One day, Seán ‘An Cóta’ Caomhánach, brother of the famous Kruger from back in Dunquin, came in to see me at Davy Byrnes. He said, ‘Mike! My head! I have nothing left but the sockets of my eyes.’ He explained that he was out drinking the previous night with some fellas from the college until two or three o’clock in the morning. I made him a whiskey sour. It’s made from the white of an egg, a dash each of lemon, sugar and angostura bitters, mixed with Irish whiskey and all shaken up together in a big glass. He drank it right down in one big gulp. He stood up and his face got red as a lobster and his body shook all over. He paid me, thanked me and walked right out the door. He said he was as good as new.
Shortly after I arrived at Davy Byrnes, Boland sold the place to the Doran family from Marlborough Street. I thought that the Dorans were a kind of high-falutin’ people. Jack Doran was a great lover of horse racing. He used to wear a red carnation in his jacket lapel all the time. After the Dorans bought the place, the staff had to wear a white vest and a bowtie. I thought it was ridiculous.
I was fortunate to meet a lot of famous Dublin artists and writers in Davy Byrnes when they would come in for a drink or two. There was Brendan Behan, the author, and Patrick Kavanagh, the poet. And I met a couple of great painters, including Seán O’Sullivan, Harry Kernoff and Cecil Salkeld, whose painting called Morning, Noon and Night is still hanging on the wall of the place.
From the Abbey Theatre, we had Lennox Robinson, one of the producers and directors, and actors Cyril Cusack, Dennis O’Dea and Michael O’Brien. And we had actresses Eileen Crowe and Maureen Delaney. They all had great reputations in the theatre. Sometimes they would come around and be really friendly to me – when they were thirsty and out of money. They’d say ‘put it on “tick”’, a running tab. After the Dorans bought the place, I had to tell them that there was no more ‘tick’ or I’d get fired. My friends didn’t like the new policy one bit.
The Dorans renovated the place. But I almost cried when I saw what they did to the historic back room. They turned it into a cocktail lounge. I thought it was very unpatriotic of them.
Senior Barman: Hennessey’s and Hughes’
After two years at Davy Byrnes I became a senior barman – I was twenty-two years old at the time. That meant that I was qualified to be a manager and could run the whole bar. They called this job the ‘foreman’. Those jobs were posted in the union hall and you applied if you were interested.
I looked at the list of openings and saw a posting for a foreman at Hennessey’s pub at the corner of Belmont Avenue and Morehampton Road in Donnybrook in south Dublin. The foreman at Hennessey’s was in hospital with tuberculosis. I applied and got the job. This new position paid more money, of course. I was now making £8 a week.
I lived in a digs on Morehampton Road for a couple of months and then moved into a flat on Belmont Avenue. I shared the place with my first cousin, Eileen Kearney, who had been involved in the knitting project back on the island. She had since been moved to Dublin by the government, at the age of sixteen. Her father was my uncle Pats Tom. Eventually, she would emigrate to America.
I was working at Hennessey’s for about a year when the man who was out sick came back. He had the right to claim his old job back. But I had plenty of notice of his return, so I started looking for another job. The union posted an opening at Hughes’ pub on Dorset Street off O’Connell Street, near Parnell Square in the heart of Dublin. The owner, Martin Hughes, was sick in the hospital or sanitarium, another case of tuberculosis. His wife Helen did not have much knowledge about running the place. I got the job and spent almost four years there.
I had to run the whole business, manage the drink, the money, the employees and sometimes even the customers. This is where I learned how to be a good administrator and to manage people. By the time I left Dublin in 1948, my pay was £8 10p a week. That was very good money in them days.
I moved to new digs at 22 Dargle Road in Drumcondra to be closer to my job at Hughes’. I lived there for about four years.
As time went on, I got over my regret that I had not become a schoolteacher. I got accustomed to it and moved on with my new career. In fact, I was doing better financially than a schoolteacher. My friend Caoimhín Ó Cinnéide from West Kerry used to some in to see me at Hughes’. He said, ‘Mike Carney, you’re a lucky man that you didn’t become a schoolteacher.’ The teachers went on strike in 1947 because they were making only £5 a week, compared to my £8.
Home from Dublin on vacation in 1942, Mike Carney spends time with cousin Mairéad Ní Chearna (later Mairéad Kearney Shea).
Caoimhín was my second cousin. His grandfather, Micheál Ó Catháin, came from the island. My grandmother, Máirín ‘Mhuiris’ Uí Cheárna, and his mother, Eibhlín Ní Chatháin, were first cousins. Caoimhín grew up in Moorestown in West Kerry and passed the Preparatory Exam when he graduated from St Erc’s School. From there, he went to St Patrick’s Training College in Drumcondra, in County Dublin, for teacher training. For a couple of months, Caoimhín stayed with me in my old digs on Morehampton Road back when I was working at Hennessey’s.
One time when the schoolteachers were out on strike, they were marching and holding placards up around Parnell Square. In the afternoon, Caoimhín and my other teacher friends would come in to visit me at the pub. Of course, while they were on strike they were getting only about £1 a week from the union. So I took care of them with drink. It was the least I could do to help them out.
Once in a while, I’d go to the dog races in the evening with Caoimhín at Shelbourne Park or Harold’s Cross. We cycled on our bikes or took the bus. These tracks were always packed with people hoping to make a few extra quid. There were lots of ‘hot tips’ flying all around. Well, we certainly didn’t make a fortune, but we didn’t lose much either. It was great fun.
Hughes’ pub was a popular gathering spot for people from West Kerry who would come to Dublin to visit or to support their sports teams. The West Kerry people knew I was working there, and it became a regular hang-out. Murt Kelly, Batt Garvey, Paddy Kennedy and other famous Kerry footballers would often come in for a drink – or more.
One time, Paddy Sheehy from Dunquin came in to see me at Hughes’. He was very upset. His wife Maureen had back problems and was in the Mater Hospital in Dublin. Kerry County Council wanted £50 to pick up his wife and take her back to Dunquin by ambulance. Of course, he was beside himself because he did not have that kind of money.
A friend of mine from Davy Byrnes, Éamon Kissane from north Kerry, was a TD in Dáil Éireann. I called him and told him the story. His secretary took down all the details. After a couple of hours, he called me back. ‘Tell your friend’, he said, ‘that the ambulance will be at the hospital tomorrow morning to take the two of them back to Dunquin. And there’ll be no charge.’
I told Sheehy the good news. He put his arms around me and I thought he would squeeze the life out of me. He was crying and told me: ‘Mike Carney, when I see your father, I will tell him all about this. He’ll be very proud of you.’
Working in the pub was a pain in the neck sometimes. You had to listen to people complain about everything. You had to answer the phone and talk to the mother or the wife or the girlfriend trying to get their man out of there. They’d always say, ‘Don’t give him any more drink.’
The last time I was back in Dublin in 2006, I checked with a barman at Davy Byrnes and you don’t have to serve your time as an apprentice and a junior barman any more. Now it’s just show up and you’re hired. It’s not like the old days.
Second World War
I lived in Dublin almost eleven years, from 1937 to 1948. The Second World War was fought and won during my stay. I remember the day that Britain declared war on Germany. It was 3 September 1939. It was a dark day indeed. I was walking down O’Connell Street in Dublin that afternoon in a pouring rain with my cousin, Muiris Sé. We were trying to figure out where we would go later that night in search of a good time after work.
It happened to be the day
of an All-Ireland Hurling final, between Kilkenny and Cork. Christy Ring played for Cork that day. He was a hell of a hurler, one of the best ever. Naturally, Cork won. I didn’t go to the game that day, because I had to work.
Somewhere along O’Connell Street we picked up word of Britain’s declaration of war. The last straw was the German invasion of Poland. Neville Chamberlain was the British prime minister at the time. He was very unpopular because of his policy of appeasement with Germany. But soon Chamberlain was out and Winston Churchill was in.
We had air-raid drills in Dublin every couple of weeks during the war. Britain got bombed by the Germans repeatedly, of course. Belfast was bombed too, because Northern Ireland was controlled by Britain. Actually, Dublin was bombed ‘accidentally’ one night by the Luftwaffe, the German air force. The Germans claimed they thought it was Belfast in the night sky. Later, Churchill admitted that the British had interfered with the Luftwaffe’s radar, resulting in the confusion. Some Dubliners were killed in Fairview near Malloy’s where I was staying at the time.
We also had food rationing in Ireland during the war. Certain basic food items got scarce, like flour, eggs, butter and wheat. Ireland was neutral in the war because of the ongoing troubles with Britain. But we did not want to support Germany either. We thought Adolf Hitler was too much of a dictator, especially after he went into Poland and devastated those poor people.
Some young people enlisted in the Irish Army. Even though Ireland was neutral, we had a small army in case there was a need to defend ourselves. When I was an apprentice at Malloy’s, the Local Defence Force – An Fórsa Cosanta Áitiúil – was looking for volunteers. So I went down and joined up. I had a uniform and went to meetings once a week.
Before the war, the British wanted to occupy some Irish ports to prevent the Germans from using them to launch an attack on Britain. Éamon de Valera, the Taoiseach, was totally against it. De Valera was a great patriot and the founder of the Fianna Fáil party. He refused. He was concerned that if Britain took over the ports, Ireland would become a target for the Germans. But nothing ever came of this British idea.
Jobs were plentiful in Britain during the war. Lots of Irish were making big money there, because the British men were off fighting. My brother Maurice worked there for a while during the war.
One time during the war, a German plane crashed on Inishvickillane, one of the lesser Blasket Islands. The islanders cleaned up the survivors and fed them and healed their wounds. The survivors stayed on the island for a couple of months and were eventually picked up by the Irish Defence Force. Then they were detained in the Curragh Camp, a military base in County Kildare. I always wondered whether the guards taught them any Irish! After the war, one of the Germans, a man named Willie Krupp, came back to the island to thank the people for their hospitality.
When America came into the war to help save Europe from Hitler, the Irish were pretty openly rooting for the Allies. But, officially, we were still neutral. I felt that Churchill had a cool attitude towards Ireland. And the Irish thought that Churchill was a warmonger. But Churchill was a very good motivational speaker and a good director of military operations. I’d have to say he did a fine job of managing the war.
The war was always the news of the day in Dublin during those years and the topic of everyday conversation in all the pubs. I remember when the Allies invaded Normandy on 6 June 1944. It was big news. We were all excited that the tide of the war was turning. The Allies finally had momentum on their side. When the war ended in 1945 there was a huge celebration all over Dublin. I was working in Hughes’ at the time and it was a wild night indeed.
The Irish Language
When I was living in Dublin, I got involved in promoting the Irish language. It was falling into disuse as more and more people spoke English. I joined the Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge) and was a member of its Keating Branch. The League was founded by Douglas Hyde from Frenchpark in County Roscommon, the birthplace of my future bride, Mary Ward.
Originally, the League was dedicated to the preservation of Irish in Ireland, but later it got involved in promoting a free Ireland. They had a parlour at their club in Dublin where you could go to chat in Irish. People would drop in and listen to us Gaeilgóirí, Irish speakers, talk and tell stories. We were trying to keep the language alive for future generations.
Everyone said I had great fluency in Irish, probably because I was born into the language on the island. People from Trinity College used to come into Davy Byrnes to talk in Irish with me. I had a kind of following. It was a big city, but the word travels fast. ‘Mike Carney from the Blaskets …’
Around 1940, I used to write human interest articles in Irish once in a while for The Irish Press. I wrote an article about my holiday back in West Kerry. I also wrote about giving a pint of blood and about cutting turf in Glencree in the Wicklow Mountains outside Dublin. They paid me a couple of guineas for each article. That was good money for the amount of work I put into it.
I worked for an Irish-language newspaper in Dublin, a monthly called An Glór (meaning ‘The Voice’). I wrote for The Kerryman too. I wrote stories in Irish about ordinary things that used to happen in everyday life. They were human-interest stories. I also used to speak in Irish about the island on Raidió Éireann.
Once I saw an advertisement in An Glór for a job with the Gaelic League. They were looking for a ‘timire’, a person who would travel around the country speaking and teaching Irish. It wasn’t a direct government job. It was an offshoot of the government. But it had nothing to do with bartending. I applied for the job out of curiosity and I got invited for an interview where they detailed what the job involved. I’d be down the country going from village to village on a bicycle, having local meetings to promote the advancement of Irish. There was a lot of travel required and the money wasn’t as good as what I was making in the pub. So I said to myself, ‘I’m not going to take this job. I can’t take a step back in my career and be away from the good life in Dublin.’
The Dublin Social Scene
I had a great social life in Dublin with its cinemas, dance halls and so on. There were no Irish music sessions at night in the pubs in those days. The pub was about drinking and conversation. You could get a sandwich, but not a meal. The drinking age in Dublin was twenty-one, but I didn’t even drink much before then anyway. I might have had a beer now and again before twenty-one, but that’s classified information!
When I officially started drinking in my twenties, I preferred Smithwick’s beer. Once in a while I’d have a cognac, the good stuff – Hennessy’s. I served quite a lot of Guinness in my day, but I never liked it much myself.
I used to smoke cigarettes at the time. I smoked Irish cigarettes called Sweet Aftons or English cigarettes called Players. Almost everybody smoked, women too. There were also cheap cigarettes we used to smoke, called Woodbines.
I got in the habit of reading the newspaper every day, The Irish Press in them days. I wanted to stay up on current events. I have kept up that habit to this very day. I went to see plays at the Abbey Theatre. I saw The Plough and the Stars and The Shadow of a Gunman, both written by Sean O’Casey. It was great entertainment.
On my days off, I would go to the Phoenix Park and St Stephen’s Green, or browse around the National Library of Ireland and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Dublin had it all.
I even learned how to swim when I was living in Dublin. There was a porter, named Paddy Burns, from Dublin who worked with me in Malloy’s. He used to swim almost every day, even in the winter. When he found out I couldn’t swim, he told me, ‘I’ll take you to the Blackrock Baths, you islander, and I’ll teach you how to swim.’ So he took me to the pool. It was three foot deep on one end and six foot deep on the other end. To my surprise, Paddy threw me right into the pool at the six-foot end. I was thrashing around and almost drowned. But I also learned how to swim pretty quickly. Paddy had quite a laugh about it, but I didn’t think it was at all funny at the time.
Gaelic Football
I was a big Gaelic Athletic Association or GAA fan and a huge supporter of Kerry teams, especially in Gaelic football. I moved to Dublin in September 1937 and I saw my first All-Ireland football final in Croke Park the very next month. There were more than 80,000 people in attendance. The game was a replay since the previous game had ended in a tie. Kerry beat Cavan by a score of 2-11 to 2-6.
A young fellow from Dingle by the name of Tom ‘Gega’ O’Connor came on as a sub for Kerry and scored a goal. He eventually became one of the best players Kerry ever had. One player, Mike O’Doyle, an insurance man from Kerry, gave one of the Cavan team a broken nose with a big wallop and the referee didn’t give a penalty!
Kerry played in an All-Ireland football final at the Polo Grounds in New York City in 1947. This time Cavan won, 2-8 to 2-4. I thought the refereeing was questionable at best.
I’m pretty sure they’ll never play an All-Ireland final in America again. It was a bad idea. In my opinion, a game so important to the whole country as an All-Ireland should be played only in Ireland.
I went to about twelve All-Ireland football finals in Croke Park. I saw another fifteen or so finals on television by satellite in America. I went to my last final in person in Croke Park in 1997. It was Kerry against Mayo. Kerry won by three points.
Kerry has won thirty-six All-Ireland championships, so far … Kerry’s the team that everybody loves to beat. I don’t know why they’re so good. They must have great feet and great stamina. I know they have great team spirit and great fans.
I did not play much in the way of sports myself when I was living in Dublin. I was too busy working. My job came first.
First Thoughts of Emigration
Dublin was a beautiful city, a very clean city. It was always full of excitement. I used to love to walk down O’Connell Street, one of the widest streets in the whole world. Dublin had crowded pavements and shops and tenements and lots of places to go and cinemas and dance halls. And, of course, there were a lot of pubs. When I went to Dublin in 1937 you were not allowed to spit on the pavement. There was a fine of £5. That’s not the case today, unfortunately.
From the Great Blasket to America Page 10
