The community was also home to the Briscoe family.īob Briscoe was a Fianna Fáil TD from 1927 to 1965 and over the years we met up on several occasions. Little Jerusalem produced several famous and respected names, including Ireland’s first Chief Rabbi, Issac Herzog. Brief as my three years spent in Little Jerusalem were, the time was of immense value to me as a young, impressionable boy and instilled in me a deep curiosity about the Jewish people. However, I was too young, so I joined my older sister, Nancy, at a kindergarden in Grantham Street. My parents wanted to enroll me as a pupil in Synge Street Christian Brothers. Mathew Cullen during his days working with Bord Failte Participating British soldiers, drawn from the many garrisons in and around Greater Dublin, looked resplendent in their military regalia and tall busby headgear as they trooped along Portobello’s streets with a swagger that could be construed as conceited. Every Sunday morning, a ceremonial army parade made its way to the local Protestant church. Sometimes they would come to our neighbourhood, striking up marching tunes from street to street.

In those days, touring traditional German brass bands would visit Dublin. Strictly speaking, the items should have been disposed of entirely, an Orthodox practice our neighbours could ill afford. Our family would look after everything from mixing bowls to cutting boards until after Passover. Before Passover, some of the poorer Jewish families that lived near us would ask my parents to store their cooking utensils, in keeping with their religious practice. Our Jewish neighbours were kind and friendly people, much given to the playing of classical music in their homes, the piano and violin being their most favoured instruments but not for them a Steinway or Stradivarius. Dublin’s Jewish community climbed to 5,500 within a generation, many them living in Little Jerusalem.

New buildings in and around Clanbrassil Street and South Circular Road had become affordable homes for Jewish immigrants who had fled the pogroms in Russia in the 1890s. My parents were married in St Mary’s Church on Haddington Road in 1903. Our family lived on Walworth Road, not far from the Jewish synagogue on Stamer Street. He ignored the older kids in the neighbourhood, which is probably why they gave him and his long black coat the rather irreverent nickname: Sacks. None of us had the remotest idea what the rabbi said but it didn’t matter as he always managed to brighten up our day. He would then mutter something in what was presumably Yiddish, before shuffling off down the street. With his eyes tightly shut, he stood and waited motionless until all the nuts were taken. He would reach into his coat and hold out monkey nuts on the flats of his hands. Whenever he saw us out playing on the street, he would wave and summon us over to him. Cherished by the youngsters in our neighbourhood, the rabbi always wore a long black coat sown with deep pockets. He also recounts how he found lasting love and joy in marriage, family and friends.Īn old rabbi with a long white beard and a Borsalino hat remains a fond memory from my days living in Portobello, the Dublin south city area named after a British victory over the Spanish at the Battle of Portobello in Panama in 1739. He writes of his time spent in New York during the Roaring Twenties and his return to Ireland to pursue his interest in sport, politics and business. It is a tale of hardship, courage, resilience, achievement and love, where Matt recalls his escape from a boys’ orphanage to his vivid memories of Ireland’s Revolution and the tragic Civil War. Matt’s life veered from a buffeting in the turbulence of personal despair and grief to happiness and triumph. We're delighted to present an extract from A Leaf in the Wind, the posthumous memoir from Matt Cullen, edited by his son Michael and newly published by Gregmar Books.Ī Leaf in the Wind is Matt Cullen's memoir, an Irishman’s personal story from the last century.

Leaf on the wind shirt