In the footsteps of St Finbarre (Part 133)- The Cosmoploitan Lee

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Written by Kieran McCarthy

Thursday, 11 September 2008

“Inniscarra Dam was busy, noisy, full of activity, very much alive. By the time I left, all the temporary staff had gone and it became a very quiet place. That was in complete contrast to when I first arrived. The Scheme was such a big deal and changed many people’s lives (Aileen Aeger, ESB Secretary, Inniscarra Dam, 1955-1959)”. Aileen Aeger was brought up in Glanworth in North Cork, went to the local national school and went to the Mercy Sisters boarding school in Cahir, Co. Tipperary. She did a commercial course in Fermoy and worked for a solicitor for a year. She did exams in typing for the ESB and was appointed to Inniscarra Dam in 1955 at the age of 21. She was to replace Marie Brady, a Roscommon lady, who was transferred to ESB headquarters in Dublin. Frank Clynch, one of the senior site engineers, was her boss with Brendan Brennan as his assistant.

In 1959, Aileen was transferred out to the ESB District Office on the Mallow Road, Cork. She was there was for a year. When the city and county district offices were amalgamated to be located on St Patrick’s Street (now the Eason’s site), she worked there from 1960 to 1984. When the ESB built a headquarters in Wilton, Aileen spent the remainder of her career there. Aileen kindly wrote to me of her experiences and I publish her memories below and her pictures:

“When ESB decided in the early ‘Fifties to construct two dams and two power stations on the river Lee, the sites chosen were Inniscarra and Carrigadrohid. The contract to build them went to a French firm, Société de Constructión des Batignóles whose Head Office was in Paris.

The Lee development would touch the lives of many. It would bring together the expertise of an amalgam of Irish, French, Germans and Austrians. It would be known as ‘the Lee Scheme’, and it would be my experience to be a minuscule part of it from 1955 to 1959.

I worked as secretary for Frank Clynch, the site engineer. He did a weekly report of the development of the dam, roads and bridges. I remember the first morning; I was to write a report about Culvert D but did not understand the terminology, which I mastered in time.

I lived in digs in Summerhill North and was collected by Tim Deane every morning and his ESB van, which he was always polishing. Tim later got a job with O’Connor’s Funeral Home.

By 1955 the majority of French management personnel had returned to Paris, but the glory days of the French at Inniscarra had been committed to eternal memory. Their exuberance, their love of fine wines and their penchant for parties were legendary. Most of all, they were remembered for their Bastille Day celebrations. July 14 had all the eager anticipation of Christmas. The French revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity held enormous appeal for the Irish, and thus powerfully motivated they pitched in and helped the French celebrate. Massive hangovers ensued.

Similarly, the Irish could empathise with French tragedy. May 1954 saw them grieve with the French for the defeat of France in what is now Vietnam, and the huge loss of French lives at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. A Mass on site at Inniscarra commemorated the fallen dead. The French were devastated, and the Irish understood. Irish history is littered with defeat despite, at times, the best efforts of the French.

The departure of the French from the Lee coincided with the arrival of the German company, J M Voith, to install turbines and generators in the new power stations. Max was the first German to arrive. He smiled a lot but had little English. ‘Strudel’! he observed one day, pointing to custard at lunch in the workers’ camp. ‘Strudel’ we echoed cautiously- our first German word. But Max was picking up English on site and soon our pathetic progress in his language paled next to his colourful fluency in ours. The older Germans were generally uncommunicative. Of an age to have seen active service in World War Two, they seemed older than their years, and sometimes you looked at them and wondered. What memories were theirs, those taciturn men who never laughed, with set faces that never smiled?

Blonde and blue-eyed, Germany’s Rolf was, at 22, the youngest member of the group. His wartime childhood had scarred him with a deep hatred for Britain. Back from holiday in Edinburgh I blundered into revealing where I had been. ‘Eethenbourg! Breetish! Bad!’ he scowled, his guttural accent thicker and more guttural than ever.

Later there would be Austrian engineer, Rudolf Lettl. He not only spoke English but wrote technical reports in English. These had to be typed and were sometimes difficult to decipher. ‘For always I am writing like a doctor!’ he’d apologise with melting charm. In time the Germans too returned home, but not before they had been given a traditional Irish send-off. Though still a party culture, the parties had become farewell gatherings. Inexorably, it was migration time. I remember many of the parties in Innisluinge House and the lady in charge, Mrs. Cotter from Cloghroe. I remember the auction at the house, just before it was levelled. That was a sad day.

Fifty years have passed since then. Up-market houses with dream gardens have replaced the camp where Max taught us to say ‘strudel’. Coincidentally, perhaps, it was in Paris in the early days of the French Revolution that poet William Wordsworth penned the lines: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/But to be young was very heaven”. He spoke for all of us. Impressed forever on a young memory, images from the Lee Scheme drift in and out of focus: dances, parties, singsongs, laughing faces round a bonfire in the twilight of a June night, friends who were young when I was young.

The French have a saying: ‘When someone goes away, there is a kind of death’. It is fitting that they too have given us the simple wisdom of ‘C’est la vie’.

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