Poems,stories and songs

"Newtown: the parish of St Pauls" Tommy Walsh

"Ode T0 Newtown" Kathy Harris

"Little Ireland R.I.P." Dan O'Neil , South Wales Echo

"When The Heart Stopped Beating" Dan O'Neil South Wales Echo

"A Tribute to the People of Newtown" Michael O'Driscoll

You can read Peter Finch's account of Vanished Newtown and find out about other parts of old Cardiff in his most interesting "Real Cardiff"site which you will find on http://www.peterfinch.co.uk/cardiff.htm

Newtown: the parish of St Paul's, the first poem on this page was the inspiration behind the Newtown project. It was recorded by Tommy Walsh and transcribed with his kind permission by Mary Sullivan in 1988. The poem had its first public reading at a Poems and Pints evening at St Peters Church Hall in September 1988. Since then it has been recited at various events all over the city, including the annual St Fagan’s May Fair in May 2000. The words have also been put to music by local singer/ songwriter Frank Hennessy and is featured in the Hennesseys' latest album.

Born 15 April at 2 Pendoylan Street, Newtown, Cardiff, Tommy was the second youngest of ten children. The family being made up of father, Patrick (a dock worker) , mother, Mary Ann (nee Driscoll), six boys ands four girls. Tommy married Elizabeth Collins of 9 Tyndall Street, Newtown, Cardiff on 14 January 1939 at St Paul's Church in Tyndall Street. Canon Grieshaber officiated. Tom and Lily had three Children, Thomas, Frances and Joseph Patrick. Tom died 18 months after Lily on 13 August 1991 (aged 77years). In his youth Tommy was a noted amateur boxer and at one time held the title Welsh ABA Champion Western Counties, and Southern Counties Lightweight champion. His working life was spent in the building industry as a plasterer.

NEWTOWN "The Parish of St Pauls"

They called it Little Ireland,The Wearing of the Green"

All good friends and neighbours, the like you’ve never seen

None of us were wealthy; the riches passed us by

Our policy was not to take, but to give, or just to try

That was the spirit of Newtown, I don’t mean whiskey or gin

But to fight against adversity and have the will to win

And win they did, against all odds, those people of St. Pauls

Because as the old folk used to say "If God don’t send he calls."

Rosemary Street and Ellen, North William Street and Tyndall,

Roland Street, and Pendoylan, now my adrenalin starts to tingle

Those six streets were Newtown, surrounded by railways and walls

And here are some of my remembers of the Parish of St. Pauls.

St. Pauls Church in Tyndall Street where we all went to pray

Hymn singing so devoutly with the organist Mary O’Shea

Everyone loved Miss Mary, she was held in high esteem

As the children gathered around her you’d think she was the Queen

The Bob Tail was our playground, the canal our Empire Pool

Our Lido was the Feeder, where we went swimming after school

I remember the bookies on the corner, where we had our little flutter

And the cries of Span! and Knuckle Down! as we played marbles in the gutter.

A game of Gobs; or kick the tin; picking winkles down the Leys

Our pleasures were few and far between, but they were happy, happy days

I remember too the threepenny Hops, our very own Pavlova

The girls done up in their Toni perms looking for the Dance Floor Casanova

The boys all in their Sunday best, their hair brushed to a sheen

And with hair oil so expensive they just used margarine.

Then there were our Rugby Teams, Crusaders and St. Pauls

And the arguments and discussions over lineouts and on Mauls

The Inquest on the Saturday match, what went wrong and why

And what they called the referee when he disallowed our try

I listened to those arguments around the old Welsh walls

And vowed that after leaving school I’d play Rugby for St. Pauls.

What about the game of "Pitch and Toss," two gambling schools at least

With Larboes on the lookout for the coppers and the Priest.

Some worked to a system, which they said never fails, but

As a youngster, to my mind, it just meant Heads or Tails.

Who could forget the corner shops, with Aunty Emm in the middle

At Carlson’s and Duffy’s you served yourself, and anything else you could fiddle

Ellen Healy’s and Memmie Daley’s were the Tesco’s of our day

Where the weekly groceries were on the book till Dada got his pay

Those corner shops were our life blood, whichever way you look -

Our Access card the kiss of life to those who were on the book

I am very often reminded about all our Public Houses

Where we had better entertainment than any Liverpool Scousers

We had Master Mind and quizzes before they came on Telly

Every Saturday night in the Crichton Arms run by Billy Fitz and Nellie

And How about the Good Old Duke once kept by Peerless Jim

Then we had the "OCKERS," Tommy Burns and Tim

Dai Kelleher only lived next door, not far for him to roam -

But at Stop Tap on a Saturday night, he’d have a taxi home.

The unloading of the Spud boats in the now defunct West Dock

The Dockers; swearing, sweating blood in a race to beat the clock

The women on the landing stage, stitching weaving, stacking

And Doty O’Loughlin watching out, to ensure there was no slacking

No room for skivers on this job, those Dockers had their pride

The Captain’s promised a bonus, if they get him out next tide

Their job complete the ship has gone away to catch the tide -

The Dockers to the West Dock bar to get a wet inside

I have very often heard it said, a rumour I shouldn’t repeat

That when the Pub was busy the Dock water went down two feet.

How about the "Irish Wakes" all good clean fun and laughter

They sometimes had the funeral first and held the wakes just after

It was best to have it that way the old folks always said

For the singing and the dancing was enough to wake the dead

No one was ever turned away, it was an ever open door

Come in me boy and sing us a verse of "The Hat Me Father Wore"

Or "Danny Boy," or "Mother Macree," or about "Killarney’s Lake"

And I’ll tell you of the tricks they played at Steve O’Donnell’s wake

When Rafferty and Murphy, with no respect for the dead

Took the corpse and put it into Spinster Riley’s bed

So just come in and have a tot or a little pinch of snuff

Push Murphy under the table there - I think he’s had enough

I remember the mystery writings on the bridge, which we crossed to go to school

Such as Mary C loves Johnny D and Josie M’s a fool

Some writings were real nasty and friends were torn apart

With Kitty J hates Billy M, and the drawing of a broken heart

Dan Murphy said "It’s the Leprechauns who write upon the walls

They’re out to cause some trouble," he said, "between St David’s and St Paul’s

"Not the Catholic Leprechauns of course, it’s the Protestants" he said

"They creep out on the bridge at night when you’re asleep in bed"

Those writings caused many a tear, of that I have no doubt

Nobody knew who the culprit was - it was always signed: Find Out!

The characters and nicknames are remembered to this day

Who could forget Liz Ripper, if they ever passed her way

Or Butcher O’Brien and Kyker, Mush Clements or Bosheen

Golly Eyes, Bratcho, Pablo and Tagneen,

Tommy Uko and Our Lord, Dutchy Reagan and the Troupe,

Dibby Doora and Consta our very own Disco Group

Jumbo and the Little Flower, Towta Daley and The Skinner,

John O’Shea the Tipster - who never tipped a winner,

Dan the Liar and Oxo, Stagger Juice and his dog

And Rafferty and McKeown, who came over from the Bog.

Then there was little Danny Reardon and his brother Nick the Grip

When asked, "where’s the urinal mate?" he thought it was ship

"How many funnels has it got," said Dan, "if it’s got two it’s in the Queen’s Dock

But you’ll have to hurry up," said Nick, "it went out at 3 o’clock."

Remember Billy Navo? and his elder brother Pats,

when Navo let his Pigeons out, his neighbours had no cats.

What a character that Navo was, Newtown’s Davy Crockett

It was said that he could peel, and slice, anOrange in his pocket.

The memories still remain of those far off happy days

A good community now split up and all gone different ways

The M’cCarthys and O’Briens, the Murphys and A’Hearne’s

O’Sullivans and Dwyers, O’Loughlins and the Burns

The Collins’s and the Walsh’s, O’Shanahans and the Bradys

The Flynns, the Reagans and the Doyles, the Careys and O’Gradys

The Whelans and the Barrys, O’Keefe, O’Shea and Quinn,

Sestanovitch and Nikovic - Sestanovitch and Nikovic !!! -

I don’t know how they got in!

We had a surplus of O’Briens and quite a few O’Learys

So we gave some to St. Peters, and in Canton, to St Mary’s

We also sent McCarthys to St. Albans on the Moor

And taught them the art of Rugby - their team was very poor

Then we sent out Missionaries to build a parish called St. Jo’s

And gave them talks on Rugby, just to keep them on their toes.

Our Mission was successful, beyond our wildest dreams

Now they have a Church, a School and four good Rugby teams

So raise your glasses, I’ll give you a toast to those Newtown Men of Vision

Who did so much for others and thus fulfilled their Mission.

A gentle shake, a whisper, my grandchildren are gathered near

They’ve been listening to my ramblings and I wipe away a tear

Wake up Grampy! you’ve been dreaming, and talking in your sleep[

About a place called Newtown, and you’ve had a little weep.

You’ve laughed aloud and shouted and made a lot noise

And sang a song that sounded like: "We are the Newtown Boys."

So Grampy, please, when you have time and finished all your calls

Will you tell us about Newtown and the Parish of St. Pauls.

Indeed I will, I’ll tell them all of our laughter and our joy

So that when I’m gone they’ll be proud to say

"My Gramps was a Newtown Boy"

Now Newtown’s gone, demolished, to me a sinful pity

A part of Cardiff gone for good - We were a town within a City

But you won’t find any Epitaph, or a plaque set in the Walls

To say that this was Newtown, The Parish of St. Paul’s

But remember this – there must be a place up there

without any railways or walls, where the people of Newtown

meet up again to reform the parish of St. Paul’s

Tommy Walsh

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Kathy Harris (nee Davies) , a "Newtown girl" (she used to live in North William Street) has sent in the following contribution to this page. Kathy says that she wrote this many years ago - long before there was any thought of our erecting a memorial to Newtown. These, she says, were her feelings at the time.

Ode to Newtown

How wrong they were to pull them down,

The little streets of old Newtown.

Nothing there to tell a stranger - no plaque, or memorial stone;

Nothing to tell anyone that this place was once my home.

How many families came from here only to depart,

Nothing left of the Community that once beat in it's heart.

With Pastures new they plied us, those politicians of the day;

No one told us we might have the right to stay.

We went like lambs to the slaughter to those council houses in

Trowbridge, Fairwater and Tremorfa

and the lure of all that "hot water"

We went , first some, then all

The proverbial carrot looked good at the time,

But to our cost, a monster crime.

How wrong they were to pull them down

The little streets of "Old Newtown"

Kathy Harris (Davies)

The following piece was contributed by Mrs Maureen O’Driscoll from Llanishen. It was written by her husband Michael, shortly before his death in 1991.

A Tribute to the People of Newtown

Newtown has many memories for myself because it was the place where I was born. It was surrounded by bridges, railways and docks and you could always hear the sound of hooters and trams. It had many little streets and small shops where you could buy sweets, pop etc., that’s if you bad the money from running errands for about Id or up to 6d.I can remember the names above the shops, to name a few there was ‘The Clements’, ‘Emmie Daley’, ‘Liz Brien’ and ‘Dear old Aunty Emm’ who would save your money for you for Christmas and your savings card was always marked. I am sure many ‘Newtowners’ will know what I am on about, you may have done the same. Newtown, it had its happy times and sad times. Sad if someone got drowned in the docks or canal.Happy if there was a wedding, you could hear them singing in the ‘Cambridge’ or the ‘Duke of Edinburgh’ as well.The doors of all the houses were always open if it was a bright and sunny day. The neighbours would sit out on the door step and drink a cup of tea or two and have a talk, or watch the children playing up and down the street, some would often stroll over to the ‘Bob Tail’ or the ‘Howard’ just a stretch of empty ground. Or end up sitting on the ‘Welchie Wall’ which had a tall brick chimney stack it stood out like a Monument. Once you saw it you knew you were home. The people nicknamed it little Ireland because they came over by boat and settled there. Some men-found work over the ‘Dowlais’ also on the decks. it had its Church which was named St.Pauls. Also a hall where they could have a hop’ or dance and finish with a drink, whatever they had.Some will always think about the ‘Alley and the ‘Courteen’ where couples would get romantic and end up getting wed. Newtown had memories and secrets, which some of you will recall. It even had a Fish & Chip shop. So who ever took the fancy and had the money that’s the place for you.‘Newtown did its part to win the war and gave it with lives, others were killed in the bombing by those sneaky German planes. The people of ‘Dear old Newtown’ you could go on for ever. If I had to write their names. some were old others young, so that’s what made it precious. It even had some talents in the sports as well such as Boxers and in Rugby and swimming. Football wasn’t so popular as it is today. So hold your head up high or raise your glass. Be proud you were born there. So don’t wony be happy and pack up your troubles and leave your cares behind.

Keep Newtown in your heart.

Michael O’Driscoll

‘Little Ireland’-R.I.P.

Little Ireland’"Irish mythology speaks of an enchanted land, an Isle of theBlessed..... that is how the people wrenched from their homes thought in exile of their beloved Newtown…"

(Dan O’Neill, ‘South Wales Echo’)

Forget the poet’s musings that April was the cruellest month... For the people of Cardiff’s ‘Little Ireland’, Old Newtown, a bleak November just 30 years ago earned that title.November, 1966. And for the celebrated slice of the city that got its name when it was set up to house the Irish workers who built Cardiff’s docks a century earlier, it was - The End. New buildings mushroomed, Atlantic Wharf arrived, we got what the promoters tried to label ‘Little Venice’ instead of ‘Little Ireland’. A vast flyover sweeps over the end of the road once dominated by St. Paul’s Church and the streets that clattered with kids vanished with the sound of their laughter. The death sentence was handed down in July that year. Cledwyn Hughes, Secretary of State for Wales, gave Cardiff City Council the go-ahead to compulsorily acquire and demolish the tiny homes that had sheltered generations of our Cardiff-Irish, the land they loved to be readied for development. There were objections. Of course there were objections. But nothing could halt ‘progress’. And after 120 years of vivid, raucous street life, the threads binding the most closely-knit community in Cardiff were unravelled. Forever. A quarter of a century later the Echo came across a single small girl skipping on the pavement of Tyndall Street. There were no companions to join her game. Somehow this melancholy image, a lonely little girl at play, symbolised everything that had gone. Her parents, her grandparents, might have remembered a time when there were a hundred like her. But not any more. For Newtown, ‘Little Ireland’, is as distant a part of our past as Troy except that there is nothing now left to remind us of that area seen in the minds of those who lived there as a sort of shining Shangri La. Irish mythology speaks of an enchanted land, an Isle of the Blessed. That is how the people wrenched from their homes thought in exile of their beloved Newtown. They flattened the Duke of Edinburgh, the pub where Newtown’s most famous son, Peerless Jim Driscoll, breathed his last. The other pubs too. And the houses and St. Paul’s Church, built in the 1870s, the centre of the community. No need for a policeman in Newtown when the priest walked by. Hard men would touch their foreheads, fights would miraculously end. The Cardiff rugby legend, the famous Ocker Burns, ran the Duke at one time. He was a cousin of Jim Driscoll whose funeral in 1925 was watched by 100,000. Ocker’s daughter Kitty, who now runs the Royal Oak, Cardiff’s most revered sporting pub, in Broadway, remembers. "There were no strangers in Newtown. No one was ever left unaided. People were poor, but it was a wonderful community." To this huddle of houses just off Bute Street came the McGraths and the O’Keefe’s and the rest, fresh from the Famine, to begin the dynasties that still survive. They lived in those little houses built in the 1840s, with no proper water supply, no sanitation, their children too often dying young. Between the wars women brought up as many as 15 children in a couple of rooms, today’s taken-for-granted mod cons somewhere else. But they produced doctors, lawyers and sportsmen, above all, sportsmen. In some ways they were unique. It couldn’t last, though. And while some were glad to leave what were slums, most felt a sense of melancholy as they moved out. Before they flattened 200 houses, leaving just a handful of the ‘new’ council houses built just before the war, we wtnessed celebrations, or, if you like, traditional wakes that always surrounded a death in an Irish family. No fewer than 57 members of one Newtown clan, Raffertys, Murphys,O’ Briens, Kennedys, O’ Sheas, and Regans - to name just a few of the cousins, sisters and aunts who made it an all-women party – said their farewells together. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cardiff, the Right Reverend J.A. Murphy, begged the city council to reconsider. But in the end the demolition went ahead. The attachment to these slum homes was great. Which is why one old man sat alone for four hours in the house where he had been born 83 years before. Patrick "Kiker" O’ Leary was "just remembering." There’s a lot to remember. When Newtown went, a little of Cardiff’s soul went.

Dan O’Neill is a regular columnist in Cardiff’s evening paper, the South Wales Echo. His warm tribute to the lost heart of Irish Cardiff was first published in that paper on Monday, November 25^th1996. We are grateful to the author and to his publishers for allowing us to reproduce it.

When the Heart Stopped Beating

"The last Mass was celebrated in Saint Paul’s Church, Newtown,Cardiff, Wales on Sunday, (Dan O’NeillOctober 22, 1967."

, Bernard O’Sullivan, ‘South Wales Echo’)

When the Heart Stopped Beating The publication of an article by Dan O’Neill in the South Wales Echo (25/11/96) on the demolition of Newtown in 1966 stirred many memories. Among the many letters received by the ‘Echo’ was one from Bernard O’Sullivan of Gabalfa who offered some of his own memories and photographs which were presented by © Dan O’Neill in the South Wales Echo of 30 December, 1996 as follows:-

The last Mass was celebrated in Saint Paul’s Church, Newtown, on Sunday, October 22, 1967.And that, more than anything else, more than the sight of old houses falling, familiar pubs reduced to dust, men, women and children moving from the homes where they were born - that, more than anything else spelled out that this was truly . . . .The End. For Saint Paul’s was the beating heart of Little Ireland. When it was built it signalled that the men and women from the Ould Sod had come to stay. They had come fresh from the terrible famine, that calamity imprinted on the world’s mind as the Great Hunger, and they had built the vast docks which were to make Cardiff the coal capital of the world; and they brought their customs, and their religion with them. The Second Marquess of Bute, creator of the docks, knelt, it is said, in Saint John’s Church (Church in Wales – Ed.) and begged forgiveness for bringing over these "Papists". His son became, in time, one of those Papists himself. But that single incident in our city’s history tells us what forces were against those first Irish immigrants. What else, when notices went up on factory gates: "No Irish need apply". No wonder, then, that the church spelled out security. Here was an anchor, here was home. It took less than 20 years for that first church to become too small for Newtown’s growing population. In November, 1889, Father Butler announced: "Plans for the new church are now finished... the work of converting the building will be proceeded with as soon as weather permits. The first stone, it is hoped, will be laid on St. Patrick’s Day." Great news for the people of Little Ireland. St. Paul’s New Church would be, they learned, "in the early Gothic style of architecture, with a high altar, two side altars, a gallery, baptistry and confessional". And when there was more money the ceiling, divided into panels, could be filled with "Ecclesiastical decoration". It would seat almost 600, which tells us something about the size of families there. When they flattened Newtown more than 70 years later, 200 houses disappeared. In some were families with no fewer than 15 children! And the cost of this grand new building – £10,000. "To raise such a sum in so short a time in such a poor district," said Father Butler, "would of course be impossible". So there would be a bazaar in the old Town Hall, an appeal to "all generous friends". St. Paul’s, then, stood on Tyndall Street for almost a century, the centre of the community, the place where generations of Little Irelanders were christened, married and taken for their last farewells. It closed prematurely – because of repeated vandalism. After the houses started to go, after the wasteland began to appear, hooligans moved in. Said the late Canon Bernard Cosulich: "Time and again thieves have broken into the church and recently they stole the crucifix, the candles and the brassware."

What an end to all the bright dreams... But on this page, thanks to Bernard O’Sullivan, we are able to get a glimpse of the church as it was. And some of the people who worshipped there as well. Here they are, off on a "charabanc trip", recalling those days when Newtown was a thriving, vibrant, close-knit community. They were photographed outside Tobin’s Pub (or "Fitzy’s"), says Bernard, and "these are the grandmas and great-grandmas and great-great- grandmothers of those who are descended from them to this day". All gone now, like Little Ireland itself. Like the church and the school where young Jim Driscoll was a pupil. But, thankfully, they are not altogether banished as long as they remain, frozen forever, in these old photographs. The women in these pictures wouldn’t know the place today. A huge flyover soars over the place where St. Paul’s once stood. Vast new buildings have usurped the streets where generations of children played. The past is truly another country. But what a past. And what a country we once owned in that little corner of Cardiff.

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