I keep on the move – Sean recounts life of adventure

We had one of the coldest Decembers since 2010, freezing fog and ‘ice days’, where the temperature doesn’t climb above zero, but one Mullingar man remembers the “hard winter” of three quarters of a century ago. Sean Elliffe, who is 88, says “everything was frozen up”.

“That was a severe winter here, 1947, everything was frozen up, the bogs were frozen and the lakes were frozen. There were drifts of snow six and 10 feet deep, which was great fun for us round here,” says the former RAF man, who grew up in Blackhall, on the corner of Meeting House Lane.

“We’d throw a bucket of water down this road here and there’d be a skating rink from here to the end of the road, we didn’t realise the danger of people walking but there was very little traffic at that time,” he recalls.

“Everybody believed in Santa Claus, we were real innocent then. And it was real Christmas – you’d see a fella coming with a goose under his arm, and another fella with a turkey, and all the butcher shops would have had the poultry hanging up outside.

“You’d look forward to it. It was really Christmassy, whether there was snow or not. If you got snow it was just that wee bit extra.”

Sean has another big memory of 1947, and that was the making of the film Captain Boycott, some of which was shot in Mullingar.

“I was in Captain Boycott out in the racecourse. It was a film and the main stars were Cecil Parker, he played Captain Boycott, and Stuart Granger was the rebel. They were doing an eviction in Mullingar, they were common in the 20s or even before that. They set the scene out in the racecourse, they had a cottage and they set fire to it, and we were the ‘McGinty Boys’.

“They were here for about two or three weeks, and the clip was only two minutes in Mullingar, you just recognised the scene, it showed us what it cost to make a movie.

“The characters were all dressed up and they wouldn’t bother changing at night coming into town, it was great fun in town. We were too young to drink anyway, but I got 15 shillings a day. They gave me a McGinty cap, it had a peak at the front and a peak at the back.”

Pointing to a photograph he has of the cast, Sean can pick out Mrs Kenny from Ballinderry, and the ‘Fiddler Dunnes’.

“There was the father and son. They used to play on the train going up and down as buskers and they’d get a shilling, and then he’d hop on another train. You might see the Fiddler Dunne going down to Cork sometimes.

“I can always pick out a face. Packy Holmes is in there, with the hat, he was the star, he was getting two pounds a day,” said Sean.

“My sister was in it and she was getting two pounds 50 a day, and when she worked with Sullivan’s, she was only getting five shillings for serving her time – imagine!

“She was in it, along with my brother and myself, and when my father would come in at night, he’d say, ‘Mother, are all the film stars in bed?!’. The money was going into the teapot.

“There were four boys and four girls in our family, there was no television, we were playing cowboys and Indians, and the girls were making babby houses and playing hopscotch. We’d entertain ourselves.

Blackhall

“Blackhall here was our plaground. I’m 89 now, and I’m the only one who seems to remember it as it was. I thank the Lord that I have such a sharp memory.

“I was born just down the road there in Meeting House Lane, the houses are gone, but we used to go up to school just up the lane and my father was foreman of the town, and before that he was working for John Lynch making coffins here in Blackhall.

“I can remember every detail. People were different those days too, everybody was poor, we didn’t realise they were poor, they were poor, but they were happier people.

“I call all this Blackhall, right down to Mount Street, and here on the right hand side, you have the six houses there, that was St John’s Terrace.

“And here where the Westmeath Examiner is, a lady called Mrs Meehill lived here in a big country house. She was a very old lady, and there were four houses here in the front, that was Grove Street, and then you had the old Labour Exchange where Joli is now.

“There was the publican at the top of Meeting House Lane, Lynch, and he was a wool merchant as well. The Kellys and Gallaghers had it in the years after.”

“We used to play handball here against the back of the Bank of Ireland, which was the National Bank in our time. And John Ryan’s Square – they call it Dominick Square now – that was the Bank of Ireland. It’s a tea shop now. You had a Munster and Leinster Bank where the credit union is now, and the Ulster Bank across the road, which is still there.

“Mullingar was a very well structured town, the Barracks is gone now.

“All the big bands played in The County Hall, and it was the picture house as well, but the one I remember was the Colosseum Cinema where Dolan’s Bar is. That was the main entrance, you can see the arch at the top, they left that but other than that, it was just a yard and then the picture house where Mojos nightclub is now. It was tuppence and four pence in, the swanks were in the balcony for one and six!”

Now living on the Lynn Road, Sean remembers there were only two houses in Lynn when he was growing up, “now it’s like billionaires row, teachers and bankers and all living out there”.

Sean returned to Ireland in 1992, after leading an adventurous life abroad. He worked in England, and trained as a psychiatric nurse before joining the RAF in 1956. He was an air traffic controller and was posted to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Germany.

In 2018, he returned to those far-flung places, just to see how it had changed, and he could not believe the difference.

“I just wanted to see it again, but I’d like to remember it as it was. In the RAF times, we used to go down and have curries for a dollar, it was nearly Third World, but then to see all these skyscrapers they have now. Malaysia got their independence in 1979, and Singapore was independent three years later.”

“I got posted in Germany in 1963 for my last two years. It was mostly Americans in Germany at that time, all the RAF bases were along the Dutch border. The Americans had the best postings, they’d be down Wiesbaden and the Black Forest area.

“I was there the time Kennedy got shot and I saw Americans there and the tears rolling down their cheeks. Everybody remembers where they were when JFK got shot.

“I never got beyond corporal, and someone said to me once, ‘Is that as far as you went?’, and I said back to then, ‘Well, Hitler was only a corporal in the First World War, and look at the damage that he caused!’.”

“It was a great experience. After service you’re a bit unsettled, so I did bar work and whatever, I did three years in Watford, and then went into the city for a bit of experience, London.

“I worked in the Shepherds Market, celebrities used to come in there, you had the Playboy Club next door, and you’re off Curzon Street. You’d meet the ladies of the night looking for high clients from the Hilton Hotel.

“You reminisce about where you’ve been, but I’m still around anyway. A lot of the people I knew are lost or gone, or lost their memories. When I was nursing, it was known as ‘senile dementia’, it’s Alzheimer’s now.”

Now, Sean is “out on the bike most days”.

“I go along the Canal railway line, it’s a little bit monotonous, but all our relations lived out along Castletown, Streamstown, and Moate. I’ve cycled down as far as Lisnagree, this side of Rosemount.

“I don’t drive, I regret that, but I’ve used public transport all over the place. I keep on the move.

“I go to Belfast on a regular basis, and up to Dublin once or twice a week. I don’t go shopping, I go out to Howth or Bray to walk.

“I go to the IFI centre, there’s good movies on there. I saw Route 66 there. I’d like to do that before I leave this world, to do a rail journey from east to west in America.

“I keep on the move. If I don’t do it, who will? If I was waiting for someone to knock on the door and ask, ‘are you coming out to play’, I’d be waiting a while.”