Tony Cunnane's Early Years 1935-53

I never knew my paternal grandfather, Bartley Cunnane. In fact my own father hardly knew him because Bartley died when Dad was only five years old. I know that Bartley was born in 1879 near Knock in what is now the Republic of Ireland, one of 9 children (6 boys and 3 girls).

For some reason, possibly financial or a family feud, Bartley left Ireland in his late teens never to return. He ended up in Pontefract, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where he got a job in a local colliery. He was described on my Dad’s Birth Certificate as a Colliery Banksman, a job which apparently entailed dragging full tubs of coal out of the pit cages when they reached the surface and replacing them with empty ones.

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