Santa letters from 1929 discovered in chimney

SECRET correspondence between two Limerick children and Santa has been discovered in a chimney — 78 years on and long after they had passed away.

Evidence of the efforts to contact Santa made by John Meany who was aged seven in 1929 and his sister Patricia, aged 11, have been discovered in letters they wrote and placed in the chimney of their home at Swansons Terrace, off O’Connell Avenue in Limerick on Christmas Eve. The letters were dated Christmas Eve 1929.

John and Patricia were two of the seven children of John and Anne Meany who were teachers at the nearby Model School.

John Scanlan who has been living in the house since 1989 made the find as he carried out renovations last September.

He said: “I was working on an inside chimney and felt something when I put my hand inside the chimney breast. I pulled down the two letters and I was amazed at what good condition they were in. I got a real shock when I saw the date.”

John’s wife Kathleen then began researching the history of the house and with the help of the house deeds found the Meany family as the owners in 1929.

And like all great Santa stories she managed to make contact with the last surviving Meany sibling, Sr Maria Assumpta Meany, who taught in Limerick before retiring.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner last night, Kathleen said: “The Meanys lived here from 1925 to 1931 and moved to live across the road in the Model School after the father was made principal. I am a nurse in the Catherine McAuley nursing home and there is a nun I know there Sr Pierre and she knew all about the Meanys. She knew that Philomena Meany was Sr Maria Assumpta and lived in Oakvale Drive, Raheen. I contacted her and she called to her old home this week to collect the treasured letters.”

The letters were addressed “Mr Santa Claus, Chimney, Limerick” and in them Patricia asked for a bicycle and chocolates while John asked for a bicycle.

Sr Maria Assumpta followed the career paths of her parents and taught in Limerick’s Presentation convent for 35 years.

She said: “Patricia married an American from Montana. I remember going over for the wedding. Her husband died after six years though and she came back and moved to Dún Laoghaire, where all the family had moved from Limerick in 1945 when my father retired. She never remarried and went on to work as a chemist’s assistant.”

And one pharmacy where she worked was owned by her brother John with whom she had plotted all those years before to make contact with Santa without their parents’ knowledge.

Sr Maria Assumpta said: “John ran a pharmacy in Bray where he met his wife, Nancy who comes from Cork and who taught locally. They had three children. I rang Nancy who is now 88 and living in Dublin and told her of the letters. She was delighted and amazed that she will now have something her late husband wrote many years before they ever met.”

She said at the time of the Santa letter John was known as Sean and signed it John by which he later became known when he went to secondary school.

She said her parents would have been fascinated of their children’s covert move to contact Santa.

“But my father would not have let his son get away with some of the spelling in his Santa letter,” said Sr Maria Assumpta.