Sir, – Brian McSharry reminisces (December 6th) about the Lafayette building, on the corner of Westmoreland Street/D’Olier Street, otherwise known as Purcell’s Corner, in the 1950s.
He mentions the nearby Ballast Office, McBirney’s, Bewleys, the blue clock, Purcell’s tobacco shop, and Kennedy McSharrys.
He asks “Does anyone else remember ?”
Well, let’s see now. On the Lafayette building, the magnificent Donnelly Sausage sign with its flying neon sausages, the flowing multi-coloured neon Gold Flake sign, and the very attractive Tayto sign, illuminated the dreary Dublin evening sky of the 1950s.
An afternoon treat in the Metropole, Capital, or Regent cinemas, an ice-cream cone in Caffola’s, the 12 bus home past Pims and Cassidy’s, and the great De-Luxe Cinema with its posters of Burt Lancaster and Kim Novak. What a life!
And then the homework. – Yours, etc,
NIALL COLEMAN,
Salthill,
Monkstown, Co Dublin.