Thomas Butler (aged 85)

Thomas Butler lives alone in the oldest council house in Carlow, built in 1892. I recorded Thomas’s stories in front of the open hearth, where he amazed and delighted me with his local knowledge of past traditions. He served his time with a coachbuilder making traps, common cars and wheels in the workshop. He spoke about his days working for Duffy’s in Packetstown, as a lorry body builder, and for the Army Board of Works. He recalls how in 1937 he travelled to an All-Ireland final played in Killarney, when the long journey south was made with a group of local lads in the back of a truck.