1939, Pattern at the Priest’s Gate, Gearhameen, Durrus, West Cork, Scoriochting, and the Priest’s attempt to Stop it as he did not like the Different Religions Mixing.
The photograph is of local girls on a Sunday afternoon before the Pattern a dance held on a raised podium. Among the musicians was a fiddler Con Desmond.
Further up the road at Sea Lodge was the house of Tom Dukelow, an open house where the old neighbours gathered in the winter’s evenings for music, song and story telling.
A new priest to the parish was anxious to put a stop to it as he did not like the Catholics mixing wiht their Protestant neighbours. They carried on regardless.
In the photograph are the McCarthy girls from across Dunmanus Bay at Coolculaghta. They and other would row across the Bay. Across the Bay was another base for music making ‘The Station Heights’ old coastguard cottages and the families there were great for music and dancing.
Father Roche had another joust with a parishioner who was living with a woman not married. He called to the man’s house and read the riot act, the parishioner responded that Father Roche was also living wiht a woman (his housekeeper) unmarried who was younger then his woman, and that was the end of it.
West Cork History 