Down my way

One of the old-established families of Balbriggan, the Cumiskys supplied the area with coal from their yard near the harbour for several generations until large importers made it impossible for local companies to import competitively.

Now the family coal-yard is a small park and John Cumisky sells houses to a growing number of newcomers from his shop in George's Square. "I call myself Balbriggan through and through - I love the town. Even when there was bad unemployment and there was no outside interest in Balbriggan, I was always upbeat about it.

The coal-yard was my Granddad's. The school bus stopped there and granddad used to give me a couple of pennies for sweets. Dad worked at the coal-yard at night and was an auctioneer in the city during the day. He set up Cumisky Cooke Scales 15 years ago and then we opened in Balbriggan because we could see a market in the town.

Balbriggan was different 20 years ago. I grew up in Drogheda Street and my Dad's house when he was a boy was also on Drogheda Street. The traffic wasn't a consideration to me as a child and it was a great place to grow up in. The road where Brecan Close now stands was a country lane where we picked blackberries as children. When I played hookey from school, I'd go up to where Brecan Close is now and light bonfires and camp. The wilderness beyond that is now the Chapel Gate development. The beach was 500 yards down the road with the boats and the harbour. There is still an indigenous fishing industry in the town. I remember as a young boy standing on the pier with a rod and line trying to catch a mackerel.

I played rugby with the Balbriggan under-eleven's and picked it up again after school at Gormanstown. We'd all go to Drogheda for night clubs and to local pubs like John Des's and Ennis's. O'Shea's at the harbour became popular in the last 10 years.

Balbriggan is 35 minutes from Dublin and has a huge infrastructure. It's a town that just has to take off."