While we are all in a nostalgic mood about the old Hideout, it got me looking through old pictures that were in my late mother’s things, and came I across these few which might raise a few more memories,
writes Brian Byrne.
The first is of my dad, the late Jim Byrne, taken in the early 80s by myself, him with Donnelly’s Arm and an appropriate bottle of stout.
The next is a scene in the HO car park in mid-August 1992, with some kind of timber construction going on outside the door to what used to be the ‘Cave’, but by then was probably not.
(Don't know who was being 'welcomed'.)
Then there’s a postcard of Kilcullen from the New Abbey Road, before the trees in the Valley had gotten so big that this view was no longer possible. No date here.
Then my grandparents, James J Snr and Mary Byrne. He was always known around as ‘The Boss’, but of course ‘Mrs Boss’ was the real Boss. This was on the day of their 50th wedding anniversary.
And the last one is a real teaser, for which I’d love to have an answer. It’s a young girl at the old pump (recently knocked down and hopefully soon to be restored). It’s 1955, note the Ford Prefect parked, only launched that year, and the little ‘Hide Out’ sign partly hidden by the porch. The ‘Cottage’ shop which was to be opened by my mother in the small cottage beside the pub isn’t yet there. And it’s probably late winter, early spring, because of the coat she’s wearing and the wellies, and the winter straw insulation still on the pump.
Who is she? I have an idea, but it would be nice to get some independent verification.
Enough with the reminiscing …
(UPDATE: Thanks to a number of correspondents, I now know that it is Eileen Bolger in the picture.)
