Funny man’s big bang theory stands test of time

ON the RTÉ television programme, Urban Tales, a few weeks ago, presenter Robert Vance made a connection between the German aerial bombing of Belfast and later Dublin in 1941.

I would like to put forward another connection of a somewhat different sort. In his Correspondence With Myself some years ago, well-known Belfast comedian Frank Carson recalled a period when he lived in Dublin.

Frank’s mother, Josie Agusta, was from Townsend Street, off Pearse Street in Dublin 2.

Living in Belfast, they were regular visitors to her family in Dublin. Following the blitz of Belfast, she decided they’d be better off living in Dublin. So they moved to Fenian Street, close to Westland Row and Holles Street, where Frank got to know his Dublin cousins better.

After a few weeks there, German planes bombed the North Strand in Dublin.

Following this, his mother decided they should go back to Belfast. Frank wrote that at the time, as a young lad, he wondered “was Hitler trying to get me?”

Christopher Sands

Social History Archive

St Andrew’s Resource Centre

Pearse Street

Dublin 2