the hearse was parked outside. A crowd gathered to show their respects. Myself and Brian Curran had to pass by it to get to their place next door. The hub caps were very highly polished and curved such that looking into them was like the Hall of Mirrors. Big face, little face, upside down. Great fun.
Uncle Phil, one of the attendees, grabbed us both and hauled us away. It was the only time I recall anyone being cross with us on holidays. My father happened to come along later and remarked to a stander-by what an impressive turnout it was to ‘see her off’. “Oh yes,” said the man, “she had intercourse with everyone in the village”…..
Next door again was Burke’s, later Aubin’s. It looked like a garage to me. There was a single, red fuel pump in the front. It clearly hadn’t dispensed anything for a very long time. Jim Burke seems to have been the local entrepreneur. He had an abandoned boat moored alongside the pier. This was great fun to play on. You had to make sure though that you didn’t play on board too long. As the tide went down it got increasingly hard to get off. I was hauled up to safety on many occasions.
There were numerous abandoned properties. On the pier was ‘Ken’s Kabin’. Said so on it. Doorway, window, bench platform. About the size of a small car. No idea who Ken was or what he used his cabin for. A few doors away from the pier there was an abandoned house. All was exactly as the occupant had left it, in some considerable haste. The table was still laid out with breakfast.
There was also the boathouse on the way to the point where my mother and I buried a treasure of seashells and the twin fronted boathouse in front of the hotel. I found a huge Waterford cut glass crystal bowl in there (I left it there, obviously).The most remarkable though, was Kincraigie House.
Until I was 15 or so I had never even heard of it. One day, in search of lead for fishing weights, my friend took me to a laurel bush to the side of the hotel. We crawled through the bush. Seemed very ‘Stig of the Dump’ or ‘Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. A path then opened up, a sort of tunnel through trees - increasingly exotic trees such as Cedar of Lebanons. All most surreal. Then a magnificent mansion. .
We climbed through the sash window. On the desk was a Bakelite phone, still plugged in. There was a strong-room with an iron studded door. There were bells to call the servants to attend the various rooms. In the hall was a very grand, sweeping oak staircase. In the bedrooms above, ornate rose ceilings. In the grounds outside livery stables, pigsties, garages, courtyards, a tennis court, orchard; the works. All just crumbling away (much hastened by missing lead!). There were tales of owners fleeing post-war Germany….
Sweets & treats
Chocolate! So much chocolate. We were on our ‘hollyers’ as my dad would say. That meant we could eat whatever we wanted. And as much as we wanted. For me, that principally meant chocolate. For months I’d squirrel away pocket money to build up my holiday fund. It was so much I could comfortably afford to buy the rest of my gang, my cousins, goodies too.
Cadbury’s Ireland produced all sorts of pocket-sized bars that just weren’t available in the UK (no ordering on the internet from overseas in those days). There were the trusty stalwarts still thriving today - Tiffin, Golden Crisp, Mint Crisp and regular Dairy Milk, Wholenut and Fruit & Nut. Then there were the flavoured fillings. Lemon & Lime, Turkish Delight, Butterscotch, Rum Butter, Caramello and one which was dark chocolate and milk chocolate with a fondant centre. What was that called? I’m thinking ‘Black & Tan’, but surely not!
A boy can’t live on chocolate alone though. There was also ice cream. No such thing as ‘HB’ in England. My favourite was Iceburger, but I’d sometimes mix it up with a Brunch instead; or possibly a Wibbly Wobbly Wonder. My cousin was a strictly Loop the Loop sort. My mum just liked the taste of plain HB. Boring. As I recall, plain white HB on a stick was marketed under a rather inappropriate name. And let’s not discuss the picture on the wrapper!
And, of course, Tayto crisps. Oh my.
My uncle had a thing for ‘hole-in-the-wall’ pubs. I didn’t know what this meant (still don’t), but he and I, aged about 16, went to visit some, in Kinsale. He bought me pints of cider in each one. I had never drunk pints before and felt pretty rough on the long, winding drive home along the coast. The same uncle took my brother along the same coast road to pick mussels which my brother eagerly consumed later that evening. He was so, so sick. I thought he was going to die. He thought he was going to die.
In my uncle’s defence though, it was only last year that I discovered that ‘Cidona’ was/is a soft drink. I don’t know why it took me so long to figure this out. My kindly uncle may have been buying, or I may have been asking for, fizzy apple juice all along. Can’t think of any mitigation regards the mussels, except that eating such had never poisoned my uncle before. He didn’t eat mussels. The site they harvested was immediately downstream of a pig farm.
The end of the holiday, or the last day the branches of the family would spend together, was celebrated with a treasure hunt. These were epic events set by my father & mother. All the clues were cryptic and the answers up for discussion. If you argued your case well, you could get bonus points even though you were wrong! Teams were selected randomly-ish. Basically my parents put us in teams of an older cousin with a younger one. Then we’d be driven to different points around the village with staggered starts so that we didn’t just follow one another. Other villagers were always intrigued why we were all wandering around gawping up at lamp posts, interrogating manhole covers or counting bricks!
The final clue always brought us to the sweet shop for our bounty – a huge bag of sweets. Then we’d gather to hear the answers and argue the toss. Every year each team thought they’d nailed it. Never so. In its final incantation I, in the ‘baby’ group, was paired with my brother’s friend, Courtmac novice & treasure hunt virgin, Tim Smith. The others laughed but I was wise to my parents’ devious ways by then, and we won. My sister swears we didn’t go round in pairs, but groups. I think, maybe, she was cheating.
The whole venture was a vehicle to get rid of all the kids for several hours whilst the parents enjoyed a last supper together. Alternatively, If we had an esteemed guest, such as a visiting grandparent, (or I suppose my parents couldn’t face setting a treasure hunt) we dined out miles and miles and miles away. It felt like a day’s drive – at the West Cork Hotel in Skibbereen. A best behaviour, best bib & tucker event. There was an iron bridge outside that was the backdrop of many staged family snaps.
More often though, thankfully, the Pink Elephant was the venue of choice. The place was dark and complicated then. It was a shrine to disaster at sea nearby. Needless to say, the Lusitania featured heavily and the owner, Mr Wafer, was quite an authority. Ask him anything you like. Go on.
For some reason you ate round the back, away from the magnificent view. I remember lots of pink frilly napkins, lace and tablecloths, and eating a lot of breadsticks. Waiting, waiting, more breadsticks, still waiting.
(l-r: Cathal Minehane,Brian?, Feena Cochlain, Rebecca Archer, Stuart Dudley, John Curran, Sue Archer, Marc Archer, Niamh Minehane)
For lesser occasions, there was the Hotel. Duck a l’orange. Always Duck a l’orange. The 70s, the 80s, the 90s. I stayed there again in 2011 and 2015. Still Duck a l’orange, And still, amazingly, served by the same waitress. She must hate the sight of duck a l’orange.
If your timing was right (or wrong as far as my parents were concerned) the holiday would coincide with the Harbour Festival. As in decades past and through to the present this meant a week of competitions and activities. Lots of people and ‘chipper’ vans dispensing well into the night. The highlight for me was the sea angling competitions where, across the numerous categories over several days, 1000s of fish could be caught.
If both your timing was right AND it wasn’t raining you might get to play in the tennis competition at Ummera. This combo didn’t happen very often.
(l-r Mary O’Shea, Gemma Oloyede, Marc Archer, Mark de Foubert, Eugene Curran, Tim Smith – blue jeans, Robin Walsh, John Curran, Rebecca Archer)
Dunworley
Places seemed so much further away in the 70s. A trip to Dunworley beach involved a huge amount of organising. Not only was there the logistics of how to get there, whom to take and what to pack, but you also had to consider the tide. In all the years, we never seemed to master what the tide was doing. I think this may have been because there was such a lag between having the idea and actually getting there.
If you fancied going in the morning – forget it, never going to happen. For starters, no adults even woke up before 11am, let alone got themselves organised. Many a lunchtime outing to the beach was scuppered by my aunt & uncle still being in bed, well into the afternoon.
Dunworley was far more dangerous back then. The cliff edges were unfenced. You parked wherever you dare. The slip was a mixture of natural near-vertical shards of rock and highly polished weed & slime-strewn slabs. Ascending was hard work: so much so that many opted for the ‘cross country’ route up the cliffs.
The sea was, of course, always freezing, but there were numerous huge pools under the cliffs. These were much warmer and entirely on sand. You could fashion all sorts of waterways coming from them. I always felt slightly uncomfortable in them because they were stagnant – didn’t seem quite right. And they were deceptively deep. Water cascaded unabated from fields above. Lord only knows what sort of chemicals the water carried. The pools aren’t there anymore. Better farm management?
Having invested so much in getting all and sundry there, you could bank on being at Dunworley for a long time. The adults would find their spot and hanker down for the day. Books, newspapers, knitting. Sometimes the tide coming in and engulfing the beach was welcome relief.
(l-r Phil Curran, Brideen Archer, Brian Curran, Cumain Curran, Clare Power, Rebecca Archer at back, Declan Curran?, Marc Archer, John Curran, Phillip Curran. Boy at back fiddling with his pants – Me) The car is probably the one we all got there in!
Today there is an abandoned pub in absolute prime location on top of the cliffs. I don’t recall this ever being open as a pub. Maybe I was too young. There was, however, a house on the way to Blindstrand that sold ice-creams from a chest freezer in the front porch.
Although it is only 6 miles from Courtmac to Dunworley the journey could take a long time. At some point it was inevitable that you would get stuck behind a tractor, or have to stop in your tracks whilst cattle crossed, or get stuck behind a traditional horse-shoe shaped horse-drawn caravan or horse and trap, which were quite commonplace. If you journeyed on a Sunday then you ran the additional risk of having to stop altogether whilst a road bowling match took place. Road bowling is basically golf played on public roads.
When we had a free run, my cousin and I used to enjoy sticking our heads out the windows and ‘nee-nahing’ at the top of our lungs like emergency vehicles. It must have been so annoying. When it was us 3 siblings we used to kneel on the back seat with our hands behind our backs at all times (very important) looking out the rear window. We would then fall about as dad drove at speed round corners to fling us about. As the baby I was always on the hump in the middle. This meant I got squished whichever way the bend went; but never that badly.
Boats & Fishing
I would dream all year of fishing adventures. I had a green rod which I took to Courtmac every year. I never used it anywhere else. No matter how much care I took it used to get in such a tangle. I fished off the pier, at the coves on the way to the point, at the point. I was hopeless. I never caught anything on it- except seaweed.
I also had a string line, with multiple feathers, wrapped round a square frame of wood. This was for fishing off the side of a boat. I caught plenty with this.
The boat I used to go out on was the Valhalla. It was owned by Eamon Beechner. He didn’t really operate it as a business, more a leisure pursuit. As such, he would go out when it took his fancy. My friend, however, Conor Hyde, was his neighbour and used to crew for him. He would give me the nod when a trip was likely.
On such a morning I would awake early. I was staying in the coastguard cottages at this time so I had a good view of the bay. I’d commandeer the binoculars and fix my sights on the Valhalla’s mooring, looking for signs of a rowing boat approaching. Then, it was a mad dash to get to the pier before they headed out to sea without me.
My place was never guaranteed – depended on how many guests they had and who was crewing. Fulfilment of my dream was at old man Beechner’s whimsy. If Mrs Beechner was on board though, I was a shoe-in. She had a soft spot for me. The Beechners had been good friends with my grandfather, Paddy Cochlain, whom they held in high esteem. I didn’t let them forget I was his grandson!
Unfortunately, I was pretty rubbish at catching anything other than suicidal mackerel who flung themselves at my feathers. I would try to get more interesting, bottom-dwelling fish like cod. I just ended up getting stuck and losing loads of weights. It really annoyed old man Beechner.
We would be out all day and I LOVED it. The rougher the better. One time, fishing was dire so we all took up our lines, very disappointed, to head home. One of the guests then discovered he had an enormous cod on his line. It was jigh-blummin-normous! After much flapping about with boathooks we landed it. It was nearly as long as my out-stretched arms. I remember a buyer back at the pier paid him a small fortune for it. More than my entire holiday fund.
Another time we pulled up alongside what looked like a whale’s tail sticking out of the water, its flukes horizontal. It stayed like that for quite some time, just wafting gently. Maybe it was a Basking shark? We even went shark fishing once. We mashed up loads of mackerel into ‘rubby dubby’ to entice the sharks; but we didn’t catch any. I’m kind of relieved.
Shark fishing was big back then. This was the post Jaws movie era and there was no consideration for preserving stocks. Sometimes charter boats like the Moby Dick, St. Molaga, Mark Anthony, Blue Whale and Lowlander would land several Blue Sharks. Beautiful creatures. I would rub their skins – smooth as silk from gills to tail, sharp as sandpaper the reverse direction.
They’d be weighed, photos taken, teeth often cut out for keepsakes, and then left to rot. Their stomachs would emerge from their bottoms and their eyes frost over. Eventually, someone would kick them over the edge of the pier. For the next few days you could, at low tide, see the crabs consuming them. Horrendous waste. Similar happened with conger eels, though, bizarrely, on more than one occasion I saw a ‘dead’ conger kicked into the sea swim away.
My favourite fishing boat was the Larry O’Rourke. It was wood clinker-built and I thought it looked the business - shiny jet black with white ‘go faster’ rubbing strakes, 2 wheelhouse doors and an unnecessarily showy, huge whip aerial. It was the bad boy of fishing boats. Every year I would check the plaque outside the Lifeboat station detailing call-outs. The Larry was always just ahead; always getting into trouble. This added to its mystique.
(anti-clockwise: Waving, Brideen Archer, Cumain Curran, Mary O’Shea (?), Claire Power (?), Brona and Feena Cochlain)
Its skipper was quite the roguish type, but his name wasn’t Larry, nor was it even O’Rourke. It wasn’t owned by Larry, or O’Rourke. There wasn’t anyone, as far as I knew, with that name resident. ‘Twas all a bit of a mystery to me.
So it was that whenever I entered the Harbour Festival fishing competition I hoped & prayed I would be allotted to the coolest boat ever. One year it actually happened. I was so thrilled. But then, just moments before cast off, an event organiser called down to us assembled anglers asking for 2 to swap to another boat. They needed to even the numbers. My aunt, THE FOOL, gleefully volunteered us. I was gutted!
I never got to set foot on the Larry again. Last I heard, he (aren’t boats supposed to be female?) had been sold to a man in Cape Clear.
Throughout all these years the lifeboat was the Helen Wycherly. A regal looking boat – classic lines. A visit to Courtmac just wasn’t the same unless the lifeboat was called out. So exciting. The enormous firework flare and thunderous crack put the whole village on high alert. Myself and Dervla Sheehy happened to be chatting outside the lifeboat station one time when the signal was set off. Perfect timing.
The most memorable such ‘shout’ came on the 14th August 1979 in response to the infamous Fastnet Race disaster. My mother and I watched the launch from our caravan vantage point. We continued to follow them well past disappearing from sight via a shortwave radio my mother had tuned in to the coastguard frequency. Off they went, into the storm.
News of the disaster, and how many boats were affected, began to filter through. Unusually, the lifeboat had not returned by bedtime. It was the early hours of the next day, the 15th, when my mother woke me from my makeshift crib beneath the caravan’s front window. The lifeboat had rescued a yacht, the Casse Tete V, and was towing it into the village!
When we got to the pier the place was heaving. People had come from near and far to welcome the heroes back. It was like Regatta Day but in the dead of night. The Pier House opened. There was a tremendous collective pride. The place was buzzing.
Not quite on the same epic scale, we had a few nautical adventures of our own. One fine day my Dad took us out in a boat. My poor mother - watching as her husband, perpetual fag in mouth, set out to sea in a rickety borrowed rowing boat with her 3 kids on board, plus a visiting cousin. Naturally, there were no lifejackets or safety equipment of any description.
My Dad had the boat for the day. He no doubt wanted to get his money’s worth and he was never one to do things by half. He rowed us out a LONG way. My kin weren’t quite the seafarer I was. I got to eat all the jam sandwiches.
I recently discussed this photo with my brother (in yellow, head down trying to block out the horror of a future adrift mid-Atlantic). “What land is that in the distance?” I asked. “Barry’s Point? The Old Head of Kinsale?”
“Greenland, I reckon”.
Then there was the Currans row boat, ‘Be’. It had an outboard motor as well but, on its first ever launch, cousin Declan dropped it in the surf. It continued to work, but when it felt like it. It never worked both outbound and back. We became quite adept at rowing. As the eldest of the young group of cousins and friends I was deemed the responsible one. I hadn’t a clue!
The ‘Frying Pan’ was a favourite swimming and sunbathing spot beyond the point, round the headland. The slate grey, smooth, near-vertical South-facing cliff acted as a heat trap and the deep waters were relatively sheltered and clear. Great for diving – if you were brave enough, and fit enough to descend to the diving areas and confident you could get out again. I wasn’t. But I was fool enough to venture there by boat; Curran boat.
Getting in was straightforward enough – we just lined the bow up under power and rode in on a wave. We anchored and went for a swim. Getting out of the Frying Pan was another matter. For starters, the anchor wouldn’t budge. My dad had to haul it free from the cliffs. The outboard then failed and we had to row out against the surf, which was picking up. I later crossed the Atlantic in a yacht and sailed all over the World in ships of various size and condition with the Merchant Navy, but this was the only time I felt certain we were going to come-a-cropper. Somehow, after much shouting and frantic oar work, we got lucky and slipped out to sea…to do it all again another day.
The tennis court wall
For the most part we stayed within the confines of the village. In fair weather the tennis court wall was THE place to hang out. All gangs, young and old, would gather atop the tennis court at the heart of the village, ostensibly to watch those playing below.
The tennis court was between the shore (obviously at sea level) and the main road through the village, which was about 12ft above. It was at the very heart of the village, opposite the Anchor Bar and close to shops. If you wanted to find anyone, try the tennis court wall. Hanging out there kept you in the loop of comings & goings. You’d not miss out on a trip to Dunworley if you were at the tennis court wall.
The court was owned by old man Noble Ruddock who lived in the house adjacent. His had once been a boat-builder’s yard. The front of his house was at road level, the rear was held aloft on stilts coming up from the foreshore. In front of the stilts, seaward, was a line of posts. I think these formed part of a boat pen many years beforehand. Similarly, there were the curved remnant ribs of a sizable boat immediately in front of the tennis court. These acted like dip measures for how far in the tide was. Between Ruddock’s and the tennis court was a slipway.
Watching was free – no charge for sitting on a wall; but you were supposed to pay Noble for the hire of the court. Doing so would give you precedence over the freeloaders. Paying wasn’t cool.
If you were wuss enough to pay, you first had to call at Ruddock’s place. I was such wuss. His front door opened onto a large, highly polished wood-floored room. Noble, with a slightly stooped posture, would make his way slowly toward you. It reminded me of butler Brackett’s long and deliberate walk to answer Lord Belborough’s phone in ‘Chigley’.
When he did finally get to the door you were met by a softly spoken dignified gentleman. His speech was even slower than his walk. When you’re a teenager time is of the essence. I left feeling sorry for having disturbed him so.
Of course, the cool thing to do was just to wait your turn and take over from the departing incumbents. I use the word ‘turn’ loosely. It wasn’t a linear arrangement. The order of play was highly flexible. Negotiations were constant and, oh my goodness, woe-betide an absentee player buying a drink or arranging travel to the beach when his or her time was called. The queue, therefore, loved a 6-0 thrashing. Deuces, lets, second serves and, let’s face it, rallies, just kept you waiting. Humdinger matches weren’t appreciated.
One Summer I was holidaying with the Chaillets who lived across the road from the tennis court, up on the ‘terrace’, another layer up again. The tennis court was like an extension of their living room. Theirs was the go-to house if you needed to borrow a racket or ran out of balls. They stocked an arsenal of tennis gubbins and every other match seemed to involve a member of their household.
I had arrived early. My hosts were out so I whiled away my time on the tennis court wall – just watching, no intention to play. There was a fierce match going on below. The losing player was using an impressive array of expletives. Very naughty words indeed. Some I’d never even heard of. It was enough to make a pirate blush. My host, Marc Henri, soon arrived and joined me on the wall. “That guy’s really angry. Who is he?” I asked. “Oh, that’s Dave. He’s staying with us as well. You’re sharing a room. He’s a priest” !!
And talking of ‘cool’, there was the wuss way and there was the proper way to enter exit the tennis arena. At some point there had been steps directly from the road to the court. All that remained in my day was a single step at the top and a wonky steel handrail, highly polished by 100s of grasping young hands. THIS was the way from wall to baseline. Unfortunately, for a weed like myself, it was the only credible way to get back up as well. Oh the shame leaving court via the gate and ascending the slip.
Fortunately, it wasn’t a sheer wall. About 3 foot from the top was a ledge about 2 foot wide. It was easy enough to toss your racket onto this step ahead of hauling yourself up the rail, monkey-style. Throwing loose tennis balls up was trickier. From the ledge, player, racket and balls reunited could then make the final assault and re-join the village collective. Anyone who had dropped from the roadside wall to sit on the interior ledge was clearly planning to take over the court.
If your tennis was wild enough that you hit the ball over the wall onto the road, no problem – there was always someone up there to fetch it for you. If you hit the ball over the fence seaward, more problematic. You’d have to run down the slip and carefully thread your way over slimy seaweed-strewn rocks. All without getting your runners (trainers) covered in slippery gunk. If you were lucky, a kind spectator would do so for you. It was something to do. When the tide was fully in, however, the sea lapped at the base of the court so I’m afraid it was adios ball - unless you had a well-trained dog.
There seemed to be a lot of dogs in the village. My grandparents had a very aggressive mutt. It looked like a tired, used mop head, with teeth and attitude. His name was pronounced ‘Roadie’. He guarded the terrace, living from one fight to the next.
Noble Ruddock had Rover, a springer spaniel with seriously matted hair and docked tail, always furiously wagging. Not sure if owner or pet was the older. And there was an elderly couple called the Jacobs. They holidayed with their Kerry blue terrier, Oscar. He looked ‘posh’, but was always in a bad mood.
My aunt had a scruffy, docile, black & white shih tzui called Ming and the Sheehys had a lovely chocolate Labrador called Max. For trips to Dunworley, myself, mum Katherine, Dervla and Maurice Sheehy, plus Max and all the beach paraphernalia such as picnic hamper, blankets, towels, chairs, swimming cossies and the such, somehow, all squeezed into their modest Fiat coupe. Good job Max was so amiable. And Maurice, for that matter.
There were other dogs besides. You’d pass them trotting down the road, usually in the middle of it, owners far behind - or still at home. Car drivers would have to anticipate where the dog might choose to drift. Some gave chase. One year there was a beautiful looking stray with alluring ‘please love me’ eyes that followed me around. Very cute. In fairness, she probably did so because I was always with food.
We even bought our own puppy, Ruadh, one Summer. Living in central England we had no idea how much he loved being in the sea. It was a struggle to get him away from Dunworley. Whilst us kids and our Dad endured a cramped 15 hour drive and ferry crossing to and fro, young Ruadh, accompanied by our mother, got to fly over. Pretty neat trick Ma.
The adults afforded us marvellous freedoms back then. We headed out to sea in all manner of dodgy craft. We had night time barbeques at the coves. That meant walking through pitch black woods, a potential fall into the sea just feet away, playing with fire and eating meats that were simultaneously burnt and raw. We were allowed to explore dilapidated buildings, race bikes on the pier, hang out with whomsoever, play anywhere. The sort of liberties that keep social services busy these days.
Times have moved on. The days of nothing much happening constituting a great holiday have passed. Kids being left to make their own entertainment doesn’t really cut it any more. But Courtmac is still as beautiful as ever. Perhaps the next generation will form different, new memories. I hope so.