Banking and post office exhibition in Cloughjordan
If you remember phone cards, or even A/B coinboxes; if you remember 'Number, please' and a halfpenny with the sow and bainbh on it; if you remember putting threepenny stamps on letters, and the orange ten-shilling notes, then you will be very interested in the new exhibition currently on in the Thomas MacDonagh Museum in Cloughjordan.
It may be of even greater interest, even fascination, to those who never knew a time when a phone was not one’s constant companion, as necessary to everyday life as a heartbeat.
On Friday, March 22nd, an exhibiton on ‘The Post Office and Banking in Cloughjordan’ was launched in the Thomas MacDonagh Museum, and this exhibition will remain on view for several weeks. On display is material from the old Allied Irish Bank in Cloughjordan, and examples of Irish banknotes and coins, many over 100 years old. There is pre-decimalisation currency, notes and coins, and pre-Euro notes and coins too. Interestingly, when Ireland started using her own currency in 1928, it was being printed and minted in London. According to a member of audience at the launch, the pre-decimal penny, which showed a harp on the back and a thoroughbred horse on the front, apparently had a new lease of life after decimalisation, being sold (at great expense) to gullible visitors to Ireland as the 'Arkle Commemmorative Coin'.
Many other stories were told during the evening, especially about the old phone system when the operator would ask you for 'Number, please' and then, if you asked for a local number, was able to tell you that you wouldn’t get a reply from that number as the householder had been spotted boarding the morning train to Dublin, or was away on holiday. The switchboard operators were, apparently, a great source of local news and gossip, some of it gained through a bit of 'accidental' overhearing of people’s phone conversations.
The museum is hugely fortunate to have the old switchboard from Ardcroney Post Office on display: a large wooden contraption, five feet high and three feet wide, with plugs and flaps and cables and wires of many different colours. The phone system, as well as the mail, was operated by the ‘P&T’ or Department of Posts and Telegraphs. Post necessitated stamps, and there are some beautiful displays of stamp collections to see. Some of the most interesting stamps are those from 1922 overstamped with ‘Rialtas Sealadach na hÉireann’.
The exchange of stories at the launch caused a great deal of laughter and this continued over the traditional tea and goodies after the more formal part of the night, and all thanks are due to those who brewed the tea and baked the cakes. The committee of Cloughjordan Heritage Group would also like to thank: Tipperary County Council for grant aid for display cabinets; Peter Baker for making the Baker Collection available; Brian Sheppard artefacts from Cloughjordan Post Office; Michael Molamphy, contributor of the manual telephone exchange; Brendan Sheehan for contributing significant coins; Ger Heffernan for memorabilia from Ardcroney Post Office; Rose Kearney and John and Joe McCarthy for stamp collections; and finally Rachel Vaughan, June Wiliams and Bawney Hayes for the readings.