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Lost Sounds

 

This section is dedicated to the memory of sounds and soundscapes of the past, which may be no longer present in the environment. It contains sounds from old recordings of Dún Laoghaire and descriptions of sounds that only exist in memory and story. Click on an icon in the map or on the list below to listen and read information about the recording.

IMCO radio show themes

13/11/2019

IMCO radio show themes

Donated to A Sound Map of Dún Laoghaire archive by George Kelly
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  • Sound #00097

  • IMCO radio show themes
  • Duration: 01.20
  • Description: IMCO were a dry cleaning firm who ran a central cleaning & dying plant in Dublin. The company had almost 50 branches taking delivery of items of clothing from all over Ireland. The Dublin branch was located on Merrion Road for approximately 35 years. A weekly sponsored radio programme featured owner Louis Spiro and presented by Eamonn Andrews made IMCO a household name. These themes were recorded from a well worn 78rpm acetate donated by Dún Laoghaire resident George Kelly. Tracks from the acetate were re-recorded and edited by Anthony Kelly.
  • Many thanks to Jim Kennedy for his help with additional information relating to this entry.
  • Do you have an old recording relating to the borough Dún Laoghaire that you would like to donate to the Sound Map archive? We’d be delighted to hear from you.
  • Please contact us at: info [@] dunlaoghairesoundmap [dot] com
  • Author(s): Unknown
  • Photo(s): AK
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  • Sound #00047

  • Sound Title: Church Bell at St. Alphonsus & Columba Church, Ballybrack, Dún Laoghaire
  • Duration: 1:46
  • Location: Church of St. Alphonsus & Columba, Ballybrack, Dún Laoghaire
  • Date/Time: 01/06/1976, 18:00
  • Equipment: Cassette Tape Recorder
  • Weather: Indoors
  • Description: Read description below
  • Author(s): Gerry Cosgrave
  • Photo(s): AK
  • Image sound 00047

During the summer of 1976, Gerry Cosgrave rang the bell in his local church, St. Alphonsus & Columba, Ballybrack, Dún Laoghaire. Gerry was standing in for the church sacristan (Tommy O’Brien) who was on holidays at the time.

Delighted with the prospect of ringing the 6pm Angelus, he placed his tape recorder in the second floor of the belfry and proceeded to record the event. If you listen carefully you can hear his footsteps and the sound of the bell rope rubbing off of the timbers as Gerry began to ring the three, three and nine sequence of the Angelus. Finally you can hear the sounds of the actual bell.

The bell sounds that are currently heard from the church are a recording. In the photographs you can see the cassette tape that Gerry used to make the recording onto, and a postcard image of the church of St. Alphonsus & Columba. Artefacts courtesy of Gerry Cosgrave.

Gerry Cosgrave is from Dale View Park, Ballybrack, Dún Laoghaire and has lived there all of his life.

AK 03.09.2015

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  • Sound #00036

  • Sound Title: Jim Kennedy talks about the Dalkey trams.
  • Duration: 4:06
  • Location: Tramyard Dalkey
  • Date/Time: 12/11/2014, 10:30
  • Equipment: Rode NT4 + PMD661
  • Weather: Indoors
  • Description: Jim Kennedy decribes the experience of taking the tram from Dalkey, the interiors and the sounds that the tram cars made as they turned a sharp bend.
  • Author(s): Anthony Kelly
  • Photo(s): Doreen Kennedy
  • Image sound 00036a
  • Image sound 00036b
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  • Sound #00010

  • Sound Title: Foghorn recording of the lighthouse at the end of the East Pier & the Kish lighthouse, January 1987
  • Duration: 6:37
  • Location: East Pier
  • Date/Time: January 1987
  • Equipment: Sony recording walkman with a stereo clip-on mic, recorded to a Sony type I C60 cassette
  • Weather: Fog, light wind
  • Description: Dún Laoghaire harbour foghorn, recorded on a bitterly cold day in January 1987. A unique soundmark of the locality I grew up in, now sadly gone. The foghorn would carry right across the landscape in a low mournful drone whose note would end as though it were reaching the end of its breath, like a large animal exhaling. A very evocative sound, which also gave a sense of the space that it reverberated within, a sense of the landscape as a sounding board. It got the hook in me from an early age - it sunk in like a depth charge, which now feels like a part of my DNA, rooted in the very marrow of my early memories. So glad I had the presence of mind to record it before it disappeared. Fergus Kelly, May 2015.
  • Author(s): Fergus Kelly
  • Photo(s): Ciara Brehony
  • Image sound 00010

“We decided to take a stroll down the east pier, as so many others did, and it was a magical wonderland of another kind. Heavy swathes of sea mist crept silently around, making sound a strange muffled loudness. And as we walked through the dense moisture the foghorn resounded forlornly in our ears, and I was instantly transported back to my childhood bed, burrowing under the blankets as I listened, waiting to hear it again. It's a sound that will forever be both haunting, and powerfully poignant for me.

And on we walked, people's footsteps echoing quietly-loud across the concrete, their voices murmuring in our ears. And then I heard, as though on some fairy wind, the lonesome sound of music, gradually growing louder until a tall, bearded man loomed out of the freezing haze, his fingers walking over the strings of his banjo, an accompaniment to our walk.”

Ciara Brehony
from 'Where We Found Ourselves Today'
Milkmoon, 29th December, 2009