“This photo is of my parents, Christy Moran and Molly Moran (née Roche), possibly the year before I was born,
which would make it about 1953. They would have been just nineteen and eighteen that year. They were both Dubliners and worked in the clothing trade all their working lives, which started in Christy’s case after leaving school at the age of twelve. Dad was active in the labour movement and at one time became secretary of our local Labour Party branch. Dad and Mam were both into amateur drama, too. Dad played Young Covey in The Plough and the Stars at the Arts Theatre in 1956 and they were both in a production of The Hall of Healing, also by Sean O’Casey. It was about that time that Brendan Behan was finding his feet as a dramatist, and in
fact he came to their wedding reception, which was in 1953, as did one of his brothers, who was reportedly very nice. But Molly described Brendan, who came in later, as “a foul- mouthed young fellow in a coat tied with a string”. In his later life Christy was on the committee of Ballymun Men’s Centre. Molly became a supervisor and continued to work from home while raising my three sisters and me. Through long years of decline, she never lost that cheerful disposition so evident
in this photograph, which Mr Fields rightly centred on her.'”
(1953)
Submitted by Stephen Moran