Wonderful memories of music and camaraderie growing up in Clonmel

Noel Lonergan recalls a busy childhood filled with games and activities.
“I was born at home in 1949 at Blessed Oliver Plunkett Terrace in Clonmel,” he says. “The youngest of seven children born to Michael and Biddy.”

Noel and his many friends never failed to find entertainment.
“As kids we jumped up onto the flat roof porches of Oliver Plunkett Terrace and we played knick knock. By attaching a thread to the letterbox of the front door we knocked on the door with the thread. We had great fun when someone answered the door, with nobody to be seen on the doorstep!”

Separating each house along the street were hedges, he recalls: “We used to close all the garden gates to race the neighbourhood dogs in a jumping race across the hedges all the way down the street. There were few cars and the streets were our playground.”
Noel enjoyed his school days in the Model School on the Western Road.
The boys were brought on school trips, including the Blessed Edmund Rice birthplace in Callan and the Dunlop Tyre Factory in Cork.

“The Sports Day was the highlight of our school year,” says Noel.
“We had three-legged races, egg and spoon, and other competitive games.” Films were shown on Saturdays, which were projected onto a wall at the school. It cost six pence for an afternoon show.
LONE RANGER
“Our favourite of all the films were the Westerns. I remember watching The Lone Ranger. Afterwards, I would pretend I was the Lone Ranger himself, cheering on my horse, Silver, with the words: ‘High-Ho Silver…and Away!’”
In the winter months they had outdoor games to occupy their time. The children would pour water on the ground and skate on the ice. Their studded boots from the FCA (army reserve), of which Noel was a member, made excellent ice skates, providing hours of free entertainment.

“I remember a hide and seek game called Dickie Dyke, popular in the darker winter months. Some children would hide while the others would search high and low to find them to the call: ‘Dickie Dyke, show your light, in the middle of the night’.”
In summer, the boys kept busy digging trenches.
“We made a hole in the ground three feet deep and eight feet around and covered it with galvanised steel, bits of beds and anything we could find. We’d make a camp and cook delicious potatoes on an open fire.”

COMERAGS
Noel and his pals often took off on summer adventures by foot up the Comeraghs. They stopped at the Holy Year Cross before descending into Glenary village, where they played in the stream. “We made dams with the stones but always put them back and left the stream as we found it.”
The abandoned Irish-speaking village was still populated in those days and Noel recalls a handful of people still living there, including a Mr Burke. “I remember Mr Burke’s cottage had a half door and the tea would brew on an open fire.”
In his later youth, Noel continued to hike every other Sunday with his friends.
“We’d give all day to it. We hiked the Seven Sisters and the Nire Valley. We’d bring tin gallons, which we got from the sweet shops. Sweets would have been displayed in the tins and we carried the empty tins and filled them with drinking water from the lake to make tea.”
Once, Noel and his friend Brendan Hogg achieved a staggering nine-day cycle traversing Dublin and Wicklow.

CRUSHING SEASON
Another busy time for the town and the mischievous children was apple crushing season, which brought the distinct smell of apples to the town from Bulmers’ crushing yard at Dowd’s Lane. Tractors lined the whole length of the quays taking away the bags of apples. As young lads, Noel and his friends would make holes in the apple bags: “We’d be looking for the sweetest apple but we’d often be chased away.”
“We used to go ‘dudding’ on orchards, where we would fill our jumpers with the stolen apples. The orchard walls might be too high to climb, so we had to think outside the box. Using a bamboo stick and coat hanger, we drove the hanger into the bamboo to create a makeshift rod, then we sat on the wall and shook the branch. We tied a nylon stocking around the coat hanger at the end of the pole to catch the apples, which were tapped into the stocking with a stick.”
Sunday morning was Mass time. In those days, there was strictly no breakfast before Mass. People fasted until after the Service. Like most other families, the Lonergans said the Rosary every evening. Whoever was in the house at the time would take part, but “the mother was the main driving force behind the Rosary.”
Visitors were always welcome at home and his mother’s sister from America and her daughter Nancy stayed one summer. Nancy attended school in the Presentation Convent.
“We bought spaghetti in a tin, especially for Nancy, a real treat then. Years later, I made it my mission to track Nancy down and she came to visit.”

Noel was delighted to rekindle the old family connections. He fondly speaks of his mother, as he says, “When our mothers were alive, they were great to keep contacts.”
Noel had many odd jobs growing up in Clonmel. One of his earliest was in McDermott’s shop in Irishtown as a messenger boy. Later, Noel worked in coffee grinding at Michael White & Co. Grocers, Gladstone Street, a general grocery and public house which ground coffee onsite. “It put me off coffee until I was seventy-two!” he says.
He also washed the Guinness bottles before refilling them with more Guinness.

The bottles were merely washed with cold water before reuse. Women were allowed to drink in the public house but only in a separate section known as a snug.
“Chrissie Shine’s pub was my father’s local and he sometimes played cards there. Once, his skill paid off and he won a live goose for his troubles!”
In 1967, Noel completed his education with the VEC and went painting with his father and brother.
He thought of entering the joinery trade but “fell into the painting business.” Noel has spent his life in the painting trade like his father before him and is well known as a painter throughout the town. Noel’s father began his career at O’Gorman’s Coach builders, which was opposite the train station, before beginning the family painting business in the 1940s.
For twenty-seven years, Noel and his brother, Michael, painted the Clonmel Arms Hotel. Noel laments seeing the building as it is now in dilapidation. “It’s sad to see it in its current state.” Although, it does look like there is hope for the Arms, recently earmarked for redevelopment.

Proud of local developments, he thinks, “It is great to see the work done on Kickham Plaza and the new sports hub in the town.”
Many of the Lonergan brothers’ painting jobs included painting the homes of business people from the Coleville Road.
“I remember stripping off old wallpaper from the walls to reveal my father’s signature, who had painted before me and the date of the last time the wall was papered.”
PAINTING TRADITION
In the early days, Noel cycled to work, ladder perched on his shoulder. In those days painters wore a shirt and tie to work.
“You would address the lady or man of the house as Sir or Madam,” he notes. “There were housekeepers in the bigger houses who made us tea to encourage the work.”
In later years, Noel drove the painting van and himself and Michael would continue to work together.
Today, Noel’s nephew, Michael’s son, David and Noel’s brother, Tony keep the family painting tradition alive. In later years, Noel worked as caretaker at the VEC (now CTI Clonmel), where he had spent his formative secondary school years.
Music has been an important and constant feature in Noel’s life. He recalls the procession every St Patrick’s Day to St Patrick’s Well, the Boys’ Club Pipe Band music echoing through the air.
Renowned Clonmel-born musician, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, was a pipe band member and the band was taught by Tony O’Keeffe of Banna Chluain Meala.

Noel has been a long-time committee member of Banna Chluain Meala and to this day keeps up the connections.
A significant part of Noel’s life has been his membership of St Mary’s Choral Society. He joined in 1967 and was a founding member of the Society’s current home, the White Memorial Theatre, established in the same year.
The original rehearsal hall was Noel’s alma-mater, the Model School, before the committee acquired Forrester’s Hall, now known as the White Memorial.
“We (the committee) dug out the dressing room ourselves. We would fill a truck with earth at the front door. We wanted to have dressing rooms under the stage so we started from scratch.”
Noel recalls that on the opening night, “We were dressed in our suits, ready for the premiere show to begin with a paint brush in hand, putting the finishing touches to the stage décor!”
In 1980, Noel played a leading role as Wild Bill Hickok in Calamity Jane, a Wild West musical, where his early childhood imaginings as the Lone Ranger came to good use!

CHORAL SOCIETY
St Mary’s Choral Society is also where Noel met his wonderful wife, Bernie. Bernie joined the Society in 1981 and their romance blossomed when they both realised, they would be travelling to London to visit respective relatives.
“We decided to travel together and the rest is history!” Both, though modest, are renowned for their magnificent voices.
“Bernie and I performed together in The Mikado in 1983. I played the character Pish-Tush, while Bernie played the character of Yum-Yum.
The finale of The Mikado was a memorable night. We gathered in Hearns Hotel after the show with the cast and close friends. I stood up on the stage at Hearns Hotel and made an announcement: ‘I have an apology to make to you all!’ I said. ‘You all thought Yum-Yum was engaged to Nanki-Poo, but really, all along she’s been engaged to Pish-Tush!’”
This was Noel’s way of announcing his and Bernie’s engagement to a surprised and delighted audience of friends. “Everyone cheered and there was many a match made at the Society in years to follow.”

40 YEARS TOGETHER
Noel and Bernie will celebrate forty years together next year.
They have three wonderful children: Kelley, Keira and Conor, and two granddaughters. Their eldest daughter, Kelley is married to Alex and they have a daughter, Ella. Daughter Keira and her husband Philip also have a daughter, Ava. Kelley is a soprano and lecturer in Voice at the MTU Cork School of Music. Keira is a critical care nurse and life support instructor in the Bon Secours in Cork, while son Conor, married to Shu, works in software development. Noel and Bernie are very proud of their children: “We have been blessed to have had two weddings in the family and two grandchildren and all during the Covid restrictions.”
Times have changed since Noel grew up on Blessed Oliver Plunkett Terrace but he still carries the same carefree, fun-loving approach that he grew up with. Noel is enjoying his retirement and is grateful for the time it affords him to tend to the garden and spend time with his family. He is as busy as ever as a committee member of Banna Chluain Meala and catches up weekly for a coffee and chat with fellow committee members.
They reminisce about the wonderful memories of music and camaraderie. Now that Bernie is retired, they enjoy cycling and spending quality time with family and going to shows and events in the town. “Life is still very fulfilling.”

Brid believes in the value of recording local history

Bríd O’Donnell is a native of Clonmel.

She entered this project as she believes in the value of recording local history.
Bríd is a Board and Committee member of Clonmel Applefest and has an active interest in Community Development.