Dead Men Tales: The Significance Of The Fire

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The Significance Of The Fire

The Irish made fires that never went out. The fire in the hearth was for cooking and for warmth, and it smoldered for hundreds of years in some cases. In this episode, Dan Holohan reflects on his heating heritage.

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Jamie Hall

There's something in my eye... somehow... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJYRviv-pyA

Larry Weingarten

We, all of us, are very lucky to have such a fine man and shanachie with us!

Yours, Larry

DanHolohan

Thanks for listening. And on this day before St. Pat's, I must share my favorite commercial of all time with you. Glasses up!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL9yB0ne67A

reggi

My Old friends.... so many are gone now.. friends like no other... the music of the video brings them back for a visit on the eve of St Patrick's.. maybe for my last visit..a prayer to my Friends.. the Iron Workers that built and rebuilt your great City 

cubbydog

I sat next to my jotul wood stove as I enjoyed the story of 🔥 fire. Cheers.

EdTheHeaterMan

An appropriate tale of the old country, Mother Ireland, for this fine day!

Happy St Paddy's day to all

dopey27177

Ahh yes I miss the old days too. I our apartment in Brooklyn we had heat and cooking fire in a coal stove.
Our kitchen was very large, it had a bath tub in it too.
Wee sat around in the kitchen in the winter y grand father, father, mother my two brothers and me. We had the fire aso the one that never went out in the winter.
My grandfather was a blacksmith in north eastern Poland and told us stories of his family life and of his father who was a black smith also. My granddad spoke 5 languages but could not learn English, my mom translated for him.
What was amazing about my grand dad was, during world war two he was a foreman in a metal shop o third avenue in Brooklyn. Grand dad was heat treating specialist and two men would translate his instructions from Polish to English. That shop made ball bearings and the races ad the cages that held them together.
In Poland my grand father was called Niske de shmit they never used his name, they came from all over especially the Cossaks from Russia. Like his father he made swords, knives, wagon wheels and gun barrels for the Russians.
He had stories that never ended, may he rest in piece.
Yes Dan I am 80 years old and long for the those days,not the days when air raid sirens would go off and the lights had to go out.

Jake

PatMacDonnell

In 1957, my Sicilian mom married an Irish Brooklyn truck driver.
His father was a Merchant Marine boilerman from Armagh who was on land for about six weeks a year.
For his first dinner at the young couples' home, there was pasta, meatballs, ricotta and fine locatelli romano cheese topped with a fat pork-fatty fat sauce.
For a few minutes, my grandfather picked, pushed and adjusted the food, but barely ate a thing.

My father begged with his eyes until my mother couldn't take another second.
She reached under her chair and place a bottle of Heinz ketchup on the table and watched the old **** slather that stuff across a full days work.
He annihilated that bowl... and had thirds.
He mopped it up with semolina bread and whisky, then promptly took a three hour nap.

I came along a few years later and when I was old enough, we'd go in the basement and he'd show me how one of the last of the coal-fired brownstone snowmen worked. I cut and threaded for him when I was ten.
My kids will have to toss his rusted 3-foot wrench when I'm dead, because I'll never be able to do it.

He's gone 50 years now, after 98 spins around the sun.
I thank him and men like him every day for the lives they helped build.

Ireland forever

Peter Rozano

Reading this on St. Paddy's Day. Brings a tear to an Irish soul

ArthurPeabody

Peat requires water. When a peatland dries out, if it catches fire, which it can easily when dry, it'll burn forever. That's happening now in places that global warming has caused to dry out.

An Irish friend recalled her grandmother, probably born in the 19th century, who would burn anything in the wood stove. She burnt up an old leather shoe once, creating a stink, but was proud of 'the nice bit o' heat I got out of that old shoe'.

thegreatcornholio

Thanks for another great story Dan. Seems now for better or worse everyone has a “fire” in their pocket, I see faces glowing in the reflection of it everywhere I go anymore. 

mvickers

Imagine going to the basement or opening a door and the family gathering around the furnace/air handler to have conversations about the day 🤪

CharlieShea

Thanks Dan. That's a moving story.

DanHolohan

Thanks for listening. I appreciate you.