Michael Foran
Dublin depended on the docks
'There was only seasonal work in the Summer time kind of... my father and grandfather worked on the docks. I was practically born on the docks. We lived off the docks. The docks itself, the river Liffey was the main source, the main artery to Dublin and Ireland at one time. Em everything depended on the docks. Everything that came into Dublin depended on the docks. It was the main artery to the heart. It made everything tick. Everything that was come up off the docks we lived on. Coal, tea, sugar, butter. You name it, exports, imports...It all came through the docks. And going back to the 1950s I lived in the Sheriff Street flats, that was my early years...and there was a lot of coal yards around the docks at the time, cattle yards as well. Donellys, Doherty’s, Heitons coal yards, they were the main coal yards around there. In winter time we would pilfer coal from the trucks. Some would spill off the lorries and somebody would have to climb up the back of the lorries and fill sacks throw the sacks off...they were called tubbiers because there was three tubs of coal on some of trucks, rigid trucks and these would come from the docks and they’d come around through Mayor and Sheriff Street and we would jump on the back and run as fast as we could. The trucks had to slow down at the corners of Mayor Street and that and we’d all get on. Girls and boys, a lot of girls would pilfer coal as well.'
Transport Business
'I started my own transport company about 1968, ’69. I got involved in transport. I always loved trucks and a brother of mine always filling my head up with stories of guys buying cheap trucks and making money out of them and you know it was all pie in the sky but I learned an awful lot about transport and working for yourself because it meant taking trucks apart at the side of the road and putting them back together again. And I learnt it the hard way. You know we got some bad trucks in our time and it was an education in itself. There was an old saying on the docks, anybody can drive a good truck. It takes a good man to drive a bad truck.'
1913
‘In the wintertime you'd get work at Heaton's coal yard. Anybody could who was a good worker. My two brothers got work in Heaton’s as well, they got me work in Heaton’s. Now Heaton's had a bad name in 1913 they had a very bad name Heaton’s because they were photographed more so than anybody with the name Heaton's on the horse and cart --and police escorting it. So, when I was working as a young fella 16, 17 as well in Heaton's coal yard you'd see another coalie, black with the dirt, and you'd wave to them but old timers who worked in Donnelly's or Doherty's they wouldn't say hello to you. The stigma was still lasting there up to the 1960's about the 1913 thing and these old diehards wouldn't'.'
Getting Paid
‘I went to work in Merchants Warehouse, I worked with Protestants, as I mentioned before as well, and I worked with Jewish people and the main three people you work with are Jews, Catholics and Protestants. Protestants will pay you no matter what happens, if they never get paid they still pay you. Protestants - a Catholic - a Jew man would have a job having a deal with you but he'd shake hands and pay you but a protestant - a Catholic wouldn't pay god nor man! Yeah! He'd be always crying out and whinging to get the price down more than what it was especially the goods delivered you know.’
Childhood Memories
I sold sticks as a boy in Sheriff Street going 'round the doors, most of Sherriff Street the private houses was Protestant houses and how we knew the houses was the white horse over the door, the fanlight, King Billy's horse now we used to say that-- but it didn't make sense like, they weren't - they weren't bitter people or - they couldn't afford to be anyway! But Sherriff Street was only opening up it was the new land and we were the dregs of the tenement houses coming down to live down in Sherriff Street so most of the kids down there, like the Sheridan's, Peter Sheridan, Jim Sheridan, they weren't allow to mix with us as much as they talk about Sherriff street and this that and the other I was down there as a kid and a toddler skirting trucks and nicking coal and what have you.