Remembering a Coosan childhood

Angela Buckley is the last member of her immediate family, still living, although she has scores of relatives, including her own children, grandchildren, in-laws and nieces and nephews. The pleasant and popular Athlone woman is the youngest daughter of the late Peter and Katie Mulvhill. Both her parents died tragically, as did many members of her family. Through it all, Angela continued to live her Athlone life, bravely and with fortitude. "Coosan was all countryside when I was a child in the 30s, and for many years after that," said Angela. "We lived on Abbey Road in Coosan, across from Mac's Hill (on the current site of Ashdale), and all you could see in those days was one or two houses here and there throughout the whole area." Angela had two brothers, Colm and Paddy, and five sisters, Maura, Coll (born the morning 1916 hero Con Colbert was executed), Ann, Etna, and also Angela's twin sister, Lily. As said earlier, sadly all are deceased, except Angela. Angela's father, Peter was Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), and worked out of an office around where the Radisson Hotel is today. Peter's family lived down the 'Bog Lough' in Coosan, close to the lakeside, so Angela and her siblings could regularly visit their grandparents, and fondly remembers a water pump, known as 'Moran's Pump' outside their door. As children, Angela and the Mulvihills and others in Coosan shopped in Mullen's Store (later Coosan Store) on Abbey Road, and went a bit further to St Kieran's Terrace, to buy sweets in Mary Ann Gaffey's shop. Angela and her twin Lily were born in the family home in Coosan, over 85 years ago, and she has seen many changes in the Coosan area and surroundings, of where she still lives. "We used to cross the fields from where we lived, to get to Sandy Bay, near Coosan Point, because the roads were too long. We went to Coosan school until I was 12 years old, and I was taught by Miss Kilroy and Miss Nee there in the 1930s, and it's fair to say that our family car was a donkey," laughed Angela. "We'd get up on his back, and he could open the gate for us with his teeth, and he'd wait for us outside school, and we'd get up on his back, but if anyone but Mulvihills got up on him, he'd kneel down and let them off. He was cute." When she was 12, Angela went to Our Lady's Bower school, and was taught by nuns known as, Madame Finbarr and Madame Pius, before she went to the Athlone Technical School in Northgate Street. Angela had an aunt, Bertha Mulvihill, who was rescued off the Titanic in 1912, when she was encouraged by Athlone man, Eugene Daly to jump onto a lifeboat. However, Angela says that her aunt who lived in America, had a bad back as a result of the incident. When she was just ten years old, Angela tragically lost her mother, Katie, who was just 47 years old. Katie had picked up an ear infection, and died in the Eye and Ear Hospital in Dublin in the mid 1930s. Angela said that the family were told later, that if their mother had lived just a month longer, she would have been saved, as penicillin had then become available. "We had our own eggs and vegetables while growing up and a crop of potatoes, turnips, cabbage, rhubarb, and an orchard, and there was a field of mushrooms behind our garden," she said. "I went up the river with my father, practically when I was in a 'Moses' basket, and it was so easy because we lived near the river. We used to row up to Hare Island, and I used to skin the pike we caught by slitting it with my teeth, at the back of their neck. It was much easier to cook then." The family cooked on the crane in the fireplace, and they made griddle bread in the pot oven with burning coals underneath. "My mother used the washboard to wash clothes, and later I used it myself, and Monday was wash day for clothes and sheets, and we had a wash-up house out the back," said Angela. Angela learned Irish dancing in the Egan School of Dancing in Court Devenish, and picked up medals for dancing at Feiseanna in many places around the Midlands, and then she later started social dancing in the Gaelic League in Griffith Street. After she left school, Angela went working in the newly opened Genoa Cafe in Church Street, with proprietor Frank Magliocco. She worked as a waitress, and said that in those days of the late 30s and early 40s there were few jobs available, similar to today. She then went working in Willie Heavy's pub and saddler business in Irishtown, and looked after both businesses with the owners. Her hobby was dancing, and there was no more favourite place for Angela than St Mary's Hall on Thursday and Sunday night, at the big band dances. "Did we dance! We danced till very late into the morning, and come home to Coosan singing," she said laughing. "We danced to the Syd Shine orchestra, and the maple floor was beautiful there. I used to go in after working in Heaveys, after midnight, hoping to get in for half price. We all had a great time dancing in St Mary's Hall, dancing the jitterbug and the Siege of Ennis." Angela met her husband, Cork man, Sean Buckley in her family's kitchen in Coosan. Her sister Ann was friendly with a lad, who was a friend of Sean's. Sean had been working for the Posts and Telegraph Company in Athlone. When the couple married, they lived in many different places, including Ballinasloe and Mullingar, before they returned to live in Beech Park, in the Coosan locality, near to Angela's birthplace. However, tragedy again hit the Mulvihills, in the early 1950s, when her father Peter was killed in a jeep accident in Glasson. Angela and Sean went on to have four children, a son, Denis, and three daughters, Maura, Irene and Angela. "I've lived here in Beechpark for about 55 years, and always had great neighbours here, including my great friend Hazel Dewar in Arcadia, and I prefer living here because it's near to Coosan, where I grew up," she said. Sadly, yet again, Angela experienced two more tragedies inside those years. Her 20 year old daughter, Irene, who worked in the Post Office, died of leukaemia in 1972, and her beloved husband Sean, died some years later. However, she bravely worked through the tragedies, and put herself into rearing her family, and growing her friendships with her extended family. She kept up her spirit, and learned to drive when she was in her mid-50s, and today believes that people are lucky to live in the current age they live in. "Everything is plentiful now, and we are lucky to live in the times that we're in, because you don't hear of people dying of hunger nowadays, which is great," she said.