A Ramble about Tallaght

The Memoirs of Matty Dunbar of Bohernabreena Matty Dunbar, 1999 (Photo: Mr. Louis Fagan) Matty Dunbar was born in North Mayo in 1915 and came to Tallaght as a young man.  He married Doreen Murray from Balrothery before settling in Bohernabreena.  After serving his time as a boiler maker with Hubert’s Engineering firm on Cork Street in Dublin, he worked in Woodtown and DeSelby quarries for a shilling an hour. "When I first came to Tallaght there was still the remains of many little houses on the top of Tallaght Hill. They were the ruins of the weaver’s cottages.  A hundred years before my time a community of weavers  had come down from the north and set up there.  They would work away there for months, then go off around the country selling their wares.  The Night of the Big Wind (6th January 1839) smashed all their looms, knocked down their houses.  The next day they all packed up and left, never to be seen again.  There was an awful hurricane that night, from wh

The Blacksmith's Daughter- The Memoirs of May Delaney ( nee Kelly) May Kelly (Centre) with Friends Maggie Barry and Mary Manning (circa 1924) May Delaney ( nee Kelly) was born in Balrothery in 1914 and moved to Tallaght village with her family shortly after.  Her mother (Mary-Ann Reid) worked in Boardman's Mill in Glenview before marrying the village Blacksmith, John Kelly from Firhouse.   May had six brothers and two sisters, Jude and Jane who were known locally as The Tallaght Twins.   After marrying Bill Delaney from the Liberties in 1949, May moved to Walkinstown. In the late 1990s she still visited Tallaght at least once a week, for the Senior Citizens Club and to play bowling in the Leisureplex, where her back garden once was! Mary's Sisters- The Tallaght Twins Tallaght- It's a changed place now!   You wouldn't know where you were.  I can hardly tell one road from another, but I suppose it's a good thing, now that life is easier.  

The Memoirs of Willie Kennedy of Greenhills Mr. Willie Kennedy 1999 (Photo: Mr. Louis Fagan) Willie Kennedy was born in Greenhills Village outside Tallaght in 1917, in a small house that once stood beside the Cuckoo’s Nest.   He lived with his four brothers and four sisters, but at nighttime he and one of this brothers slept in the house across the road in which his grandfather had been born, as their own home was too small.   Although the village of Greenhills was long gone, Willie could still remember many of the families who had lived there in the 1920s.   After working in Guinness for 40 years Willie played a leading role in establishing the first Credit Union in Tallaght in 1969 of which he served as first Chairman. He served as first full time manager there from 1980 to 1989.   He was Honorary Treasurer and President of the National Association of the Mentally Handicapped and was on the board of management of Cheeverstown from 1974 to 1998. "WD Handcock, in h