Jean's Journal: Barrack Street in times past

by Jean Farrell

This old photograph was taken at the Athlone St Patrick’s Day parade in the early 1960s.

Note the old go-car. I’m sure many of you remember these. Unlike modern flexible buggies, made from soft fabrics, these go-cars were as solid and sturdy as could be. The same one was used for all ten children! When the annual new baby finally stopped arriving, these go-cars (and prams) were transformed into marvellous go-carts that provided hours of fun for young boys.

Note that the little girls are wearing gabardines. We wore these too. Gaberdine material was considered very suitable for coats because it was a tightly woven waterproof fabric. It went out of fashion because the cloth was too stiff.

Note the old cars. I wonder had they the orange indicators that shot out the side. Remember the noise of these as they fell back into place?

The post office was and still is on Barrack Street, a fine building indeed. We frequented it often as children. For an old sixpence, a saving stamp could be bought. We purchased these sometimes and got great satisfaction from sticking them into our little brown post-office books.

Letters were posted, from here, every week, to daughters and sons who had emigrated to Manchester, Liverpool and London.

Children’s Allowance was also collected, every month, in this post office. In 1963, 10s was paid for the first child, 15s 6d for the second. 26s 6d was paid for the third and subsequent children.

A woman with 9 young children would collect £10.11 every month, which I’m sure was very very welcome in those lean times. However, she could only collect this money herself if her husband gave his permission. Children’s Allowance was made out to the father. He had to sign a slip of paper giving his wife his permission to collect it.

Sadly, we knew a very poor family where the man collected it himself and drank it all. It was this man’s wife who told me that she was able to make eight sandwiches out of one banana, for her eight hungry young sons. Let’s hope she’s in Heaven, along with all the wonderful mothers from that era.

It was 1973 before a law was passed allowing a mother to collect her children’s allowance in her own name, thanks to The Women’s Liberation Movement.

Note the marvellous Army band marching along the street. How it lifted our young hearts! And how dashing the soldiers looked, dressed up in their splendid uniforms.

The building the parade is passing was a very busy place back then.

The tax office, dole office, telephone exchange and postal sorting office were all in it. Friends of mine worked as telephonists there. Rows of girls sat plugging in and out wires in order to connect us, on our old-fashioned telephones. Compare this to nowadays. Sitting on our sofas, we can get straight through to Australia, in an instant, on our mobile phones.

I’m told that The Palace Bar, across the road, did very well from the many employees who worked in that building. They all had well-paid, permanent, pensionable government jobs (much envied!). However, the females amongst them would have had to give up their jobs as soon as they married.

Another of Arthur Fadden’s old photographs shows a group of women from the tax office. (Any woman in it, aged over 25, was considered to be ‘a spinster’ - a pitiful state to be in, God help her!)

Names that have been suggested are Terry Reynolds, Reny Roland, Margo Ginnane, Mary Connaire and Beatrice Naughton. The man on the right is Éado O’Flynn, husband of Mel O’Flynn.