The only real obstacles on the way were the occasional motor car, trespassing – we adamantly insisted - on our registered buggy route - and that 270º turn at the Wheel – a tricky manoeuvre with a head of steam on! With a full left lock, one seriously slowed one’s own progress, scraping the front left ball-bearing against the main riding board. Also prior to that, one had to veer almost to the right verge (the wrong side) on the main Camlough Road in order to create a large enough turning circle, and that could be extremely hazardous with both town- and country-bound motor traffic now against you!

There was a method – though it too was quite hazardous. More in a minute …

As with other things in my life, my big ball-bearing buggy launch was seriously eclipsed and my hour of glory stolen from me.  Here’s how it happened.

By this time, the late 50s,  hybrid vehicles – consisting of pram wheels at the rear and ball-bearings at the front - had intruded and were gaining tolerance if not quite acceptance or respectability. 

As I was choreographing my official buggy launch up at the ‘wee green’, Nailer O’Neill – who lived twenty doors down on the same road in The Meadow - was launching his hybrid carriage. 

And what a guider it was! It had every refinement known to date and a few novelties besides. He  could apply each rear brake separately. 

The effect was that they were able to manoeuvre into the Pighall Loanan with what we would later know, in motor cars, as a ‘handbrake turn’!  The careering buggy would lock at the back left axle, allowing the rear to catch up with – and then overtake – the front.  A quick release of the brake, a quick few foot stabs by the navigator who had his other foot on the board’s rear as he held Nailer’s shoulders for balance, and away they sped into the Pighall Loanan.

Everybody else was left standing.

The rest countered with a rather dangerous tactic. If the distance from the back axle to the board’s rear end was large enough, the outrider could put all his weight on the very end, causing the front to rise above the road. Then a quick backside swivel, accompanied by redistribution of both boys’ weight to the left, and the buggy would turn of itself into Pighall Loanan.

At least that was the theory!

On this particular Sunday morning, Seamus and Nailer were already below at the finishing line when my brother Mickey and I reached the Wheel.

What a sight! Several riders had attempted the latter manoeuvre and a few even tried to imitate Nailer. There were several upturned buggies completely blocking the Pighall Loanan entrance and a mess of injured bodies groaning at the base of the low wall facing The Wheel.

‘Straight on!’ Mickey roared from behind me.

I obeyed. I wanted to test my new carriage for distance running, anyway!

We still had considerable momentum as we rocketed through the junction of Meadow Road/Edward Street and Monaghan Street. Fortunately for us, there was nothing coming at us from any direction.

The record was the GNR railway crossing of Monaghan Street, where the rail tracks would stop any buggy!

We ran out of steam about twenty yards short. 

This too was no great bother, for we were directly outside our Aunt Dolly’s door at 43 Monaghan Street, in a bedroom of which abode I had entered the world some eleven years previously.

‘Hello, Dolly!’ I offered brightly to the much-bemused lady.

‘We were just driving by and we thought we’d call in to see you.

Can we park our carriage in your back hall, please?’

‘Does you mother know what youse are up to?’ she enquired, suspiciously.

‘Of course!’ I replied.

‘She toul us to get out from under her feet!’

We were happy.
 

We had equalled the all-time distance record with our new self-made buggy.
 

And we had had no adult aid at all!

---

……….. end of ball-bearing buggy tales ……….