Life in the Town Hall through the eyes of the Cullens

Let the Busy World be Hushed

Fr Jason Murphy

She could hear her fate through the gaps in the living room floor boards as the Urban District Council met in the rooms below to discuss a change in direction for Cavan’s Town Hall, and with that over 40 years of living in the third storey above this iconic building came to a close for May Cullen and her family.

Her father and mother in law had come to live above the Town Hall in the 1920s and, when she married their son Packie in the early 1950s, it was to here that she came to live. The Cullen family became synonymous with this sandstone edifice as caretakers for most of the building’s history since Lord Farnham had first given the lands for its construction in 1910.

Packie died at just 45 years of age in 1961, leaving May a widow with five children, the eldest John being just seven.

To remain living there, despite some opposition from the powers that be, May had to take on the duties of her husband Packie both in the Town Hall and above at the weighbridge opposite the gates of the Royal School.

For her children - John, Marie, Brian, Denis and Jim - this was to be their home and playground for all their childhood years to come. To enter their front door they had to climb 53 steps of the outside fire escape and the same number of stairs that led to the balcony and the floors within.

They shared their bathroom with those who frequented the hall on the next floor down and May, to get to her bedroom from the living quarters, had to step out onto the fire escape and enter through an outside door.

May worked very hard toing and froing between the hall and the Weigh Bridge, setting off the siren to call the firemen of the town as the Cullen children helped with the chores stoking the huge coal furnace beneath to warm the hall for the weekly social events, whilst enjoying a bird's eye view from the floors above as people gathered into the place they themselves called home.

They kept a flock of chickens and four cattle in Montgomery’s yard to the rear, grazing on the grass yards behind the bus station and up Keady lane- one day breaking loose and causing havoc on Farnham Street as Ras Tailtean was brought to a halt by their straying cattle, and leaving a few of its cycling participants in the care of the Mercy sisters above in the Surgical Hospital.

The children remembered their years fondly, helping their mother brush the floors and clean the facilities until they were pristine in readiness for the various events that marked the different times of the year - The Anglo-Celt annual dinner dance, Providers and Smith’s Garage Christmas dos and the most lavish of them all, the Jackson’s Garage Annual Christmas Dance and Supper.

They watched with sheer excitement from the balcony as the apprentice mechanics climbed ladders high to hang the most ornate paper decorations from one end of the hall to the other, transforming the space into something akin to the ballroom without in Lord Farnham’s estate.

They listened from their beds to Maurice Mulcahy and Mick Delahunty and their respective orchestras play music from the repertoire of Glen Miller’s big band. Often they snuck down the stairs in their pyjamas to gaze on the spectacle below and watched as men, whom they were accustomed to seeing beneath the bonnet of a car, transformed in their three-piece suits and hair slicked back, skipping the light fandango with the most beautiful and glamorous ladies they had ever seen about Cavan Town.

There were of course dances galore throughout the year - Larry Cunningham, Gene and the Gents, Ian Corrigan, The Mighty Avons, Big Tom and the Mainliners. All the big bands of the day played in the Town Hall - Derek Dean, Billy Brown and the Freshmen on a St Stephen’s night - drawing the biggest crowds of the year.

In the early 1970s, Micheal Smith of TV rental and repair fame, and Paddy O'Reilly from Church Street, started up a weekly dance of a Tuesday night to meet the changing tastes in music. Pop bands such as ‘Tweed’, ‘The Tremelos’, ‘Reform’, Cavan’s own ‘Navak’, the 'Horslips' and indeed 'Thin Lizzy' all played on the Townhall’s stage.

The eldest of the Cullens, John was put in the pay box selling tickets at the door, often being seconded to bring the band’s roadie, who kept an eye on ticket sales, up to Brennan’s Bar on the corner of Town Hall street to ensure their sight was a bit askew by the time he returned to ensure the band was getting their sixty per cent of the takings at the door.

To make a few extra shillings May provided tea and sandwiches in her own kitchen on the third floor for all the bands down the years that played there.

All the big names sat at her kitchen table after their performance was done, as the children peeked through the doors of their bedrooms to see what stars they were hosting tonight.

Indeed May always said the best mannered young man to ever sit at her table was the one and only Phil Lynott.

The ordinary Friday nights often pulled in the biggest crowds, as the Cavan Gaels’ Bingo started up and the numbers rang out from the stage; two little ducks 22, one its own number 1, top of the house 90. They came from all over to play a big book, a small book and a quickie, the pages of which would be strewn across the hall for the Cullen’s to collect the following day and burn in the furnace.

The balcony was always jammed as were the side rooms in which there were bells inserted to ring if someone filled a line or a panel. Men in peaked caps who smoked to their hearts content sat on the steps leading up to door of the Cullen’s residence until Mrs Cullen banned them from coming any further than halfways up the stairs, to allow the children reach the toilet unhindered before going to bed.

There was the Cavan Drama Festival during Lent and of course the Annual Scouts Pantomime in the weeks leading up to Christmas, produced and directed by Fr Turloc O’Reilly. Tickets were much in demand and were bought from Tommy Reilly in The Regal Bar.

The performance packed out the Town Hall for a week on end, the children’s matinee of a Sunday with not even standing room in the front hall come the night of the finale.

Local stars like Mel Doherty, John O’Connor, Séamus McCormack entertained the crowds with the favourite leading lady being Anne McKiernan for whom Mrs Cullen would come down to the balcony to stand and listen to each night as she performed. Brian Sullivan was on lights and Greg Sheridan and Danny O'Hanlon were on props and all got tea at May’s table after each and every show.

Indeed their home was a place of refuge for many’s the lonely traveller who stopped to ask May if she could weigh their lorries of livestock at the weighbridge, long after hours, before driving on to the port. Often and often, drivers stopped for tea and a cut of bread, including a Mr Lambe from Carrickmacross who drove the dead animal lorry to Monery, after whom, the windows above the Townhall had to left opened when he had taken his tea.

For 40 years after early Mass in the convent, May brought tea to Phyllis Reilly from Mullahoran who worked below in the Town Clerk’s office as they laughed and chatted about the characters and happenings of the town- the two over time becoming the best of friends.

Cullen’s was not just a home it was part of the landscape of the town and it was there people often called to in times of trouble, after hours, a place of comfort, a place where you were to be sure to get a cup of tea.

Friends of the Cullen children remember it with great fondness as they climbed its 56 steps to call on their friends to come out to play. As they grew older, it was these steps that boyfriends and girlfriends had first to climb to be introduced to May, often out of breath, then kneeling for the Rosary- both Church of Ireland and Catholic alike- before being escorted back down the inside staircase for the dance in the townhall beneath.

So it was that the Cullen family were part and parcel of the social fabric and history of Cavan Town for over 70 years, a chapter that will never be rewritten for all time to come and in the late 1990s their tenure of the place they called home came to an end.

As long as there’s ordinary people left about Cavan to remember, the name of May Cullen and her family will be ever be remembered as being synonymous with Cavan’s iconic Town Hall.