By John Fitzgerald
(Part two)
Another absorbing pastime in Callan was card playing. In the early years of the century, the only form of transport for the men who gathered to play “25s” was Shank’s Mare. The game was played both indoors- in homes and pubs- and in the open air.
It was common up to at least the mid-forties to see clusters of men sitting under a tree at a crossroads, or at the side of a road, immersed in their game of cards. The tree was handy in case a shower of rain should disrupt the proceedings.
Other men and boys spent afternoons chasing rats along the riverbank with terriers. This was a game that mimicked foxhunting. With rampant unemployment, many people had little else to do when not toiling for farmers. Jimmy Walsh remembered his father throwing his pipe at a rat on the riverbank when a man with a terrier failed to see it.
Having struck the rodent from a range of fifty yards, the smoker calmly strode over to where the missile had found its target, fetched his pipe and refilled it with Condor tobacco. In later years, a local raconteur compared this incident to a scene from a Clint Eastwood film
The game of Conkers was another big hit with the Callan lads. For this you pierced a horse chestnut, pulled a string through it and knotted this underneath. You had to hold the dangling string about nine inches from the chestnut and your challenger was given three attempts to break the chestnut.
He held his own chestnut tightly by the string and whacked away at yours in an effort to smash it. Then you had a chance to break your opponent’s chestnut. The game continued until one or other chestnut was broken and the winner was declared “Conkers”. It has not been recorded who exactly was the best Conkers player in Callan, but there were many champions in the town and district.
The game has experienced a revival in recent years. Unsurprisingly, as it has a huge competitive element. Who knows? Callan may yet follow Freshford’s example and organise Conker Championships…
Open air platforms and makeshift dance floors provided a great social outlet for Callan folk in the first half of the twentieth century. These were erected in paddocks, in fields that had strong fencing (to keep out the rowdies), and at crossroads around Callan. And there was of course the famed dancing board outside the Creamery in West Street that I have already described in Callan through the Mists of Time.
In the 40s, the bands that provided the music for platform dancing would have four members: A saxophone player, an accordionist, a drummer, and a fiddler or banjo player. There might be a protective tarpaulin covering to shield them from the rain.
Couples travelled to these lively events on bikes. Each man would carry his girl on the crossbar.
During the war- or Emergency- the dancers faced a major challenge in getting to and from the dances. There was a chronic shortage of bicycle lamp batteries and also strict rationing of fuel for carbide lamps. The lads refused to be deterred by this problem or by a Garda clampdown on riding without lights at night.
Because there were so few cars on the road, the lads knew there was little prospect of a motor accident. And they could not give it to be said among their workmates and fellow drinkers back in Callan that they had let down their love-hungry damsels. So they cycled in the dark to the dance platforms.
Many a high speed chase resulted from this illegal cycling, with Gardai riding after lamp-less dancers on their own bikes, the pursuers and pursued peddling furiously…but with the lawmen having the advantage of lights on their bikes. Any one caught without a light on his bike risked a heavy fine and a severe telling-off in Callan Court.
But the dancing continued unabated. Aside from Callan, among the best known County Kilkenny danceboard venues in the 40s were Danesfort on the Bennettsbridge road near Tim Hennessy’s house; Threecastles, beside Campions; Desart, opposite the old school house building; Ballyline, beside Justin McGarth’s; Ballymack, on the Ballyclovin road near Davy Cunningham’s house; Graigue, near the old entrance to Shipton House; Sheepstown, Knocktopher; the “Whitegates” at Mullinahone; and Kildrummy, behind an old creamery close to Windgap.
(to be continued)
