www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/, on behalf of the town of Tralee, I have to point out that Christy Hennessy - born Edward Christopher Ross - was a native of our town. I know that even Homer nods, but I expect better of our Marys. ;)

Posted: 16.06.2021

Foxglove

as a child I used to make sticky sawdust "castles" when blood still dripped to the floor. sticking your head into the carcase and shouting or singing was another abherent form of entertainment. watching butchers actually butcher sides of meat was fascinating

Posted: 16.06.2021

ɹǝqɯoɔɥɔɐǝq

Sometimes flickr is amazing! Read the blurb and see this photo in the window, via [https://www.flickr.com/photos/ministry/] [https://www.flickr.com/photos/ministry/38317550624/]

Posted: 16.06.2021

I used to work in a butcher shop when I was a boy (in the 1990s!) and I've done my best to tag the different kinds of meat hanging out front. You wouldn't get away with hanging meat out front like that in Ireland anymore - although I do sometimes see something like this when I'm abroad, however, with the exception of the fact that the lambs' heads are usually removed these days, what you see is pretty much what you'll find in the walk-in coldroom of any good butcher shop or small abbatoir. A close family member worked as a butcher until about a decade ago, and any of the three guys with the aprons would look the part in a modern butcher shop. Nowadays the aprons tend of be of a kind of plasticised fabric for ease of cleaning, but the aesthetic is the same. The guy next to the bike, however, with his coat - probably brown or green or khaki, I guess - is more of a blast from the past. That kind of coat was very common amongst shop assistants, but you really only see it in very, very old-fashioned establishments these days. My dad was a shop assistant up until some time in the 1970s, and he had a coat like that when he was in that job, but when I was growing up in the 1980s there were maybe only one or two places in Tralee where older workers/proprietors kept up the tradition of having a shop coat like that.

Posted: 16.06.2021

John Spooner

Waterford Standard - Saturday 12 July 1930. Did the introduction of meat vans mean the end of O'Regan's bike deliveries? Friday was the day if you lived in Tramore.

Posted: 16.06.2021

John Spooner

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardhealy] I hope you treated the sausage machine with due respect

(Waterford Standard - Saturday 07 March 1931)

Posted: 16.06.2021

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnspooner] OUCH! I was never trusted with anything as dangerous as knives or a sausage machine. (I was never known for being particularly handy!) I did use the mincer, but the model we had was pretty idiot-proof. I do have a scar from my butchershop days, though. But it didn't come from processing meat. I was carrying a 4 stone (25kg) bag of potatoes for a customer. Potatoes used to come in these brown sacks, with the neck of the bag secured by a twist of wire. I'd often have to deliver them to customers - on a handtruck if I was taking them to someone's house, or carried on my shoulder if I was taking them to a nearby parked car. Anyway, I had this 4 stone bag of spuds on my right shoulder, and as I hefted it into a customer's car boot, the twist of wire scraped me along the base of my right thumb. I didn't notice it bleeding until a minute or two later, and despite it not being much of a cut, it left a nice inch-and-a-half scar on my hand.

Posted: 16.06.2021

John Spooner

Deliveries by bike in 1926, by van to Tramore in 1930. Mrs Katherine Walsh of Glenmore received 4 lbs of chops every week from O'Regans by post. These chops played a central role in a court case reported on the front page of the Waterford Standard on Saturday 22 July 1933. The headline and successive sub-headings were "A Disappointed Legatee", Civil Bill for Chops, Waterford Butcher's Claim, and "A Mysterious Contract".

Posted: 16.06.2021

CASSIDY PHOTOGRAPHY

My father-in-law owned a butcher shop. I would help out by making repairs to various equipment and installed a new seal on the walk-in refrigerator. Sadly, he retired. My wife and I ate well and never bought any meat from the major chain supermarkets, during that time. We always paid, though at a discount.

Posted: 16.06.2021

suckindeesel

Saw an FX Buckley van heading north on the A1 yesterday, didn't know they made deliveries that far away. Perhaps a load of Boris's forbidden sausages

Posted: 16.06.2021

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardhealy] I should have known better and not go by an interview half remembered from years ago. Perhaps it was a file interview with Hal Roche and they played the song to illustrate his story???? (digging furiously but getting deeper and deeper in the mire)

Posted: 16.06.2021

suckindeesel

"Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine."

Posted: 16.06.2021

ofarrl

One of my grand aunts, Eileen McDonald, was married to Michael O'Regan's brother Patrick who was also a butcher I believe. According to one of Patrick's grandsons the man on the right is Michael O'Regan.

Posted: 16.06.2021

cargeofg

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardhealy] I know exactly what you mean with the 4stone bag of spuds and the wire twist. In my fathers shop in Mullingar we would do daily deliveries of groceries around town morning and afternoon. Some of our customers with larger families would have said bag 4 stone spuds with their order. On your shoulder out of the back of the Austin Mini Estate we used for deliveries, in the front door to the kitchen or through to a shed at rear of house. I also used to have to weigh them out into 1/4sth or 1/2stn clear poly bags for sale in the shop. I have the original shop bike and hope to restore it and when we return to a more normal way of life ride it in the shop bike parade/outing in Dublin .Messenger boys and yard boys always wore brown shop coats and internal shop staff were white.

Posted: 16.06.2021

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/187095410@N06] The first job I'd do most mornings in the shop - long before it opened - was to break 4 stone spud bags into 7lb and 14lb plastic bags for sale that day. I got very good at estimating weights and am convinced that those hours of packing paid off when I won a "guess the weight of a cake" competition a few years ago!

Posted: 16.06.2021

silverio10

Buenas fotos antiguas .

Posted: 16.06.2021

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardhealy] I imagine knowing the quality of the cake maker might have been nearly as important. Some could turn a feather light sponge into a lead ingot with a similar taste!!!!!

Posted: 17.06.2021

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/47290943@N03/] I got to lift the cake in my hands before making my guess. Then I translated it into potatoes and made my guess! ☺️

Posted: 17.06.2021

cargeofg

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardhealy] I know exactly what you mean. My instructions were not to but all the big spuds in one lot of bags and small ones in others. I used to open about 3 of the 4stn bags and tip them out to mix them up. This was in the corner of the shed/store with two unopened 4stn bags making up the other sides of the square. Then sit on a Taylor-Keith or Cidona crate and proceed to fill the bags. Always kept a handful of small spuds on the bench beside the scales to add if you were underweight. Like you, good at guessing/estimating weight. Gone metric now and compare to a 1KG bag of sugar or if very heavy 20kg bag of cement.

Posted: 17.06.2021

Ian Hannigan

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardhealy] this is true. Great pic though!

Posted: 20.06.2021

O Mac

@8468254@N02/ Any relation? www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jun/23/lemur-kidnap...

Posted: 24.06.2021

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/8468254@N02] [https://www.flickr.com/photos/91549360@N03] :-)

Posted: 25.06.2021

Seeing that you asked, and you did, this was my favourite picture so far. It was so easy to change the sign to update it, sure'n the letters were already there, begorrah, any eejit could have done it. I like to think he (Mr. O' Regan) was an early 'Virtual' pioneer, and expert in the Non-fungible, doing de Selby proud, even. The butcher shop was very obviously a 'front'. Changing the sign on the bike was a little more fiddly. But then we all know the trouble with bikes, annotated by De Selby, in his lost manuscripts.

Posted: 22.07.2021

Posted: 22.07.2021

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/mutter_fluffer] I will tag Virtualler to make it easy for you to find this photo in the furure.

Posted: 22.07.2021

That is very kind of you, Sir, do I just call you Mr. NloITC?

Posted: 22.07.2021

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/mutter_fluffer] Mary will do, there are a few Marys who volunteer here daily. The genesis of the use of the name can be seen in the comments on the following photo. [https://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/16037291180/]

Posted: 22.07.2021

Thank you Mary, I looked into the genesis of Mary before, with the help of the glorious Marina Warner, I talk about her a little on my stream somewhere, I'll try to find it for you. I also shared that entrance with you for a while, that lovely gate into your building, when I studied at the 'National College of Art and Design' when it was lodged there, in the backside of the Dail.

Posted: 22.07.2021

I had to steal this from the National Library of Ireland, they say there are no copyright restrictions, at all, at all.

Posted: 22.07.2021