The magic of visiting Tuam with mother during my 1950s childhood

WHEN I hear and read of anti-social behaviour and bad publicity about the town of Tuam it horrifies and saddens me. I wonder what has or who has been allowed to creep into this fine town to cause such distress? My memories wander back to when I was a child growing up in the late 50s and early 60s when I visited Tuam on a weekly basis with my mother and into the seventies when I went to school in Tuam as a boarder to the Presentation Convent. We usually went there on a Saturday afternoon as it was our nearest shopping town. My fondest memories are of our first stop when we reached the town especially on a fine sunny Saturday in summertime was to go into Hynesâ€â„¢s shop in Bishop Street for the most delicious of icecream. Three lovely, hardworking ladies worked in this shop for a number of years. They used to cut the icecream into little squares and pour the most delicious strawberry syrup over it from a bottle with what I would refer to as a spout. I donâ€â„¢t think I tasted anything like that ice cream ever since. This was served in glass dessert dishes with little stands under them. My mother also purchased some lovely fresh bread in that shop as it was also a bakery, especially the Hovis loaves and some chestnut buns for the tea when we got home. As I got bigger I used to wander around the town on my own paying a visit to Mullaneyâ€â„¢s toy shop which was also in Bishop Street and McCormackâ€â„¢s toy shop on the Dublin Road looking at toys, imagining what it would be like to get some of them from Santa Claus and thinking to myself â€Å“do some children actually get toys like thisâ€Â. There was no worry for my safety as I wandered from shop to shop. A safety pin was handy When members of our family required clothing or shoes we went to Jimmy McDonnellâ€â„¢s shop in the Square. Jimmy always had our sizes and especially the shoes I liked, be they shiny ones with the buckles on the front or the summer sandals. This shop also had the blue ones and the pink ones; I will leave it to you the readers to fathom out what they were. (The only clue I will give is, the elastic occasionally broke and the only way they headed was â€Å“downâ€Â if you did not have a safety pin.) Jimmy, God rest him always threw off a few shillings: he was great man for a bargain. My mother always dealt in Leoâ€â„¢s chemist if she required goods of a pharmaceutical nature, she purchased the meat for Sunday dinner in Oâ€â„¢Connorâ€â„¢s Butchers, also on Bishop Street. I can always remember the lovely fragrance in Leoâ€â„¢s chemist and the professional appearance of Mr Leo and his staff. Outside McDonnellâ€â„¢s drapery shop there was usually a low sized man sometimes accompanied by his wife selling vegetables, he drove a small grey tractor with a trailer attached. A funny incident I saw happening in Tuam as a child was a poor lady crossing from Leoâ€â„¢s Chemist to McDonnellâ€â„¢shop and the elastic as I have previously mentioned broke and they fell down, she very quickly whipped her two legs out of this under garment and bundled it into her bag. There were also some other fine businesses in Tuam where my mother used to shop, like Geraghtyâ€â„¢s which is still going strong and McTigueâ€â„¢s where she purchased the nylons (not tights) and other ladiesâ€â„¢ clothing. Cummins was also a drapery Shop which is now the Health Store. Garveyâ€â„¢s was another lovely fresh bread shop. My mother also bought her shoes in Luke Oâ€â„¢Brienâ€â„¢s shoe shop which is also still going strong. I also have a memory of a little square horse-drawn carriage going through the town which as a child I thought was for pleasure. My brother who was a little younger and myself were always longing to get a spin in it. I have only learned recently after reading the history of the Mercy sisters in Tuam they actually owned that carriage to deliver laundry to businesses in the town. No fuel at €1.62 per litre or tax and insurance required for this mode of transport during those years. Doctors I must not forget to remember the doctors who resided in the town and were associated with my family, Doctors Waldron and Fitzgerald, both now gone to their eternal rest. As I advanced to the higher classes in primary school I became a young lady who liked to make life easy for myself so when I noticed our schoolmaster, Mr Concannon, God rest him, had an answer book corresponding to our arithmetic, I said to myself, perhaps I can get one of those. On my next visit to Tuam I went to Byrneâ€â„¢s bookshop which was near the Square and got the answer book. It cost me one shilling and three pence. Under no circumstances was Mr Concannon to know I had this book, but as the saying goes â€Å“as long as the fox goes he gets caughtâ€Â some genius when printing this book inserted an incorrect answer so I had explaining to do when I had the sum done in some crazy method to get this incorrect answer in the answer book. The answer book To this day I can remember the correct answer should be 143 and 149 was printed in the answer book. Mr Concannon did not accept my explanation that my father did the sum for me on the back of his cigarette box and I just wrote down the answer. I think you can imagine why I remember this so well, at least my left hand still feels the pain. I can honestly say from my experience of rearing my own children the sums being done now in Sixth Class certainly do not require an answer book because they are so easy compared to the sums of those days. The moral of this incident is, never copy because the material you are copying may be wrong. When our weekly shopping was done we used to relax in Cahillâ€â„¢s where I think Oâ€â„¢Tooles clothing and household shop is now. This was then a grocery shop and public house, well letâ€â„¢s say, my mother used to relax with a little glass of what she called â€Å“punchâ€Â to have a chat with friends she knew from the village of Cloondahamper and surrounding areas. Usually we would give one of them a lift home. Those people were dedicated Tuam shoppers regardless of the weather; they would hit for Tuam on their bicycles. My father had a Volkswagon Beetle car so to this day it is a mystery how he carried the bicycle. While they were relaxing I used to go up to Smithâ€â„¢s café for chips which was opposite the Grove hospital. My goodness, there was nothing like those chips. I remember there were older teenagers there playing music on the juke box and eating chips. That was their entertainment, certainly no anti-social behaviour. Every month or six weeks we would go to confession in the Cathedral on the Saturday evening. Meeting old friends Tuam was a great meeting place for people, especially for my mother who came from another village the opposite side of the town to where we lived. She always met people she went to school with, grew up with and accompanied her to the dances in Comerâ€â„¢s dance hall in Barnaderg, especially during the summer or at Christmas time when they were home on holidays from England or America. They would call into Gay Browneâ€â„¢s for a chat and maybe a â€Å“punchâ€Â. This she thoroughly enjoyed. Occasionally there was music being played there by Paddy and Stephen Rainey, their mother Biddy whom I suppose one could refer to as a little travelling woman would stay the odd night in our house and in other houses in the neighbourhood. Most of those people are now gone to their eternal rest. The Christmas market Having mentioned Christmas, I cannot forget the market which used to take place in the Shambles a few weeks leading up to festive season where the farmers and their wives brought the turkeys and geese to be sold in the carts with the creels. They weighed them with a big â€Å“ouncelâ€Â. They were priced and sold per pound. Another thing that fascinated me was that that huge line of maroon boarders from the Presentation Convent which I later became one of. They walked through the town with dignity and good manners for exercise and fresh air. Students came from the four provinces of Ireland to the three boarding schools to receive their education, but as I have read recently young people come to Tuam now to cause havoc and distress. There was a saying years ago which stated â€Å“Tuam was an educational centre when Galway City was only a market townâ€Â. No doubt those days are gone for ever. We should always bear in mind Tuam is still the same town if it could rid itself of the people who do not appreciate it. I will conclude by saying â€Å“A Little Prayer to Jesus sayâ€Â for all who passed away from our locality that May back in 1963. They were memorable times. Thank you for taking the time to read my precious memories. â€â€ KM