My Killaloe

My Killaloe is a companion volume to Henry Murdoch's memoir, Remembering Killaloe. Aimed both at visitors to the heritage towns and local residents, the book provides a very personal tour of 100 places of interest in Killaloe and Ballina, most with both historic and contemporary photographs. We visit the old railway station, which commenced in 1862 with a connection to Birdhill, three miles away, and discontinued in 1944. We visit the swimming area at Two Mile Gate, now called Ballycuggaran, where the author and his friends would spend every sunny day possible, even to the point of sun stroke. We visit local businesses like Benson Box, which was founded in 1938 and at one point employed 145 people, a sizeable proportion of the 900 residents of Killaloe. The author takes us down main street where he reminisces about the barber Freddie Collins and his newly arrived electrically powered clippers, and about Mr Minogue and his huge winnings on Royal Tan in the Irish Sweepstake. He takes us to the Pier Head and to Peter Lacy, who trained the boys and girls of Killaloe-Ballina how to swim and yet could not swim himself. We drive past Tinarana House, home to the controversial former medical doctor Paschal Carmody, who was accused of deception for claiming that he could cure cancer; we see Cyril Gleeson and his DH Moth airplane crash landing on Lough Der; and we see the Lough Derg trout 'Peppers Ghost' being displaced in 1963 from its exalted position as the heaviest trout caught in Ireland. My Killaloe is an affectionate and nostalgic portrayal of growing up in rural Ireland.