Connaught Street's memory man

He has memories of his home street in Athlone going back over 75 years, to a time when horse fairs were part of the main business in January in a street which had almost 70 businesses, with most families living on their premises. Galvins was a grocery shop, which went back to the 1800s in Connaught Street, and Paddy Galvin was the fifth generation of that family to work the family business. Paddy was born in 1932, and he was the eldest of a family of five, which consisted of four boys and one girl. Two boys died in infancy, and Paddy has a brother, Billy, who lives in Athlone and a sister, Winnie who lives in Galway. Galvin's small shop sold milk, because the family had seven cows in a shed at the back of Connaught Street, near where the new apartments are now. They also sold bread, sugar, butter, sweets, and vegetables. In a loft in the shed, the family also kept almost fifty cocks of hay, which was stored safely and protected from floods, throughout the winter. "I was just 11 years old when my father, John Galvin died, and my mother, who was Mary Halligan from Bonaribba, near Clonown, had to work the shop, and the land, but she was a strong and intelligent woman," said Paddy. "Our land was in Bealnamulla, and in Doogue." Paddy went to the old convent school near St Peter's Hall (now the Dean Crowe Theatre) and was taught by Sr Stanislaus, Miss Gavigan, and the legendary Sr Margaret-Mary. In 1940, he moved to the Dean Kelly school, and was taught by Billy Murray and Larry Hanley. "I was then taught by the Marist Brothers from around 1945 to 1950, and in my class there was Robert Connell and Martin Dully, from St Francis Terrace, both of whom went on to great things, Robert as a physicist, and Martin with Bord Fáilte. I also went to school with Seamus and Sean Murphy, Vincent Smith, Paddy Geoghegan, and Johnny Cuffe, who became a station master in Galway." Paddy remembers playing with marbles and spinning tops on Connaught Street in the 30s and 40s, and also kicking a football up and down the street. "There was no motor cars there, but there would be horses and carts, but on a Sunday or at night after 6pm, there would be no traffic," he said. "There was 72 houses in Connaught Street and 65 were shops, and nearly everyone lived on their premises. We were close to the Murray family, who had a pub and grocery, who eventually sold their premises to the hire purchase business, Sloanes. Sloanes also bought Gill's garage beside us, and I remember a fire there in 1938, when we were taken out of the house for safety." The Galvins were so close to the Murrays that there was a door between both shops, and the two families traversed in and out of each others lives. The Galvin family were also close to Eileen Grey, who had a sweet shop, and also Keoghs, and Wards on the street. "Sadly many of these people from my past are dead and gone now," he said. "I was a 2nd or 3rd cousin to the writer John Broderick of Broderick's Bakery, and my two brothers are buried in the Broderick plot in Cornamagh Cemetery. Nearly every grocery shop had a pub attached, but they were small pubs, which could just accommodate four or five people." The January Fair was held in Connaught Street on the third Sunday of every January, and after 12 noon mass in St. Peter's and Paul's Church, the horses would start to arrive on the street. "Some of the horses would be brought home if they were from close to town, but many were stabled in Connaught Street, and many of the farmers would come down to myself for some hay, and they'd give me a shilling for a stone of hay, and I'd make ten or twelve bob, which I'd have for myself, and because it was January, it was Santa Claus coming a month late for me," said Paddy laughing. Paddy said that in the Batteries there wasn't much football going on in the 1940s, but when he was about 11 or 12, he did take part in one particular gaelic match where Larry Hanley organised the Dean Kelly boys to play against a young team in Cornafulla. "We walked out to the pitch, and thought we were great fellows, as we were the town playing against the country," said Paddy laughing. "But they beat us fifteen points to one, and there was one fellow there called Hynes, who would have beat us all on his own." When Paddy went to the Marist, he got involved in a summer league of football, and the lads played in the Fair Green on the site where the current carpark is now. "The goalpost was where McFarlands Store was later, and some of the lads playing with me progressed to become part of the first Athlone team to win the minor championship in 1949," said Paddy. "I got my first pair of football boots which my mother bought in Duffy's, which was opposite Sheffield's in Church Street, and as time went on I improved at the football." At 17 years old, Paddy played soccer with Battery Rovers, and played in the Beamish Cup competition, alongside Brian Lenihan Snr., who was a centre-forward, and another local football legend, Dinny Kilfeather, who Paddy said was a great centre-half. "I also played with Brendan McFadden, John Flynn, Paddy Hand and Paddy Earls and in 1950, I was picked to play with Westmeath minors, and played my first match in Tullamore," he said. "In my second match, we were to play Wexford in Carlow on Whit Sunday 1950, and on the Thursday night before that, I played with Battery Rovers in a soccer match against CIE, which was the first round of the Beamish Cup, but we were beaten 2-1." However Paddy got caught up in the infamous GAA ban on anyone playing soccer, whilst also playing the national game! In those days, there was morning classes on Saturday morning in the Marist, and it was there that Bro Hubert approached Paddy, and suspended him from the league. "I didn't play that Sunday, but Wexford beat us by two points, and they went on to the All-Ireland, and I never played another gaelic match again," said Paddy. He then played soccer regularly with Battery Rovers, and then Caltex, which was named after Caltex Oil, which later became Texaco. "I left Caltex and went back to working in the shop, and about two years later, Tommy Hanniffy, now deceased, asked me if I would play with St. Mary's, and with that team, we won the Beamish Cup," said Paddy. "Later on I played against Wanderers, and marked the man himself, Bomber Greene. Even though they had the excellent Martin King in goal, we beat them 1-0, in the final of the summer league." In the 1970's, when the popularity of the old bars and groceries died out, Paddy felt that he wanted to move on from working the old shop in Connaught Street, and took up a new departure. However he didn't move far from his home street, and tended the bar in the Irish National Foresters club in Fry Place. He stayed over a decade working in the Foresters, before he finished up and he went working for Oliver Carty Meats. He stayed there for over fifteen years, until he fully retired. One night in the Crescent Ballroom in the 1950's, Paddy met Beatrice, from Strokestown, Co. Roscommon, and the couple married, and went on to have five children, John, Ann, Deirdre, Cathy and Edmund. Connaught Street had changed immensely over the years and Paddy sold his premises, and moved to live in Westlodge, which was just a short distance from his beloved home street.