| |
 |
| Weather Report |
| The latest Irish weather report |
| more |
 |
| |
|
| Ardee Online Forum |
| Discuss all the latest news in Ardee |
| visit |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Lighting In Ardee Over The Years |
I suppose the young people of today think the streets and homes of Ardee were always lighted as they are now. I am not referring to the time of St. Patrick or Brian Boru, but to the first years of the last century. At that time there were no lights on the streets at all. In the homes there was no electricity, gas,
oil or even candles — what then? — rush lights. |
|
| The man who made the rush lights was Johnny Byrne. It was he who dipped the rushes in resin (Johnny the Dip). He lived in a most peculiar house in Bridge St. If one would take the trouble to look at Mr. Alfie Byrne's house, it can be seen that the two windows (top and bottom) next to Mr. Brian Dunne's shop are not on a straight line with Mr. Byrne's house but on a slight angle facing north. That was once a distinct house. The bottom window was the door, and that is where Johnny the Dip lived. He had four children. The two girls opened a drapery shop now owned by Mr Jimmy Malone, and the two boys went to America where one of them, John, got to be Lord Mayor of a big city. |
 |
|
|
| After the rush lights in the home came the tallow candles. They were not too satisfactory as they had to be snuffed at intervals with a snuffer as a big blob would come on top of the wick.
Then came the candles as we know them, then the paraffin lamps which were thought to be terribly dangerous. The gas came in about 1840. The gas works were in the yard of Mrs McArdle's house at the foot of the bridge. Many people alive today remember the huge black cylinder which made the gas. I remember the gas lamp lighter with the ladder on his shoulders lighting the gas. He put out the light at
12 o'clock and when coming home between half-twelve and one (the dead of the night) every ghost story began with the lamp lighter. (Where are all the ghosts gone to?)
|
|
 |
The first electricity was generated by the late John W. McKeever in the steam mill in William St., I'd say about 1912. The streets were lighted by electricity on 1st September 1914.
(Mr. Dunne's shop is now the Acupuncture Clinic. Mrs McArdle's house is now "The Chinese Take-Away")
Notes by Mary-Anne Steen originally published in Deeside Doings |
|
|
