Sepia Saturday - Nov 2

I'm posting at Sepia Saturday today.

201 : Houses are such an important part of all our lives, be they big or small, stone or wood, brick or turf. So this week we celebrate our ancestral homes in old photographs.

Before my grandparents moved to Mourne Rd they lived at 62 Ballybough.

The term Bailebough in Irish is derived from the 'Baile' Town and 'Bocht' meaning 'poor'. 



 My uncle had taken me there in 1991 and I got this photo.

I also found the electoral records for 1939-40 showing my grandparents living there. In 1938 my father would have been 12 years old.

My grandfather, Thomas on the right and it appears to be taken outside 62 Ballyboough. I don't know who the man on the left is, but he looks like an older version of one of my uncles, so perhaps a grand-uncle?

Here is a current street view courtesy of Google and Snagit.

I don't know if they lived anywhere else before they moved to Mourne Road in Drimnagh.

Drimnagh is bounded by the Crumlin Road, starting at Sundrive Road junction and continuing along Drimnagh Road to the Halfway House, and then around by Lansdowne Valley to the Canal, along Davitt Road to Suir Bridge and along Parnell Road to Herberton Bridge and Herberton Road junction with Crumlin Road.

In the early to mid-nineteen thirties Associated Properties began building houses in the area of Drimnagh adjacent to Lansdowne Valley. Sometime in the mid to late nineteen thirties Dublin Corporation undertook a massive housing programme in order to alleviate the overcrowding and bad housing conditions which then existed in Dublin's Inner City.


The first of the local authority houses built by 1940 had been allocated to families from condemned inner city tenements or from other over-crowded conditions.

My grandparents got this house as part of the Dublin Corporation (Corpo) programme. many years later the corporation sold these houses to the tenants and my grandmother bought it.

This is as the house looks now. I snagged this photo from Google maps.

My Dad lived in this house, on Mourne Road in Drimnagh, and my aunt Leila, his only sister still lives in today.

I am guessing that Dad would have been at least 13 or fourteen when they moved here. Leila was a baby. 

Our Lady of Good Counsel Church (built in 1943) was across the street and played a huge part in my grandmother's life. My father always complained bitterly that she spent more time over there taking care of the priests than she did for her children.

Most of my aunts and uncles were married from this church as my mother had grown up down the street. My parents were married in this church.

Leila, my uncle Tommy and my grandmother.

This is Dad standing in the doorway, I would guess around 1950.

My aunt Leila grew up here and when she married she moved in with her mother. My grandfather was living in England having gone there during the war to find work (or so my grandmother always said). Leila and her husband Tony had three daughters and two sons in this house. It must have been very crowded.

Leila, Tony and Susan early 1960s.

Here we are visiting in 1970, my Dad's first visit back since he left Ireland in 1957. That would be Leila in the blue dress.

Me with my cousins, who lived in the house, Brenda and Antoinette. the boys hadn't been born yet.

My other cousin, Susan (RIP) outside the house.

Here is Leila's clan in front of the house in the later 1970s as the boys are also in the photo.

This shot shows the house across the street on Brenda's wedding day - Susan and Antoinette are bridemaids.

Some of the famous people who grew up in Drimnagh.

• Gabriel Byrne, actor.
• Patrick Bergin, actor.
• Emmet Bergin, actor.
• Seán Keane, fiddle player of The Chieftains.
• Patrick Doyle, musician.
• James Keane, musician.
• Seán Potts, musician.
• Patricia Cahill, musician.
• Colm Wilkinson, and Irish musical theatre, actor and singer.