Kate Little (b. 1923)

Kate Little begins the recording by recalling her father, her grandfather and great-grandfather, who together built Rathfarnham Church. She was born in Hollypark, the eldest of six children and she grew up in Grange. While looking through her old photographs she recalls her early adult life and discloses that she managed a local group of musicians who played in concerts and musicals. During her childhood, Margaret Pearse, sister of Pádraic Pearse was “like a second mother” to her, who would buy her boots every Christmas. Kate worked in the Pye Radio Factory in Dundrum for 22 years, and she discusses factory life – the management, staff and working conditions, and she describes the progression from radiograms to television sets. She later worked for the Health Board, caring for people with special needs, having previously spent some time working as a cook with the Augustinians. Kate tells an extraordinary story of an event in Ireland’s bleak history. Her grandmother, who lived with the family when Kate was a child, was a young girl during the Famine in 1848. As she walked along a road one day, she plucked a living child from the arms of his dead mother and brought him home, where he was reared with the family, who named him Bill.