THE McCarthy family’s descendants, neighbours and friends gathered on Saturday to mark the 100 years they have called 12 Home Rule Terrace ‘home’.
The house, as first reported in The Southern Star, was first allocated to Mick McCarthy by Skibbereen Urban District Court in August 1925.
He was known universally as ‘Mick Tipp’ or ‘Mick Tipperary’, because his own grandfather had travelled to work in Tipperary in the 1860s and married a Tipperary woman.
It is a nickname that has travelled down the generations.
Mick, who was a cart driver by profession, was extremely proud of his good fortune in being allocated a local authority house.
He had been born and raised in Chapel Lane, where his parents settled and both sets of grandparents eventually came to live.
Mary and Michael McCarthy, taken in 1957, in the front room of 12 Home rule terrace. The photograph was taken by John Barden, Mary’s brother-in-law, home on holidays from New York City.
‘You can’t have a bird without a cage,’ Mick was fond of saying following their marriage in October 1926.
In later years, Mary had a hankering to move to another house elsewhere in town or even move out to the country, but Mick would resist, saying: ‘I got that house out of a hat,’ which was a reference to his good fortune.
Getting the house was a welcome turn of events for Mick who was mourning his mother’s death the previous December 1924, at the age of 54.
His father, John, tragically died in December 1913. He was crushed to death after he fell under the cart bearing porter barrels that he was taking to Minihane’s of Lisheen for his employer, Goggin’s pub, which is now The Corner Bar.
The house at Home Rule Terrace was the home in which Mick and Mary raised their six children: May, John, Nora, Frank, Breda and Michael.
After Mick died in 1976, and Mary died in 1987, the family retained ownership of the house until Breda made it her home in 2003.
Breda and her husband, Seamus White, a former owner of Baby Hannah’s pub in Bridge Street, went to live in Cork city in 2022.
Then it was the turn of Breda’s youngest daughter, Una Uí Gríofa, and her husband, John, and their two boys.
They became custodians of the house from their home in North Cork.
Attending the 'Home Rule' celebrations were (from left to right) Sr Nora McCarthy, Breda White (nee McCarthy) and her husband Seamus.
The family connection with ‘Home Rule’ – as all the extended family refer to it – is maintained to this day by family and guests making frequent use of it.
‘In all that time it has served as a holiday destination for family members and their friends from far and near, particularly St Albans and Croydon in England and New York and Massachusetts, USA,’ said Ciaran White, a son of Breda, who admitted the allocation of a house to a single man in 1925 ‘may well have caused a bit of a stir’.
There were about 40 family members, friends and neighbours in the house at the weekend all keen to reminisce, and share their stories about the house, the street, and all associated with it.
To mark the occasion, the family prepared booklets of photographs featuring the people and the place over time.
It showed images of past family gatherings such as May’s fortieth wedding anniversary in 1993; the ‘Cnoc’ across the road in the 50s; the Corpus Christi processions that passed up Chapel Lane; chicken and geese being fed in the backyard; and the old-fashioned dresser in the kitchen.
One photograph in the collection, which was a framed feature in the house since 1952, was of Mick driving the horse and carriage that took the President of Ireland, Sean T O’Ceallaigh, through the streets of Skibbereen in 1952 when he unveiled the statute of O’Donovan Rossa in the Park.
Interestingly, Mick’s own father, John, had driven O’Donovan Rossa himself when the old Fenian came to unveil the Maid of Erin statue in 1904.
He had also driven Michael Davitt when the labour leader came to the Baltimore Fishing School in the 1890s.
Although not everyone could attend last Saturday’s event, two of Mick and Mary’s surviving children – Breda and Nora – were there.
Michael was unable to make it from his home in Carlow. May was represented by her daughter, Carmel, and her husband Paul, who had travelled from
England.
Frank McCarthy, who is perhaps the best well known of this particular clan, was a former Fine Gael mayor of Skibbereen and long-serving member of Skibbereen Urban District Council.
He was well known too for his days working at Skibbereen Post Office.
He was as represented at the gathering by his sons, Gearóid and Frankie, along with his wife, Olivia, and children.
Breda’s three children – Ciaran, Maria, and Una – also enjoyed the celebration. However, through the wonders of modern communication, ‘The McCarthy Tipp’ diaspora was able to share their fond ‘Home Rule’ memories from near and far.
