Remembering John Alcock, John Murphy and George Taaffe

It was early last week that news reached us from the far side of the world of the death of John Alcock in New Zealand. It was soon followed by news of the passing of John Murphy in Australia. Both men were part of the great migration of men folk which was a sad part of life in Athy and its rural hinterland during the decades which followed the economic war of the 1930s. Despite the vast distances they travelled to make new lives they retained fond memories of Athy and its people. I first met John Alcock in March 2020 when approaching his 90th birthday he travelled with his daughter to visit his home town. It was a nostalgic visit for a man who had first emigrated to England in 1949 and who 6 years later moved to New Zealand. His sister Sheila and brother George also emigrated to New Zealand. John, who lived in the North Island of New Zealand, was a near neighbour and friend of Athy man Aidan Tierney, formerly of Belview. It was Aidan who passed on the news of the death of John who was the subject of Eye on the Past No. 1421. I had not met John Murphy in person but his frequent presence on the Athy and district Facebook page spoke of a man who had retained an interest and indeed an appreciation of his South Kildare background. He kept up to date with the news from Athy on Facebook, as well as his long-standing friendship with Aiden McHugh who on his visits to Australia always sought out John. John, who was originally from Prussellstown, emigrated to Australia in the early 1970s from Butlers Row with his wife May and four children after retiring from the Irish Army. Towards the end of last week my older brother George passed away at 88 years of age. George was one of those fortunate young Athy men who in the 1950s found employment in their own country. After attending the Christian Brothers School here in Athy he was called to St. Patrick’s training college in Drumcondra to train as a National school teacher. I didn’t know until recent years that in doing so he was following in his father’s footsteps. My father apparently did not continue his teacher training as his command of Irish was weak and so he left St. Patrick’s and joined the Gardai. A native of Moyne in County Longford his career in An Garda Siochana resulted in several transfers around Ireland and his last move to Athy from nearby Castlecomer allowed his five sons attend a secondary school where none was then available in the Kilkenny mining town. George, who taught for a few years in Moone National School under the principalship of W.G. Doyle and later Joe May, later moved to his father’s home place in County Longford to take up the principalship of Moyne National School. In the meantime George married local Moone girl Eileen Kelly, who with their five children survive him. George, who retired over twenty-five years ago as Principal of Dromard National School, was buried in his father’s home townland nearly 50 years after his father was laid to rest in Athy. The celebrant of the funeral mass for George spoke of the ‘Master’s’ contribution to the local communities of Moyne and Legga and I smiled as I heard of the teaching profession being described as a ‘secondary priesthood’. No wonder I smiled, being aware as I was of some of the escapades involving the young unmarried George and his best friend here in Athy, the late Reggie Rowan. George was a big fellow and a good footballer in his youth, but my abiding memory is of a family story which recounted the day George playing in midfield caught the ball at the start of the second half of a game in Geraldine Park and immediately put the opposing team on the attack by kicking the ball in the wrong direction. The two Johns and George were of a generation of Athy folk whose numbers are sadly being depleted week by week. All three have now found their last resting place far from the town in which they grew up, taking with them memories which we can never recover.

John Murphy and Nora Walsh

Youthful memories came to mind when I learned of the death last week in Dublin of John Murphy.  The Murphy family lived in St. Michael’s Terrace and Sean, as he was then called, attended school in the local Christian Brothers.  He was a few years younger than myself but Sean, a naturally gregarious youngster, and a wonderful musician, forged friendships which crossed age differences and district divides.  He came into his own when he finished school and got a job in the laboratory of Bowaters (Wallboard) Factory at Tomard.  There under the supervision of Jim Flanagan, the laboratory chemist, he worked with George Robinson, Pat Daly, Tom Flood and many others. 

 

A good musician, adept at playing the piano and guitar, Sean a few times joined his work colleague George Robinson as an occasional member of Paddens Murphy’s Sorrento Dance Band.  I recall Frank English and myself on a day trip to Tramore meeting up with Sean and some of his Leinster Street friends in a local hostelry.  There was Sean, his tall lanky frame bent over a piano which he played while standing up, his hands moving rhythmically across the keys, while his head and shoulders bobbed in unison to the music.  His was a magical performance as the tunes tumbled out without a pause, each piece taking on a foot tapping life of its own, filling the room with a seamless sound of honky tonk music.  That was Sean Murphy in his element as he went through the entire musical repertoire of Fats Domino, finishing with his own particular favourite ‘I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill’.  That was an exciting musical performance I never forgot.

 

I subsequently met Sean around the time of his retirement from the Garda Siochana.  A welcome greeting in the Jervis Street shopping centre in Dublin brought us together for the first time in almost 40 years and allowed us to renew acquaintances.  Sean later shared with me many photographs of the variety shows put on by the local factories in St. John’s Hall in the 1960s, in some of which he had featured.  Many of these photographs featured in past Eyes on the Past.  Sean had been a member of the Garda Siochana in Raheny for a number of years and it was from there that he retired, continuing to live in the locality where he died last week.  He was the second member of the Murphy family to join the Garda Siochana, his brother Des being a Sergeant, based I believe, in Co. Westmeath, where he died. 

 

Youthful memories were also brought to the fore with the passing of Nora Walsh who died during the week at 88 years of age.  Nora, like myself, was a native of the black and amber county and she came to Athy in 1953 to work in Jim Clancy’s Bar on Leinster Street.  In 1957 she married Tommy Walsh who was a shop assistant in M.G. Nolan’s drapery shop, now Moore’s chemist shop, in Duke Street.  With his father Dave Tommy was a member of St. John’s Social Club and both were noted members of the Social Club’s Dramatic Society and featured in many of the plays put on in the Town Hall and St. John’s Hall throughout the late 1940s and the 1950s.

 

I was a very young school boy when Tommy Walsh and Nora Kenna first crossed my horizon.  They were a young glamorous couple who many of my age and older will remember were active members of the Social Club in St. John’s lane for many years.  The Social Club and that much older local organisation, the C.Y.M.S., one catering for mixed membership, the other exclusively male, in the 1950’s and earlier played important roles in the social life of Athy.

 

Writing of people and places of 50 years ago I am conscious of the many changes which have taken place in Athy during that period.  The Murphy family have now all gone and the only permanent reminder we have of their time in Athy is the skilled work of their father Joe who built the fine cut stone entrance to the former Dominican Church at the end of Convent Lane.  M.G. Nolan’s drapery store, once a long-established business on Duke Street, is no more, while M.G. himself, who for decades was a County Councillor and an Urban Councillor, is but a memory for an older generation.  The C.Y.M.S. and the Social Club have disappeared from the local community scene, while the Wallboard factory was yet another loss in the everchanging panorama of life in Athy.

 

The passing of Sean Murphy and Nora Walsh creates more vacant spaces in the line up of youthful memories.  Our sympathies are extended to their families.