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Here Comes Colley
It was lovely to meet up with Colin Desmond O’ Halloran better known to Ballyfermot People as Colley this morning in Ballyfermot Library 13th February 2016. I met Colley before Christmas and had a quick chat and he said he would be in touch after the Christmas and true to his word we sat down this morning and I recorded him.
Colley lived in many places before he moved with his parents and four brothers at the age of 10, to 275 Kylemore Road in 1949. He had to get the special bus each day to City Quay School as the schools in Ballyfermot was not built at that time. He attended Mass in the hut on O Hogan Road converted to the Church previously it was the Painters Hut when Dublin Corporation was building the houses in Ballyfermot, and later became known as the Stew House. He sang in the Choir for the First Mass in Our Lady of the Assumption Church on the 15th March 1953.
Colley had a few Jobs between going to school one was helping the local milkman who came out from the Lucan dairy’s in Pargate Street. Colley’s brother JJ R.I.P. also helped out, Colley worked with Matt Caffery selling vegetables, and they had a good stroke going out of D on the Coome which meant once or twice a week they would get big bags of ribs, pigs feet, and baths full of liver, without them their family would have starved. Along with Tommy Coyle they sold the best Fruit and Veg around. He told me that his brother JJ and himself used to go to the saw mills on what was later to be know now as the glass road collecting the wood and chippings for the fire. He use to play between the lanes from Thomond Road right up to Le Fanu Road, and as the Gala was not built at the time he use to go to the Oriel Cinema in Chapelizod with the money he made delivering the milk.
The family then got the chance to move across the road to number 254 Kylemore Road as his father felt that the family was growing and this house had a side entrance. Colley remembers his neighbours fondly on Kylemore road in the recorded interview, and in particular the Taffe family. Eventually due to his father losing his job and money being scarce, the family was evicted by Dublin Corporation from their house and they had to go to live with their relations in North Strand.
But Colley’s memories of Ballyfermot do not end the day the family left Ballyfermot, his entrepreneur skills that he learned on the streets of Ballyfermot or as he himself said his chancer skills came into play when he arrived back in Ballyfermot in 1961 traveling from the North Strand each day with a van, and as he pulled up in the van the first words he would hear from the people waiting to buy was “HERE COMES COLLEY”. Selling sweets, cigarettes, and anything that he could sell at the lane on Kylemore Road. He also gave out tick to some of his customers and he told me that every one of them came each Friday to pay for what they got the week before. He never missed a day from 1961 to 1999. Colley could not praise the Ballyfermot people enough he continued selling there till Christmas 1999.

Please listen to his recorded interview

( Colley ) Colin Desmond O’ Halloran Ballyfermot Legend Interviewed by Ken Larkin in Ballyfermot Library on the 13th February 2016

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkgoKC9T85k

© All Rights Reserved

Here Comes Colley
It was lovely to meet up with Colin Desmond O’ Halloran better known to Ballyfermot People as Colley this morning in Ballyfermot Library 13th February 2016. I met Colley before Christmas and had a quick chat and he said he would be in touch after the Christmas and true to his word we sat down this morning and I recorded him.
Colley lived in many places before he moved with his parents and four brothers at the age of 10, to 275 Kylemore Road in 1949. He had to get the special bus each day to City Quay School as the schools in Ballyfermot was not built at that time. He attended Mass in the hut on O Hogan Road converted to the Church previously it was the Painters Hut when Dublin Corporation was building the houses in Ballyfermot, and later became known as the Stew House. He sang in the Choir for the First Mass in Our Lady of the Assumption Church on the 15th March 1953.
Colley had a few Jobs between going to school one was helping the local milkman who came out from the Lucan dairy’s in Pargate Street. Colley’s brother JJ R.I.P. also helped out, Colley worked with Matt Caffery selling vegetables, and they had a good stroke going out of D on the Coome which meant once or twice a week they would get big bags of ribs, pigs feet, and baths full of liver, without them their family would have starved. Along with Tommy Coyle they sold the best Fruit and Veg around. He told me that his brother JJ and himself used to go to the saw mills on what was later to be know now as the glass road collecting the wood and chippings for the fire. He use to play between the lanes from Thomond Road right up to Le Fanu Road, and as the Gala was not built at the time he use to go to the Oriel Cinema in Chapelizod with the money he made delivering the milk.
The family then got the chance to move across the road to number 254 Kylemore Road as his father felt that the family was growing and this house had a side entrance. Colley remembers his neighbours fondly on Kylemore road in the recorded interview, and in particular the Taffe family. Eventually due to his father losing his job and money being scarce, the family was evicted by Dublin Corporation from their house and they had to go to live with their relations in North Strand.
But Colley’s memories of Ballyfermot do not end the day the family left Ballyfermot, his entrepreneur skills that he learned on the streets of Ballyfermot or as he himself said his chancer skills came into play when he arrived back in Ballyfermot in 1961 traveling from the North Strand each day with a van, and as he pulled up in the van the first words he would hear from the people waiting to buy was “HERE COMES COLLEY”. Selling sweets, cigarettes, and anything that he could sell at the lane on Kylemore Road. He also gave out tick to some of his customers and he told me that every one of them came each Friday to pay for what they got the week before. He never missed a day from 1961 to 1999. Colley could not praise the Ballyfermot people enough he continued selling there till Christmas 1999.

Please listen to his recorded interview

( Colley ) Colin Desmond O’ Halloran Ballyfermot Legend Interviewed by Ken Larkin in Ballyfermot Library on the 13th February 2016

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkgoKC9T85k

© All Rights Reserved

I was delighted to meet in Ballyfermot Library this evening 16th December 2015 a Ballyfermot Legend Colin Desmond O Halloran. Better know to many as Collie selling from his van on Kylemore Road. He is now singing with the Dublin City County Choir and after a quick chat he has promised to get in touch with me as he has many great stories to tell about Ballyfermot. he asked me to put the heading "HERE COMES COLLEY" as that is the first thing he use to hear as he pulled up in his van. Photo taken under two other Legends in Ballyfermot the Furey Brothers and Liam weldon R.I.P 1933 - 1996

© All Rights Reserved

Here Comes Colley

It was lovely to meet up with Colin Desmond O’ Halloran better known to Ballyfermot People as Colley this morning in Ballyfermot Library 13th February 2016. I met Colley before Christmas and had a quick chat and he said he would be in touch after the Christmas and true to his word we sat down this morning and I recorded him.
Colley lived in many places before he moved with his parents and four brothers at the age of 10, to 275 Kylemore Road in 1949. He had to get the special bus each day to City Quay School as the schools in Ballyfermot was not built at that time. He attended Mass in the hut on O Hogan Road converted to the Church previously it was the Painters Hut when Dublin Corporation was building the houses in Ballyfermot, and later became known as the Stew House. He sang in the Choir for the First Mass in Our Lady of the Assumption Church on the 15th March 1953.
Colley had a few Jobs between going to school one was helping the local milkman who came out from the Lucan dairy’s in Pargate Street. Colley’s brother JJ R.I.P. also helped out, Colley worked with Matt Caffery selling vegetables, and they had a good stroke going out of D on the Coome which meant once or twice a week they would get big bags of ribs, pigs feet, and baths full of liver, without them their family would have starved. Along with Tommy Coyle they sold the best Fruit and Veg around. He told me that his brother JJ and himself used to go to the saw mills on what was later to be know now as the glass road collecting the wood and chippings for the fire. He use to play between the lanes from Thomond Road right up to Le Fanu Road, and as the Gala was not built at the time he use to go to the Oriel Cinema in Chapelizod with the money he made delivering the milk.
The family then got the chance to move across the road to number 254 Kylemore Road as his father felt that the family was growing and this house had a side entrance. Colley remembers his neighbours fondly on Kylemore road in the recorded interview, and in particular the Taffe family. Eventually due to his father losing his job and money being scarce, the family was evicted by Dublin Corporation from their house and they had to go to live with their relations in North Strand.
But Colley’s memories of Ballyfermot do not end the day the family left Ballyfermot, his entrepreneur skills that he learned on the streets of Ballyfermot or as he himself said his chancer skills came into play when he arrived back in Ballyfermot in 1961 traveling from the North Strand each day with a van, and as he pulled up in the van the first words he would hear from the people waiting to buy was “HERE COMES COLLEY”. Selling sweets, cigarettes, and anything that he could sell at the lane on Kylemore Road. He also gave out tick to some of his customers and he told me that every one of them came each Friday to pay for what they got the week before. He never missed a day from 1961 to 1999. Colley could not praise the Ballyfermot people enough he continued selling there till Christmas 1999.

Please listen to his recorded interview

( Colley ) Colin Desmond O’ Halloran Ballyfermot Legend Interviewed by Ken Larkin in Ballyfermot Library on the 13th February 2016

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkgoKC9T85k

© All Rights Reserved