Hung out to dry on the outdoor clothesline

Maybe we never really had the weather for a clothesline in the first place, but – proving that we were ever optimists over pragmatists – there wasn’t a home in Ireland without one.

Now, modern technology has offered us the chance to dry our clothes in a min-furnace while at the same time doing our bit to destroy the ozone layer.

Back in the day, the closest we had to that sort of weather-proofing was the indoor clothesline, perhaps over the fireplace or, in our case, the length of the kitchen.

Our kitchen actually didn’t have a kitchen at all – the cooking equipment was in what might euphemistically be called a scullery adjoining the kitchen, which was where the television, our formica-topped table and our only two armchairs were.

And at eye line in this compact living space, we had a nylon line that came into its own when the rains ruined the chances of drying outside.

Never mind that my father smoked like it was an Olympic sport and the clothes were therefore destroyed before they even had a chance to dry.

Never mind that they were doused with the smell of cooking and turf until we got oil into the old range.

Never mind that heads burrowed through them, often leaving them in a worse state after washing than they were beforehand.

But every home – except the very posh ones – had an indoor clothes line, sometimes over the range but frequently the length of the house, in addition to the outdoor one.

As we became more sophisticated, we acquired those rotating lines on an aluminium pole that gave you the full benefit of the wind and only took up a corner of the yard or garden instead of blocking the entire view of the horizon.

There is also the fold-up clothes drying rack – still popular in apartments in particular, where you’ll invariably see them on the balcony because anyone in their right mind wouldn’t that space for sitting out unless you have a thing about looking at passing traffic or car parks.

And there was a guy on the Late Late Show a few years back who came up with a rotating clothes line that also had a huge plastic cover over it – so that you got the benefit of the wind but not the inconvenience of the rain. It was like a coat for your clean clothes.

And people with outbuildings had the advantage of a giant version of that – a shed that had a breeze blowing through it from both end, but a roof over it to keep the rain off the line.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.