Teddy Kelly

Long forgotten memories flooded in on me as Teddy Kelly’s remains were lowered into the grave at the new St. Michael’s Cemetery. Memories which prompted me to recall that in that very same place where mourners were gathered Teddy and I had played as youngsters. For Teddy Kelly was my friend from the time we were old enough to be let out to play on our own. We were neighbours in Offaly Street, went to school together, firstly in St. Joseph’s and then to the Christian Brothers school in St. John’s Lane. As youngsters in Offaly Street, Teddy and I spent every free hour of the day in each other’s company. I would call to his house at No. 27 if he had not already called to my house and we would head off for the day. Not going very far however, as our horizons were fixed mainly on the nearby park which we claimed as part of the fiefdom of the Offaly Street boys. Our ambition to go further afield saw us starting to dig a hole inside the main entrance gate of the park, as we later told our parents so we could reach Australia. That hole, which bore witness to our youthful efforts, was to be seen for many years thereafter. Offaly Street in our young days was a vibrant community of young families and our friends included Willie Moore, Tom Webster and in the early years Andrew and Basil White before they went to live in Athgarvan. The leader of our group was Teddy’s brother Leopold, a year or so older than the rest of us. Leopold was an adventurous fellow, whose life sadly ended in February 1967 just two years after he was ordained for the priesthood. We younger fellows followed Leopold with unquestionable loyalty, and I recall the great excitement which greeted his announcement that we were to build a den in the park. We marched to Flemings sawmills in Chapel Lane where Leopold had negotiated the acquisition of timber off cuts which we brought back to the park. Several trips were made to Flemings sawmills before sufficient timber was on site to complete the job. When completed it was our pride and joy for only two days for on the third day when we arrived in the park it was discovered that the den had been removed. The Duke of Leinster’s agent had obviously decided that the ‘whipper snappers’ from Offaly Street were not to squat on his Lordship’s property. I have written of Teddy Kelly in previous Eyes on the Past, the first many years ago to mark his 40 years working in the asbestos/Tegral wages office. That Eye appeared as the last article in Volume IV of Eye on Athy’s Past. The back cover of that book featured a few photographs, two of which were of a youthful Teddy Kelly with the writer and some others. In keeping with his youthful adventurous nature Teddy was pictured sitting on one of Bill Cash’s horses, while a second photograph featured Teddy and his faithful dog Toby with his brother Leopold, Micky Moore, my brother Seamus and myself. We must have been 10 or 11 years old at the time the photograph was taken. In that article and in a later article written to mark his retirement I wrote of the adventurous exploits of Teddy and myself and the other lads from Offaly Street. We were past masters in finding adventure and heightened pleasure in what we describe as ‘releasing over ripened pears and apples from local orchards.’ Ours was an innocent age when youthful escapades courted danger, none more so than the day Teddy said to me ‘I dare you’. That was not an infrequent test of one’s ability to do something or other but on this day it was a dare I have never forgotten. It was to walk on the parapet of the railway bridge from one end to the other as it passed over the River Barrow and the Grand Canal. I did the walk, oblivious to the danger given that despite summer visits to Bummeries I had not as yet mastered the skill of swimming. It’s strange what one remembers after 65 years or so – the dangerous parapet walk, the earlier attempt to reach Australia and my first bottle of stout given to me by Teddy’s mother. The bottle of stout was believed to be an appropriate tonic for a sickly youngster, but in my case it helped to nurture a lifelong dislike of alcohol. Teddy and I shared classrooms for 14 years from 4 years of age onwards. We shared fond memories of Sister Brendan in St. Joseph’s School and admiration and gratitude for a wonderful teacher in the Christian Brothers School. Bill Ryan was that teacher who unlocked the world of possibilities for the pupils he taught. When we reached the Leaving Certificate class there were just 11 of us left from the 50 or more who started with us in St. Joseph’s School. Seared in my memory are the faces of those who shared school days with Teddy and myself but who for whatever reason did not get the opportunity to achieve what they were capable of. Friendships forged in my youth are an important part of my life and are treasured for the memories they gave me. When I passed the biblical three score and ten, I learned to appreciate more than ever before the value of those early friendships. Teddy Kelly was one of my first friends and his recent death leaves me with unforgettable memories of the happy years I spent in Offaly Street and the wonderful people who lived there. Sadly, the day before Teddy died another older neighbour, Tommy Tuohy, also passed away. Teddy and Tommy are part of the memory bank of my youth and their passing closes another chapter in the life of Offaly Street of old.

Teddy Kelly

This week another of my former school mates retires.  Teddy Kelly was not just my class mate, he was my best friend as we grew up together in Offaly Street.  We went to St Joseph’s Boys School together, Loy Hayden occasionally having the task of shepherding us across Leinster Street and then on to the safety of the old school at Rathstewart.  We transferred at 7 or 8 years of age to the Christian Brothers Primary School and from there to the Secondary School.  We were in the same class throughout and finished our second level education in 1960.

Teddy’s father, like my own, was a member of the Garda Siochana and for good measure Garda Mick Tuohy also lived in the same street.  Offaly Street was then a wonderful mix of mostly young families with a few elderly couples making up the local community.  It was a very happy place in which to live and the youthful exuberance and cheerful laughter of boys enjoying themselves was everywhere.  The Kelly, Moore, Whyte, Webster and Taaffe families all had boys around the same age and the undisputed leader of the lot was Leo Kelly, Teddy’s older brother.  Our youthful horizons were limited not by any lack of adventure on our part, but by the necessity of travelling everywhere on foot.  Bummeries on the Carlow Road was in summertime the furthermost point south we ventured.  We went there every year to swim in the cooling waters of the Grand Canal banked up against the weir, but if we did we never learned to swim.  That for me at least, was a facility which came much later in my adult life.  I can remember a number of us, including Teddy, hitching a lift to Bummeries on a hay bogey as it made its slow journey out the Carlow Road.  The trip lasted for only a few hundred yards but for youthful townies it was an enjoyable experience and indeed memorable, given that I can recall it almost 50 years later.

Teddy and I played together every single day of our young lives.  After school, the school bags were left aside, lunch was eaten and whoever finished first knocked on the others door.  Our constant companion in those days was Toby, Teddy’s dog who for many years accompanied the Offaly Street youngsters wherever we went.  The seasons determined where we went during the afternoon.  In the height of summer the Park was the usual first place of call.  We knew every tree, not by name but rather by reference to their sturdiness and ability to hold up under the pressure exerted by young fellows imitating circus trapeze artists.  We were very agile young fellows who swung out of tree branches or hung out of them secured by our bent knees or even as I recall by precarious footholds.  The only danger was from a local man for whom we had a nickname, which name affirmed our belief that his constant interference with our activities was unwarranted and none of his business.  Looking back he was probably concerned that we would damage the trees, which we never did, but his appearance was always guaranteed to involve a shouted threat our retreat from the scene and eventual return once he had gone.

Summer days in the Park were particularly enjoyable when the Duke of Leinster’s agent had the grass cut.  It was a once a year task and the meadowed grass once cut was left to lie thick on the ground for a few days.  We seized the opportunity to let our imagination run wild as the sweet smelling meadowed grass was collected, heaped and shaped into forts in which we played our games of cowboys and Indians.

As we grew older the Cinema in Offaly Street became an important part of our lives.  “Bobs”, so called after the cinema manager Bob Webster, another resident of Offaly Street, was a flea ridden picture palace, the tiny inhabitants of which fought, and obviously won, the weekly battle waged by Matty Brennan and his disinfectant spray.  We didn’t mind the nauseating smell of disinfectant which always seemed to hang heavy in the picturehouse air.  “Pictures” were our weekly insight into an exciting world which we could never hope to find in Offaly Street and Hopalong Cassidy never had a more faithful following than we youngsters in the street.  You can imagine our dismay when Bob Webster felt it necessary to ban Teddy and the rest of us from going to the pictures.  Bob took exception to being pelted with stones as he visited old Miss Hegarty who lived in a thatched and mud walled cottage at the end of what is now Beechgrove.  The ban caused consternation amongst our ranks and recriminations flew thick and fast as each of us in turn blamed the other.  In truth we all had taken pot shots at Bob, but of course some of us claimed that we didn’t hit him and sought to put all the blame on Teddy Kelly.  All was forgiven after a few weeks spent in the wilderness when Bob relented at the behest of his good wife.

Teddy was an adventurous fearless young fellow, as I would like to imagine we all were in those days.  Orchards were easy prey for the youthful marauders from Offaly Street and the temptation to sample the fruit even before it was ripe was overpowering.  Thinking back on those days and the orchards surreptitiously visited by Teddy and myself I find that many have disappeared under the blocks and cement of latter day urban development.  Mrs. Sylvester’s orchard has disappeared, as has Cyprian Hollands and even Mick Aldridges orchard at the top of Offaly Street is no more.  A similar fate has befallen Keatley’s garden at the back of Offaly Street where I recall the most succulent gooseberries I ever tasted were to be had, if one took sufficient precaution not to be caught. 

Teddy, like the rest of us youngsters in Offaly Street, graduated from sampling the forbidden fruits of local orchards when we discovered the delights of female company.  The adult world beckoned and for Teddy it was to be sampled courtesy of a job in the wages office of the Asbestos cement factory.  There he joined the Chief Wages Clerk, John Prendergast of St. Patrick’s Avenue and Ted Wynne, a classmate from William Street.  Now after more than 40 years service and having enjoyed yet another birthday on the 17^th of July he has decided to take early retirement and spend more time with his extended family which now includes grandchildren.

Thinking I was perhaps the last one of my class not to be retired I was going to allow myself the thought that I had to keep working and paying taxes just to keep all the pensioners in funds when I received an e-mail from Seamus Ryan in Australia.  Dr. Seamus has recently moved from China with his wife and young child to start a new life in the southern hemisphere.  He was a classmate of Teddy and myself at the Christian Brothers School.  One retires, one emigrates and one continues on the daily treadmill of work.  Its hard to know which to envy.

Best of luck to Teddy on his retirement and may the years ahead bring nothing but joy and happiness to my good friend from Offaly Street.

Teddy Kelly

Last week, work colleagues of Teddy Kelly gathered in the offices of Athy’s second oldest industry to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of his joining the firm. Forty years ago it was Asbestos Cement Limited and the biggest employer in Athy, today, Tegral Building Products has a smaller but still very substantial workforce. I was slightly taken aback to learn that my friend Teddy had 40 years work experience under his belt until I realised with some astonishment that I myself had achieved the same milestone the previous week.

Teddy and I were pals from the time we were in short trousers. We both lived in Offaly Street at the time when vehicular traffic was minimal and presented no danger to young fellows who used the road as a playground. I can remember playing football with Teddy and others up and down Offaly Street without posing any difficulty for anyone, pedestrian or otherwise. Our watchful eyes were on the approach of the local Gardai in the form of either of our fathers or the St. Patrick’s Avenue contingent of Gardai on their way home for dinner. Football was not our only activity on the local Street. Pellet guns figure prominently in my memory of those days, especially on one occasion when I stood at Tuohy’s door facing Leopold Kelly who from Tom McHugh’s front door on the far side of the street took aim and fired a pellet gun at me. My left ear, for it was there I was hit, confirmed that indeed, the pellet gun was loaded and my earlier confident claim “I betcha its not loaded” seemed then so far off the mark, unlike Leopold’s assured aim.

Leopold Kelly later to be ordained a priest and to die tragically so young, was the leader of the Offaly Street gang and here I use the word “gang” not in any criminal sense but to describe a group of innocent fun loving ragamuffins whose lives revolved around each other. Teddy Kelly, Willie Moore, Tom Webster, Basil White and myself were the core group of the gang which in its more generous moods allowed the youngsters, Mickey Moore and Seamus Taaffe to tag along with us. I don’t think either of them were involved in the battle of Offaly Street when we defended our home base against an incursion from a group (from where I cannot now recall) who attacked us with well aimed stones. I still vividly recall that afternoon when with every conceivable size of stone, we pelted our assailants and they responded, both groups facing each other from opposite end of Offaly Street. There was a similar battle on the Crib Road (Church Road) near Dr. Kilbride’s, (now Dr. O’Neill’s) where the stones flew back and forth and Basil White ended up with a split head. The large lime trees which were then growing at either side of the Crib Road afforded cover for the combatents but proved inadequate for the luckless Basil White.

When I look back on those occasions, I wonder how we ever escaped with life and limb intact or indeed how we even managed to escape the critical notice of parents and adults generally. If the same thing happened today in Offaly Street or Church Road, the riot squad would be called and all the protagonists would end up in Court on assault charges and public order offences. Luckily enough, neither Teddy’s career or my own were blighted by our exuberant and combatitive attitude to life in our younger days.

Youthful energies in so far as Teddy Kelly and myself were concerned did not limit us to potential breaches of the common law in relation to assaults but also saw us stretching our credibility as law abiding citizens with our penchant for robbing local orchards. The glorious harvest of fruit always arrived just in time to banish the back to school blues which descended on us youngsters when after almost three months of summer freedom found ourselves corralled for another term of school lessons.

Sylvester’s Orchard at the end of Butler’s Row was our favourite target. The lush green undergrowth which marked years of neglect provided the perfect backdrop for the aging apple and pear trees which each year provided a fruitful bounty for eager young lads with time and opportunity on their hands. The orchard is now gone having given way to a scheme of Council houses but in the 1950’s was a haven enclosed by high walls. Those same walls provided no match for the agile and nimble team of fruit pickers who worked furtively and with tremendous speed. Not for us the leisurely paced motions of the legitimate fruit pickers in Lambe’s fruit farms. We had self imposed deadlines to meet which required pockets and turned up pullovers to be filled before speedily making our, hopefully unencumbered way, over the high wall at the back of the orchard. If our luck was in, and more often than not it was, the few minutes spent in frantic orchard raiding activity would give us a few hours measured enjoyment of healthy apple crunching. That’s how Teddy Kelly, now forty years in gainful employment spent his young days with his friends from Offaly Street.

He will remember the one occasion Mrs. Sylvester caught the youthful apple thieves in action and the mad scramble which ensued for the one well tracked exit over the high wall. Then it was everyone for himself, and the mad scramble for the wall and the freedom beyond, banished all thoughts of comradeship and togetherness which vanished with the twinkle of an eye or more appropriately with the swish of Mrs. Sylvester’s ash plant. In any event, the only hostage taken that day was the youngest member of the gang, my late brother Seamus who was grabbed by Mrs. Sylvester and duly paraded down Butler’s Row towards number 5 Offaly Street and my mother. Teddy and the rest of the gang by now had travelled as far away as possible from the scene of the crime hoping against hope that the young convict would not tell names. He didn’t have to. The make up of the Offaly Street gang was as well known as “Coy” Moore himself. All was well however, the cowering would be apple stealer was presented to his surprised mother (“surprised that he was caught, not that he was robbing an orchard”) and the traditional punishment was expected. In one of those almost surreal moments reminiscent of a lottery win, it so happened that a visitor from Mayo had arrived that day for a holiday with the result that the lucky young lad escaped all punishment.

Teddy and I were never caught although we came close to it one afternoon when in an unusual excursion well outside our normal territory, we found ourselves in Cyprian Holland’s orchard on the Dublin Road thinning the lush apples on the obviously overburdened fruit trees. We were tossing the results of our labours over the hedge to Tom Webster and Willie Moore who were standing outside on the Dublin Road. Suddenly we heard a roar, the disembodied voice coming from the same roadway “I know you Taaffe and Kelly, come out here immediately”. It was Garda Dunne, not the easiest man to encounter in such circumstances but we did not wait around for a formal introduction. We escaped through the hedge on the opposite side and high tailed it out of there in a panic. Fair dues to the same Garda Dunne, he did not appear to have mentioned our proclivity for apple stealing to our parents as the incident was never again mentioned.

I could go on recounting memories of times shared with Teddy Kelly and my friends in Offaly Street and maybe I will some other day. For the moment, let me wish the not so young former orchard robber and my good friend, Teddy Kelly many more happy years.