May 21
“Gotchie Lit” – By Brendan Laird, an original East Wall Poem.
This is a special event for our community website , as for the first time we publish a piece of original poetry , written specially for presentation here .It was written by Brendan Laird , and it beautifully captures a child’s eye view of an adventure filled world.(For those who don’t know their old Dublin slang , a ‘gotchie’ is a watchman ). Enjoy -
The Gotchie is about a specific-ish time and very specific place; about half way up/down Forth Rd depending on your perspective. The three ‘childer’ in the poem are myself and two others. The other boy knows who he is and has read the poem and the girl who finds herself in an imagined scenario shall remain un- named as she probably never saw the inside of a hut, but found herself there because she was real on/off presence on Forth Road all those years ago.
The Gotchie got his name from the way Dubliners substitute the first letter sound with a G on some words, e.g. Gaylah for Railway, Gooter for scooter and not as some commentators would have it , that when he apprehended you he would say ‘Got ye’ ! That’s my perspective anyway. The style of the poem is very course, puns and turns of phrase are used to capture a time. Pop Moran and Leo Hallissey are to blame, two teachers who employed spoonerisms and all sorts of wordplay to get us and themselves through the day- I call it East Wall Gas Meter. The Gotchie knew everything it seemed and we as kids bestowed on him a status that was not in his job description. We loved it when the roads were being upgraded or when the street lamps were modernised.Cable television did away with bird laden TV aeriels as they prepared for long hall flights. It was a very different time when seasons were marked not by changes in weather but by passed on games that had bicycle hoops,scunchers , caps in bolts and ice pop sticks that became rafts in a deluge. I hope my poem re captures those times.
Brendan Laird
Gotchie Lit
Three of us-
out playing.
We see smell feel, draped hession
festooned from barrell to barrell, plank to ground
like sacked sentinels or burlapp’d warders
of those in need of concrete engraving.
Hearts initialed, partially committed, not quite set, not yet stone.
Yellow sodium looking down on man-operated
oil burning lowly in crimson tin and glass.
Time cools on this evening before the clock steals a sacred hour from itself
and us-
He watches from a greeny tarp, warmed by pipe, book, baby power and brazier.
He senses players out seeking shelter.
Voices without, a voice within.
I hope yis are not lousy! Bellows He.
Three tentative inquisitors are paged .
Names in lieu of feed admission are pondered by the ad hoc census taker.
Plank for a seat.
Old Holburn vieing with toasty batch and
like us, he’s had his fill.
Great goalkeeper!
Saw him comin’ in from work on his bike.
Gave me the sports final.
We had a great chat.
Isn’t your Nanna great to be mindin’ you all the same?
Liberty House?
I know the names of course,
Was Faithfull Place further back.
From good people yis are,
never forget that now, says he.
Delighted, glowing , inflated with recognition.
We are-
the latest hits of our generation, the pick of our pops
and every bar of our mothers.
Semi strange to each other in the flame warp, we seem.
He glorifies our names unlike sir, miss, sister, father .
Swelled heads are we with spokes and sayin’s
big enough to be served in the top lounge.
Trinity tongued we are so school’s
out for the likes of us!
You couldn’t hold a factory of candles to her, him or me.
Is the transistor not better than a book?
Are ye not ragin’ yer missin’ the Monkees?
Did you ever see the banshee?
Is it true the yanks are not the goodies anymore?
If you walk on the cracks will you marry the devil?
Tells of shells, cinders, bits of old fashioned jars beneath us.
Underground ghosts creep up through our soapy soles.
He affirms the who and the what of us.
Seeds bred, raised and read
like shards of cursive script needin’ joinin’ up.
Virol!
Blue glass bottles. Load o’ molluscs!
All kinds o’ things o’ the past, troved and kept.
Like-
Nelson’s Pillar, bits of him, too rough for jacks.
Lustre lost now, taken for granite- a cut below.
We are fortified chisellers of tar and cement.
Seasoned players of spokeless hoops.
Sea breezy sulphur smells in summer
promise outdoor baths.
We know not yet the depth of our knowledge. Rapid we are in our thoughts.
Chaste kissers, loser gets a goozer.
Collocka one two three!
You’re on it!
No I’m not! Didn’t touch me!
Fire mocks with hisses at the piney kindling.
We hear-
a late oil truck growling by our camp.
The Mex gate cranky in a corrugated accent ,like a night porter thinking of an early house.
Sounds already making memories of themselves for us.
He opens a place kept page.
A black and white dog eared snap .
A younger him, no cap, a woman, two girls an’ a boy.
We are the story here!
Page turners us. No need for pictures and
hard words to spell.
Can’t be put down, coming through a letter box near you, pressed and heralded, everything rhymes.
Can this be our club?.
Will you be here tomorrow night?
Stoney Road. Says he.
The downtrodden childer are fallin’ through the cracks and the divil is
riflin’ the gas meter for the grushie.
Not as brainy as this side o’ the tracks, not nearly as smart as youse. He says.
Sap happy are we and
triumphal thoughts arch our backs. Those new foundlings won’t be in our street league.
No way Danno!
He’s our Gotchie. Do you hear?
Listen here youse-
No cemented love hearts or
boot boys rule, okay!
He keeps ello him.
Keeps sketch for etchers, he does.
Coloured red lit our road, he did.
Gas funny by fire light, he was.
Unsolicited pearls shelled out for nothin’, we got.
Outside the tent, we are now.
Freezin’ speech puffs of see yis with
a quick barrel drum tattoo to remember an’ feel the sound.
Deep intake of lamp oil so I’ll never forget.
Cool one handed vault of the front gate with a
big boy spit in a privet.
Taller now.
Crépe feet on the ground.
No tippiers needed now- level with ten in number and years.
Key turned, weather board an’ waggin’ tail of Captain tellin’ on me.
Gotchie lit road.
Gotchie hut, paged shut.
Gotchie lit lamp smell forever.
Brendan Laird
Feedback: eastwallforall@gmail.com
May 21
Rockin’ Road festival 2014 – 25th May
This Sunday is the 5th annual ‘Rockin’ Road’ festival, a fund raising event for Childvision. All monies raised go to benefit visually impaired children, and over the years this event has made a hugely significant contribution. It is also boasts a great music selection and is a real family event, well organised and well behaved. Don’t miss it!
May 10
The Battle at Annesley Bridge – Walking tour videos now available
The “1916 Rising: Battle at Annesley Bridge” walking tour organised by the East Wall History Group was a huge success. Led by guide Hugo McGuinness, it was estimated that almost 200 people took part. (Ironically, this was a greater number than the entire Republican garrison involved in 1916!)
The events at Annesley Bridge in 1916 generally receive only a small mention in the history of the Rising. In fact, there was fierce fighting at the time, not only at the bridge but throughout the surrounding areas. There were a great number of casualties, including civilians, though an exact figure has been difficult to compile. Our walking tour, for the first time, attempted to tell the whole story – from the radicalisation of the local residents in the years previous, to the events on Easter Week 1916 and how sporadic sniper battles continued after the Rising had ‘officially’ ended.
We hope you enjoy this video presentation, and we look forward to seeing you when we will no doubt repeat this event in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xz3DIIxtDQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db7N4e7DgrQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5yq7k9PNBs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukIRoDP_aws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkanWlu74sc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlIC7Rc6O4s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu5VZcEDKnM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYFuMOz_X4k
Our research into this battle and other local stories from 1916 and the revolutionary period is ongoing – if you have anything to contribute (family stories , photos, memorabilia etc) please get in touch .
eastwallhistory@gmail.com
Thanks to Bas Ó Curraoin for his great work producing these videos.
May 06
Football triumph for East Wall in 1964 50th anniversary celebration
Fifty years ago this weekend East Wall United became double cup winners , a major cause of pride and celebration in the community .
Come along and join an anniversary celebration this Friday evening May 9th , at7.30pm in the Sean O’Casey Community Centre , St. Marys Road .We will not just recall this event , but will be celebrating the proud tradition and history of East Wall football .
Come along , all welcome. We will have a display of old football photos , and past players will be present , if you have any memorabilia, photos or just your memories please bring them along.
40th celebration in 2004
Afterwards we will retire to the old watering hole , the Wharf Tavern (now: the Seabank House)
Apr 23
Sean O’Casey and the 1916 Rising : A prisoner in ‘the Merchants’ , and a ‘cup of scald’
“I thought that no man liveth and dieth to himself, so I put behind what I thought and what I did , the panorama of the world I lived in- the things that made me.” Sean O’Casey (1948)
Merchants Warehousing , Sheriff Street
Between 1939 and 1955 Sean O’Casey published six volumes of Autobiography. The first three in particular contain much about his life as a North Dock resident. Throughout this anniversary year, marking 50 years since his death , we intend to present short extracts from these works , concentrating on sections which are most relevant to the area . Over three days we are featuring sections on events during the Easter Rising 1916. O’Casey was a non combatant in the Rising , and his account is very much from a civilians perspective , and is a unique record of events locally , not recorded elsewhere. In our final 1916 excerpt we move onto the events of Wednesday and Thursday , the third and fourth day of the insurrection , as Sean and his neighbours are held prisoner in a grain store (most likely to be the Merchants Warehousing Company) , rumours abound and a meal is finally procured.
“The next evening, all the lusty men of the locality were marshalled, about a hundred of them, Sean joining in, and were marched under guard (anyone trying to bolt was to be shot dead) down a desolate road to a great granary. Into the dreary building they filed, one by one; up a long flight of dark stone steps, to a narrow doorway, where each, as he came forward, was told to jump through into the darkness and take a chance of what was at the bottom. Sean dropped through, finding that he landed many feet below on a great heap of maize that sent up a cloud of fine dust, near choking him. When his eyes got accustomed to it, he saw a narrow beam of light trickling in through some badly shuttered windows, and realized he was in a huge grain store, the maize never less than five feet deep so that it was a burden to walk from one spot to another, for each leg sank down to the thigh, and had to be dragged up before another step could be taken. It took him a long time to get to a window, and crouch there, watching the sky over the city through a crack in the shutters. A burning molten glow shone in the sky beyond, and it looked as if the whole city was blazing. One ear caught the talk of a group of men nearby who were playing cards. He couldn’t read Keats here, for the light was too bad for his eyes. More light, were the last words of Goethe, and it looked as if they would be his last words too.
-I dunno how it’ll end, said one of the card-players; the German submarines are sweepin’ up th’ Liffey like salmon, an’ when they let loose it’s goodbye England. My trick, there eh!
-I heard, said another player, that th’ Dublin Mountains is black with them – coal-scuttle helmets an’ all – your deal, Ned.
-Th’ Sinn Feiners has taken to an unknown destination that fella who ordehered the Volunteers in th’ counthry to stay incognito wherever they were - what’s his name? Oh, I’ve said it a hundhred times. What’s this it is?
-Is it Father O’Flynn? Asked a mocking voice in a corner.
-No mockery, Skinner Doyle; this isn’t a time for jokin’. Eh, houl’ on there – see th’ ace o’ hearts!
Then they heard them, and all the heads turned to where Sean was crouching at the window; for in the fussy brattle of ceaseless musketry fire, all now listened to the slow, dignified, deadly boom of the big guns.
-Christ help them now! Said Skinner Doyle.”
“Next day, he heard his name called from the hole at the end of the store where the sentry stood. Wading through the corn, he was told to leap up, and leaping, was caught by a corporal who helped him to scramble to the floor above. He was to go home for a meal, accompanied by a soldier, for a while the rest were permitted to disperse home for an hour, they were suspicious of him because his room was the one that received the fire from those searching out a sniper. He was covered with the dust of the corn, and though he had pulled up the collar of his coat to protect the wound in his neck, he felt the dust of the grain tearing against its rawness and felt anxious about it. But he had to be patient, so he trudged home, silent, by the side of the soldier. When he sat down, and, in reply to the soldier’s question, said there was nothing in the house with which to make a meal,
-Wot, nothink? asked the soldier, shocked. Isn’t there somewhere as you can get some grub?
-Yes, said Sean; a huckster’s round the corner, but I’ve no money to pay for it.
-E’ll give it, ‘e’ll ‘ave to; you come with me, said the Tommy; Gawd blimey, a man ‘as to eat!
So round to Murphy’s went the Saxon and the Gael, for food.
Murphy was a man who, by paying a hundred pounds for a dispensation, had married his dead wife’s sister, so that the property might be kept in the family; and Sean thought how much comfort and security for a long time such a sum would bring to his mother and to him. The soldier’s sharp request to give this prisoner fella some grub got Sean a loaf, tea and sugar, milk in a bottle, rashers and a pound of bully beef. On the way back, Sean got his mother, and they had a royal meal, the soldier joining them in a cup of scald.”
Extracts from “Drums under the windows” (1945)
All six volumes of Sean O’Casey Autobiographies, republished by Faber and Faber , are currently available in both print and kindle editions.
If you have a favourite Sean O’Casey extract please bring it to our attention .
Contact us at eastwallforall@gmail.com