A guest post by Mike Hackett
We go back to 1952 for this story about a small circus coming to Piltown for a single performance. Corvenieo was the name of this show family and they mainly erected their one-pole tent in small towns and villages all over Ireland. Such a visit from a circus in those pre-tv times was a very exciting event for the locals.
One evening in that year (1952) – my father Mick – who was a serious fan of road shows – told me to put on a coat and follow him as he got out a postman’s bike from the arch beside our house. It was a bike that he had borrowed from work and he sat me up on the cross-bar before he jumped up on the saddle and off we took out along the north road.
Then – as we crossed over the old Youghal Metal Bridge – he told me that we were going to see a circus at Piltown (about four miles away). When we arrived at the site – in the valley below Connery’s pub – a number of circus wagons were already there. The single pole big-top was erected and a number of fans were standing around waiting to go in. We met Ned O’Brien (another circus fanatic) who happened to be teaching at Piltown school in that era.
Twilight was beginning to fall over the sheltered valley as we waited and began to wonder when the lights of the show would be turned on. But there was trouble – the Cornevieos could not start the generator to power the lights. 8-30 pm became 9 pm – and then at 9-30 – came the awful announcement that there would not be a show – because of the broken-down generator.
The large gathering of country people shrugged their shoulders and wandered off home. As for us – we mounted the postman’s bike (with me again on the cross-bar) and set off back across the old metal bridge with Frankie Coughlan (guardian) opening the gate for us as we approached. A night of disappointment for circus fans.
That same Corvenieo’s circus was in Clashmore just three years ago (2022) and performed to two big-top full-houses. We wish them well in their travels and we think back to that evening at Piltown in 1952 when the generator wouldn’t start to run the lights.
Mike Hackett – January 2025