hurleys

Depending on how badly weathered that chap beside the captain is, and assuming it's his own name on the stick, he's one of two people: John Feehan or Edward Feehan: www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/results.jsp?searchM...

With a bit of faff, we can see that the captain's stick is called Baker. Possibly also the captain. If we limit ourselves to Waterford City (no idea where this crowd were based, but Feehan is in the city), he's 20-ish year old Thomas Baker. www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/results.jsp?census_...

derangedlemur As they won the Waterford Hurling Championship they're based in Ferrybank.

Sharon Corbet It's a bit of schlepp up from John's hill or Kneef's Lane but not so far that you'd rule it out. The lads are clearly less lazy than me or they wouldn't be playing hurling.

This is the only Hector in Waterford City in the census.

Rivals:

Well there will be no trouble with the date anyway???? 1916 it is! The chap with the medals on his waistcoat is looking very self satisfied - did Waterford have All Ireland before '16???

Photo ordered by Mr. Hogan of 31 Morley terrace, which is here on Gracedieu Road.

John Hogan was 20 in 1911.

In 1916 Young Irelands were beaten by Ferrybank in the Waterford Senior Hurling Final, they seem to have disbanded after that.The referee in the 1916 All Ireland Final was a W. Walsh (Waterford). There are two other Young Irelands GAA Clubs, in Gowran (Kilkenny) and Dundalk (Louth). -- A fantastic photograph.

An interesting scene!

Your observation is an interesting one. The well dressed adults (overcoats, shoes and hats) on a cold damp looking day, is a harsh contrast to the young barefoot child with just a jumper and shorts. When browsing through Mount Saint Lawrence’s Cemetery burial records, it’s therefore not surprising to see a high ratio of children dying young at that time. Many tough kids had to survive Frank McCourt’s Limerick.

That poor man will never be able to pull that contraption all the way to Ardnacrusha! A factor in it's positioning is that most of the houses in Georgian Limerick had coal cellars that went out under the streets and might not have borne the weight of the Steam Shovel. You will note that it is in the centre of the roadway where it was strongest.

KölnMike Well, it just struck me that here we have a behemoth of modern technology, imported from Germany, lumbering off to what was one of the largest engineering projects in the world at that time - and a boy barefoot on the street watching it pass by. While I'm always wary of making assumptions about lack of shoes, in this case, he really does look poor juxtaposed with some of the men...

KolnMike - I wonder how many Limerick people would consider any aspect of their city to be Frank McCourts? I know what you mean though, the hardships, the conditions and the poverty.