Days of blacksmith long gone

ACCOMPANYING this article is an old photograph of my grandfather, blacksmith Willie Fahy, pictured with my mother, Patsy Gillespie, and my late uncle, Denny Fahy, writes Tom Gillespie. Willie had a forge at Newantrim Street, Castlebar, which was subsequently operated by Denny, assisted by Johnny Rooney.

Willie and my grandmother, Sarah (nee Blaine from Crimlin), had another son, John, who emigrated to England at a young age.

I recall as a child visiting the forge and I vividly remember the unique smell of burning hooves as Willie and Denny shod working horses and shaped the red hot horseshoes on the anvil, cooling then off in a trough of cold water.

The Fahys also specialised in making iron tyres for farm carts.

Of all farm equipment, the cart was the most versatile, being used for a variety of general uses - carrying goods, tools or produce, or members of the family. It is generally acknowledged that a horse and cart could transport a load of one ton so the construction of a cart entailed quite simple carpentry, with the exception of the wheels, which required considerably more skill.

The wheel consisted of the wooden hub, in the centre of which was fitted a piece of cast iron with a tapering hole which forms the bearing. Around the outside of the hub, 12 square or oblong holes or mortises were cut to accept the spokes.

The spokes were in turn mortised into the fellows. These were semicircular pieces of wood, usually six in number, which fitted together making the complete wheel. Then a circular iron band or tyre was then fitted to the wheel.

This skilled job was usually accomplished by the local blacksmith, who heated the iron tyre to a red hot heat. When metal is heated it expands, so as the tyre got bigger it could be fitted around the wheel. When the tyre and the wheel where lined up, the tyre was then cooled with water. This contracted the metal rim, clamping the whole wheel together.

Blacksmiths who specialised in this work usually had a large, circular, slightly convex cast iron slab set in the ground outside their forge. Assembling the wheel on this ensured it ran true and had the correct shape.

This was the case at Newantrim Street and the slab was located in a large yard outside the back of the forge.

A turf fire was lit to heat the tyre and using special tongs, Willie and Denny would lift the tyre and place it over the cartwheel.

When this work was completed, Denny would wheel the cartwheels, two at a time, up Newantrim Street and Linenhall Street to the wheelwright’s workshop next to Paddy Moran’s St. Helena’s bar.

The Fahys were the finest craftsmen and it showed in their work as year after year their skills were in demand.

As youngsters we had the task of assembling the turf for the fire and as there were no health and safety issues in those days, we played around the open fire.

 

My grandmother would have a pot of stew on the range and all the helpers were well fed. Then the men retired to Norrie’s pub, where the Welcome Inn Hotel now stands, for some well-earned porter to quench their thirst.

After Willie Fahy died, Sarah moved to our house on Marian Row and Denny continued the smithing in the forge with its half-door onto New Antrim Street. A regular scene was Denny or Johnny Rooney leaning over the half-door talking to neighbours and passersby.

Farmers from near and far brought their horses to be shod by the Fahys. Initially the old shoes had to be removed and the hooves had to be cleaned using a hoof knife. Excessive hoof was trimmed with hoof nippers and a rasp was used to level the hoof.

The proper size shoes were then measured and made and secured in place with nails, which he would bend and remove the nail tips from. Denny would hold the horseshoe nails between his lips as he went about his task. Finally he would file any rough spots on the hoof wall.

Today those involved in shoeing horses are knows as farriers. But they were blacksmiths in Denny’s time.

When the use of cart horses declined Denny had to re-invent himself and he produced dozens of fire tongs which he sold all over the country, dispatching batches weekly on the bus from Tansey’s or on the train. I still have one of those tongs (pictured), which I treasure.

Ironically, I came across one of these tongs some years ago. I was part of a Mayo County Council group who, with residents from the Turlough area, were bussed to Dalgan to view some of the items which were later to be brought to Turlough House as part of the Museum of Country Life. And there among the thousands of items I located one of Denny’s tongs, suitably labelled and credited.

Denny had his own work ethic. He would never work beyond 12 noon. However, he would be in the forge at 6 a.m. and at midday he would head for the pub on either Linenhall Street or the pig market. He would never wander over the bridge, except to order or collect iron in Durcan’s of Main Street.

An expert angler, he fished every Sunday in season and in winter he would shoot. He configured his bike to carry his double barrel shotgun and on the bar he had attached a seat for his retriever.

When he brought me along, as he often did, I occupied the seat on the bar and the dog, with Denny holding the lead, would run along side and when we came to a hill the retriever would help pull us up.

We would wait by moonlight at a small lake or flooded area for the incoming wild duck which Denny would take down.

Denny had a lovely voice and I can still hear him singing ‘Pennies From Heaven’ as we cycled home from Turlough to Newantrim Street, usually with two or three mallard bagged.

Denny died suddenly at the end of July 1980, on the weekend of the Buttevant train crash in Co. Cork.