![]() ![]() There was a rich oral tradition in both the Irish and English languages. The local area was rich in archeological sites and celtic traditions. It was a close-knit community which served as a hub for the surrounding small farms. ![]() ![]() I feel privileged to have lived in this tiny village for some weeks of the year and to have both witnessed and experienced a way of life now long since gone.I want to share these memories with you.Īt that time, in the late 1950s and very early 1960s, Ventry village was a small community of about forty people. Nothing had changed for decades and nothing would change until electricity brought a new era to the village and the surrounding areas. While there was some lighting in the houses there was no lighting outside on the street. This all made for a rather eerie childhood experience where shadows and darkness prevailed, especially during long winter evenings. My memories are therefore largely related to living in that village before the transformational impact of electricity.The village houses were dimly lit with kerosene lamps and candles and a small few houses had gas lamps. I am taking you back to a time before electricity and the electric light arrived in early 1961 to a small village where little had changed from the start of the twentieth century. I want to tell you about my earliest memories of the village of Ventry and the wonderful people who lived there and who have long since passed to their eternal reward. Upstairs, one of the bedrooms was known as the men’s room where the policemen, other than the sergeant and his wife, slept. This old house was full of history and we all knew which room had been the barracks cell and which had been the public office. It was an imposing structure with large windows, a front porch and fronted at the roadside by a low wall with a wooden fence on top. It was a police barracks from 1850 to 1909 and was most likely built in the 1820s as a coastguard house. The house was a relatively large structure located on the western side of the village. Ventry was the location of my father’s childhood home and it was where we all relocated during holiday and vacation periods from our County Carlow home in the south east of Ireland. The village is located on the southern coastline of the Dingle Peninsula which stretches out into the wild Atlantic ocean on the south west coast of Ireland. The small village of Ventry ( Ceann Trá in the Irish language) nestles close to Mount Eagle at the top of a long sandy beach and overlooking the harbour of the same name. ![]()
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