Burning the pump

In reference to our query of a couple of weeks ago, about the girl at the pump, we subsequently found out it was Eileen Bolger, writes Brian Byrne.

But the same pump — currently in Kildare County Council care pending its replacement after an accident — was also regularly interesting for another reason … being set on fire.

Every winter the pump would be insulated against freezing by being wrapped in straw. But from time to time, mostly late at night after the pubs closed, an occasional miscreant would set a match to the straw, and the pump would have to be later ‘dressed’ in its winter overcoat all over again.

This time, though, it seems to have happened in daytime. I found the photograph in a family collection, and have had to do a significant fixing job to make it worth showing.

There’s no date, but it is before the modern buildings of CPC were added. And it looks like early spring because there isn’t much growth on the trees in the Convent grounds.

I suspect the boy in short pants, jacket, jumper and tie might well be one of us Byrnes, though that’s not definite. I wonder whose face is just in the left of the pic, and who are the guys on the two motorbikes in the background?

A puzzle from the past … again.

(Obviously, nobody had any idea who set fire to the pump on this occasion, either.)