Now we have seen the McCourt's arrival in Limerick, and their poor environs in Windmill Lane and Hartstonge Street. We have just entered the laneway between Ozanam House and the Mechanics' Institute. Very soon this lane turns to the right giving access to the rear of the houses of Hartstonge Street and Barrington Street. Originally it was provided to give access to the mews where the coaches of the family in residence in each house were stored. The mews also accommodated the horsegroom and perhaps other male servants of the household. By the 1930's these servants were not longer required, the houses had become divided into apartments, and the mews were let to the poorest folk in the city.

This lane ends by connecting to another lane which runs at right-angles, and services the rear of the houses which form the east side of the Crescent. The vista to the rear of this crescent of houses is not quite so magnificent as that to the front! Turn left at this intersection of lanes and exit onto Barrington Street. Look out for the red-bricked arches which characterised the entrances to the mews - the high clearance of the arch admitted even the grandest coach - but gave little headroom in the grooms quarters overhead!

Do not stay in the sunlight, but continue across Barrington Street into another warren of lanes which lie to the rear of St. Joseph's Church. The lane you have entered is Carroll's Row, and the lane branching to the left from it is Schoolhouse Lane. There are some excellent arched mews to be viewed at the end of this lane. The rear of St. Michael's Church can be seen in the background. To the right in Carroll's row is the rear of St. Joseph's church. In the thirties and forties this area was a congested slum of tenements. It was somewhere in these lanes that the Ab Sheehan lived, and where young Frank took refuge after leaving the home of Laman Griffin up in Rosbrien.

Continue along Carroll's Row, and exit onto St. Joseph Street. Turn left, passing the pleasant row of small well-kept houses on each side of the road. Continue uphill, passing Emmet Place on the right, and then turn right into Bowman Street (shown on some maps as Westland Row). As you walk along Bowman Street, look to the left to see the neat arrangement of sheltered homes for the elderly; this is Vizes Court, built on Vizes Field, the scene of many adventures for the young McCourts.

This also was where kindly Nora Molloy, wife of Peter the champion pint drinker, lived. Recall how Nora saved Angela from being cheated in McGrath's shop in Parnell Street when she went there with the vouchers from the SVdP. Continue to the end of Bowman Street, and exit onto Wolfe Tone Street. The rise directly ahead is Barrack Hill.

Walk halfway up the hill, turn around and look at the pub which faces up the hill. It is now Charlie Malone's, but in the McCourt's time the pub was Leniston's. This was the pub into which baby Alphie arrived helter-skelter, in a bockety pram when Frank and Malachy were playing at free-wheeling the pram down Barrack Hill! The church in the background is St. Joseph's - seen from the side.

Turn and continue up Barrack Hill, and note how steep it is. The old barracks wall still runs along your left-hand side, while on your right the old houses have been demolished and replaced by neat suburban homes. Close to the last of these was the entrance to Roden Lane, with six houses on one side of the lane, one on the opposite side, The McCourt's house was at the end of the lane, with the small shed - the shared lavatory beside it, and beyond that, Gabbits stable, where poor Finn the horse lived - and died.

At the top of the hill in the wall on the left is the gate which Frank and Malachy breached, and entered the forbidden world of the Barracks. It was an exciting adventure until the pair were caught by the soldiers and stripped of their clothes on a freezing day as punishment. This episode is recounted by Frank and Malachy in their video, "The McCourts of Limerick". Observe also the "lamp at the top of the street" where Frank sat in the evenings reading the books he had brought home from the Carnegie Free Library. You can also see in the photograph at the base of the gate, three stone piers; two are there to protect the pillars of the gate from damage by cart or coach wheel hubs, and the third - nearest in the photograph - is a stone benchmark. There are two on Roden Street. Their purpose is to set permanent reference points for heights above sea-level as an aid in land-surveying.

Now turn right, and walk down Roden Street. On either side as you walk are two schools which might have made all the difference to Frank McCourt's life had he had the opportunity of attending them. But let us go to the bottom of the street and turn to look back at them to see them properly.

This photograph shows the two schools with Roden Street running from left to right (unseen) between them.

The beautiful (if slightly grim) limestone structure on the right is the Model School, a Primary School which has served for over a hundred years as an example of both structure and practice in National Schools for the province. But it is not mentioned even once in Frank's book, perhaps because it was not part of Frank's life; Angela would not have dreamed of asking to have her pauper son admitted there. What a difference it would have made to his life is she had asked and he had been accepted!

And the fine four-storey red-brick structure on the left is the Municipal Technical Institute, where the young people of Limerick learned vocational skills particularly in the area of carpentry, construction and mechanical trades. What if Frank had had the opportunity to attend there, instead of going to the Post Office as a Telegram Boy at the age of fourteen?

By this time we are back in sunlight, and have reached O'Connell Avenue. This is a continuation from O'Connell Street and the Crescent, and it heads southwards, through Punch's Cross and Ballinacurra and onwards to Cork, Killarney and Tralee. Look to the left, southwards, and admire the architecture of the houses on both sides of the road.

In this photograph above of O'Connell Avenue, the view is from the opposite direction, from the Cork end of the road looking towards the city. It is probably from before the First World War, but nonetheless shows O'Connell Avenue very much the same as it was in the forties. Even then the older people of Limerick referred to it as Military Road, but Frank always called it O'Connell Avenue. The view is looking towards the city, with the nearest terrrace being Verona Villas, while the flat-fronted terrace in the distance is Ascot Terrace. Immediately beyond Ascot Terrace is the Model School and then Roden Street. (This practice of giving names to terraces of houses on a differently named street is quite common in older parts of Limerick, and can be quite confusing to strangers to the city.)

Go directly across O'Connell Avenue and into Quin Street. This is a short street with attractive Edwardian houses on the right hand side. It leads to The Redemptorist Church, officially called Mount St. Alphonsus, but commonly known in Limerick simply as "The Fathers". It was the scene of many key episodes in Frank's childhood. Here Frank and Malachy were taken by Dad to Christmas Mass, and returned home to Angela who was upset that the fire had gone out for want of fuel. The boys were sent to the Dock Road to find scraps and spills of coal but ended up with a bag of real coal thanks to the generosity of a man in South's Pub.

The door underneath the arch, left of centre is the door at which Frank saw the wretched poor of Limerick begging for leftovers from the priests' dinner. There in the middle of the crowd in her dirty grey coat was his mother! This was worse than the dole, the VdP, the dispensary, the worst kind of shame.

How young Frank must have felt as he saw his own mother being pushed along amongst the begging throng, the tightness of her mouth as she snatches at a bag and turns from the door........

A visit inside the church [pictured here on the left] is worth while. (The Redemptorists' web site is worth a visit too.) It is one of the most magnificent of the twenty-two churches of Limerick. Take a walk up the centre aisle and note the mounts for the Arch-Confraternity Sections set into the edges of every third or fourth pew. These carried the staffs which held the names of the patron saints of each section, headed by prefects such as Declan Collopy. The patron of Frank's section was St. Finbarr, more famed as patron of Cork city. The Arch-Confraternity prayer group was at the height of its greatness in Frank's day, drawing as many as twenty thousand attendants to the fortnightly meetings. Even today, the Novena of Our Lady, Mother of Perpetual Help has a daily attendance of close on that number for nine days in late June each year.

Let us leave the church and turn left, heading for the start of Henry Street. At the first intersection we find further influence of the "Fathers". The street on the left, heading down to the Dock Road, and the River Shannon is St. Alphonsus Street, and the street to the right is St. Gerard Street, both taking their names from Redemptorist saints. Continue straight through this intersection and turn right into Naughton's Lane, and thence right again into Little Gerard Street, itself another lane. This leads out onto St. Gerard Street, where we turn left.

Before leaving these two lanes however, you can see how the little houses there have been modernised and brought up to a very high standard as inner suburb homes , desirable and chic. Notice too how many of the lanes in Limerick have lost the "Lane" in their name and picked up a "Little" prefix instead!

So onto St. Gerard Street, which leads us back to O'Connell Avenue, and turn left to face towards the city centre, and Part IV First Jobs......

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