BY JOHN FITZGERALD
This is often a time for looking back over the past year. As I happened to be researching Callan in a bygone era I couldn’t help but cast my mind further back…far beyond my own lifespan, to how different the town looked a century ago,
The raising of the festive lights in Callan illumined a town that has changed a thousand-fold over that period. There were more than thirty pubs back then, three hotels, and five time more businesses than now…drapers, tailors, bakeries, fishmongers, hardware, smithy’s forges…and so many stalls selling fruit, veg., and every known household or workplace gadget
Every second house had a bird cage hanging above the front door, with thrushes or linnets singing their hearts out…for joy possibly or, from what we know today, just a longing to be free.
Now the birds have flown, the small shops have all gone, nobody plays hopscotch in the streets anymore, and the Supermarket era has made its presence felt with a vengeance as in most other towns.
The change is starkest in Bridge Street. In the early 20th century, it had a whopping 27 businesses, with every house in Upper Bridge Street doubling as a shop catering for every conceivable need. Now the businesses have gone, which is why those Christmas lights might well have lighted on a desolate thoroughfare.
Might…but for the success that is Fennelly’s café and arts hub. The former pub has renewed this part of Callan, with its showcasing of talent across a whole gamut of the arts. Painters, singers, songwriters, poets, comedians, and old-fashioned storytellers regale their audiences, sometimes small but occasionally large- with barely standing room- entertaining at the fireside in what used to be the rear of the old pub when Mrs. Fennelly ran the place.
In spring, summer and autumn the spacious courtyard, once part of the Fennelly farm enterprise, plays host to bands playing rock, pop, jazz, or trad…all genres are catered for.
Proprietor Etaoin Holahan, a consummate artist herself, has steered this creative space through the turbulent storms of austerity, pandemic, and the downside of modern “progress” that has taken a toll on small business enterprises, wrenching out the hearts of towns and villages, eroding a way of life that’s fast morphing into something that would, I suspect, have left our forebears gasping for words.
The Hearse Room lives again…
The latest attraction at Fennelly’s is the Open Mike on the first Friday of each month. I went along to the recent one and was not disappointed. Upon passing through the door of Fennelly’s I headed right into the converted pub and was surprised to find no poets or singers. So I headed for the courtyard, thinking that, despite the freezing night, the gathering might be out there.
Not a sign of anyone…and then I heard the strumming of a guitar and spotted a thin ray of light from a building that I’d not noticed, or given a thought to, for years. It was what in Mrs. Fennelly’s day was known as the Hearse Room. It was from here that the mortal remains of many a decent local man and woman departed when the pub/farm/undertaker business thrived in former decades.
Last time I stood at the threshold of this building was on the occasion of an upcoming funeral back in the mid-1980s.
I didn’t know what to expect. Pushing in the door I was met by a pleasant wave of heat from an old stove that artist Julia Bohan had got working again.
Seated on wooden chairs and quaint ancient sofas were the artistically-minded folk who’d gathered to sing, recite; or just share their creative insights in the space that once served as a portal between this world and the next.
It was a joy to listen as each artist held forth. There were soulful laments and rousing ditties from the guitarists, chicly interspersed by readings of poetry.
The poems reflected the diverse range of talent…It would be hard to find a different pair of poets for example than the flamboyant Philip Lynch, the local historian, who read a selection of his favourite comic verse, and the evocative and utterly gripping presentation by Julia Bohan, author of a collection titled Not Yet, which touched on highly absorbing themes such as the relevance of poetry itself and aspects of mental wellbeing.
The use of the Hearse Room for such a cheerful and life-enhancing event was an inspired move and I couldn’t help wondering what some of those people who passed through the room on their final journey would think of it.
If they’re “looking down”, I hope they’ll be happy to see that the place still thrives in a very different age from theirs.
There’s talk of urban renewal that may inject new life…brighten up the town maybe. But in the meantime, it’s nice to see this hub of culture, amity, and enterprise in Callan.
