Cures for the Whooping Cough circa 1950. By Pádraig Turley

If I may paraphrase Dylan Thomas , I am not sure if I was six years of age when I had the misfortune to get the whooping cough that lasted five weeks or I was five years of age and it lasted six weeks. I was then living in Clerhane, a townland near Shannonbridge with my mother, her parents and my uncle. My father was living in Dublin, where he worked as a mechanic. He and his father had run a public house in Shannonbridge in the hungry thirties, and when it did not do very well he was forced to go to Dublin to seek work.

Margaret Turley (nee Claffey)

So to set the scene for the little generational tug of war I am about to relate, my grandfather Michael Claffey was from Bloomhill, Ballinahown and was born in 1868. His wife, my grandmother was an Elizabeth Molloy from Parkwood, Moote, County Offaly and was born in 1880. My uncle Joe was born in 1918 , and my mother Margaret had been born in 1914. We all lived in a three roomed thatched cottage, which did not have electricity or piped water, on a farm which also included a quarry.

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Memories of the old days on Charleville Road, John Mahon, sleeping sickness, school to the nuns, O’Moore Street people, Mrs Kenny’s dancehall, Mahons of Killurin and more. Part 2, By Nuala Holland (nee Mahon)

You can read part 1 of this story on Offalyhistoryblog. This is our 51st blog this year and have had almost 16,000 readers. Enjoy this one and thanks to all our contributors living and remembered. Nuala Holland, now deceased, late of Charleville Road, Tullamore lived in England in her later years. About fifteen years ago she wrote for Offaly History of her childhood memories in Tullamore. She was a daughter of Sean or John Mahon (the county accountant with the first Offaly County Council) and her mother hailed from Kerry.  They lived at Knockaulin, Charleville road. This was one of the first of the new houses on Charleville Road and was almost opposite the entrance to Dew Park on the Birr side. Nuala recalled the War of Independence, saving turf in Ballard bog, and schooling and living in Tullamore. Part one appeared in our blog last week. This week Nuala has recalled for us her own father John Mahon, the sleeping sickness in Tullamore, school in Bury Quay, Killeavy’s butcher’s stall, some people who lived in O’Moore Street and Mrs Kenny of the Tullamore musical  family.