Almost 70 years of watching life on Cork's Patrick Street

Eileen Twomey is always looking down on Patrick Street. Her lofty perspective has nothing to do with any wayward sense of self, however, or ‘notions’ as we like to say in Cork. She literally lives above the street. And is one of its last official residents.

67 years of watching our vibrant city evolve and grow.

History literally unfolding before her very eyes.

What a privileged and precious vantage point from which to view the world below.

“My father was a naval commander with the American navy. Born in Cobh, he emigrated in the 1920s, first working as an engineer with the merchant navy before being drafted into the US navy during the war.

“On a trip home to Cork, he met my Mom (also called Eileen). She was modelling hats in Roches Stores.”

They were instantly smitten with each other and started writing to one another.

“I’ve some of the letters he wrote to her. They are absolutely gorgeous.”

After they married, they lived in an apartment in New York where they had a son, followed by Eileen the year after.

“Dad died when I was 8, and we remained on in New York for a few years before coming back to live with my Granny in the Lower Glanmire Road.”

There, they lived in a terrace of 11 houses which were elevated over the road.

“We were all very ecumenical in the 1940s, as six homes were Catholic and the other five a mixture of Protestant and Methodist.”

The neighbours all shared in each other’s christenings, weddings, funerals, whatever the religion.

“It would have been totally frowned on by the church.

“Mom married Paddy, our next-door neighbour down in the terrace.”

It wasn’t long before they were all bound for Cork city centre.

There was a hairdressing salon operating on the first floor above a store on Patrick Street.

“My aunt Kitty had worked there in the ’40s and, when the family died, mom and Kitty secured the lease and opened their own hairdressing salon.”

Shortly after, her mother also took the lease on the apartment in the floor above the salon, and the family moved in.

The year was 1957.

A bird's-eye view of the glitterati

Eileen was a teenager, attending St Angela’s school, located a few minutes away, and lovingly stitching her own fashion creations in her spare time.

She also loved to watch the Sunday ritual of dating couples ‘walking out’ or promenading arm-in-arm along Patrick’s Street.

Of course, nothing could compare to the movie-star glamour on display at the annual Film Festival that took place in the Savoy, a few doors away.

Eileen had a bird’s-eye view of all the glitterati as they arrived at the theatre for the gala screenings.

“You saw everything from stunning fur coats to people in daywear. The chauffeur-driven cars would have to stop a good way away from the door because of the crowds and the flashing cameras.

“The manageress of the Savoy was Renee Ahern, a neighbour of my aunt in the Lower Road. She used to get us photographs of the stars, like Peter Finch and John Gregson, and get them signed for us!”

It all sounded so exciting.

And what about actress Dawn Adams?

“She was staying in the Metropole and, apparently, insisted on having a milk bath, like Cleopatra.”

Cork had never seen the like of it. Notions indeed.

Parades and a President 

When John F Kennedy ed by under their window, Eileen recalls them hanging both an American flag and a tricolour out of the window.

“We were literally hanging out of the other,” she adds with a laugh.

St Patrick’s Day parades were wonderful too, though they could be a bit hit-and-miss on occasion.

“Some years, there might be a plethora of Irish dancing schools, and the next, it could be majorettes!” laughs Eileen.

However, it was also so lovely to be so close to the action.

There was plenty of action one year the street flooded.

“ War and Peace was playing in the Pavilion cinema and my cousin Gertie and I were going to go. I looking out the window at 4.15pm to see if her bus had yet arrived, and the sun was shining brightly.”

The corporation was tarmacking Patrick Street at the time and the smells from the hot coal barrels, mingled with the fresh tar, wafted up to her apartment.

“When I looked out again, it was 4.40pm and I was shocked to see that the water was lapping across the road, the coal fires sizzling with the rising waters. The bonnet of our Ford Anglia car, parked outside Roches, was already underwater. Some of the coal barrels were empty and floated. And opportunistic lads were sitting on them floating down Patrick Street.

“I saw a man in a canoe. And heard that Murphy’s Brewery horses and dray took people off the steps of the Capital, Pavilion and Savoy cinemas to the safety of Bridge Street where they were above the water level.”

Living so centrally meant easy access to great events, like the annual Eucharistic Procession.

“I’ll never forget the crowds of people. All the side-streets jammed. You couldn’t get into Patrick Street. The praying and hymn-singing, the reverence shown towards the Blessed Sacrament, was all absolutely beautiful.”

The pageantry was truly a sight to behold.

“Army officers, with swords drawn, formed a guard of honour, as they accompanied the ornate canopy and procession of clergy through the street to the altar at Daunt Square,” recalls Eileen.

Behind them, walked the army, navy, the corporation as well as professors from UCC, and the many male confraternity groups from around the city.

Those men who didn’t walk stood beside the women and children thronging the streets.

Drama on the street 

Living so close to the city centre had its disadvantages too – like the time she was home alone and heard a garda car driving up and down Patrick Street calling for people to leave immediately.

“I phoned the Bridewell Garda Station to explain that I couldn’t leave as I lived in Patrick Street. They said they’d got word that there was a bomb in Cash’s, now Brown Thomas, and advised me to pull all the blinds and curtains on the windows facing the street, and to go to a back room myself.”

When the all-clear was eventually given, she was looking out the window at all the post-hoax industry when she spotted hoards of people spilling out of the Lee Cinema on Winthrop Street.

Evidently, she reckons someone forgot to tell them about the suspected device in the building next door and they watched their movie in blissful ignorance!

“In the late 50s and 60s, Patrick Street was full of beautiful buildings and a wonderful variety of shops.”

There was an exquisite cigar and tobacco shop on the now-extinct Merchant’s Street (a side street between Roches Stores and the building beside it), The Tivoli Restaurant, the ornate tiled facades of the little tourist office located beside the Savoy Theatre and the Swan and Cygnet pub, where the current Tourist Office stands. Gilberts art supplies selling those distinctive Tretchikoff prints “the likes you’d see in editions of House and Gardens or Woman in Home magazines”, Vard’s and Rohu’s furriers, the Old Bridge café which was a popular tea-spot for those walking Pana, Dowden’s magnificent ladies outfitters, Cudmore’s sweet shop, Bolgers, Piggots music store.

And, of course, the majestic Savoy Theatre, the epi-centre of so many wonderful memories for the people of Cork.

The first-rate concerts (including Gigli, Nana Mouskouri and the Vienna Boys Choir), Sunday nights’ cinema with singsong, accompanied by the late great Fred Bridgeman on the old Hammond Organ, the Wedgewood Room restaurant, the sweet kiosk at the top of the stairs, the ramp down to the cheaper seats, the sweeping internal grand staircase to the Grand Circle, and the 96 steps up to the Gods via the William Street entrance. Simply unforgettable.

Looking out at Christmas, from her second-floor home, with the exquisite street decorations and the hustle and bustle of the festive industry down below must have been extra special too.

“One of my stand-out memories is the beautiful façade of pictures Roches Stores had each year. It ran the full length of the building. It was absolutely beautiful. I was looking straight across at it, but anyone on the street was looking up at it”, she explains.

Eileen has seen so many changes on Patrick Street in her 67 years living there.

“It’s very dark on the street at night. If the shops don’t have their lights on, you can’t really see.

“I can coming home from kitchen parties for staff who were getting married, and walking home at 2am. Not a care in the world.

“I wouldn’t do it now after 8 or 9 at night. And I no longer come through the side streets, which was my usual route home.”

Still wonderfully creative, glowing with an inner vibrancy, Eileen Twomey continues to be actively involved in her inner-city community.

And she is so proud to be one of Patrick Street’s last official residents.

This article appeared this year's Holly Bough. 

The 2024 Holly Bough is now on sale and can be purchased here.