I lived outside in the barn in the first house I was hired to, said Kevin McAllister.  If you didn’t finish your six months you could be done out of your money.  There was no law to back you up.  It was rough enough.  They took three 2.5d stamps off me, for the letters I wrote home in that time.  And 7d for plasters for the boil on the back of my neck. 

Was there any difference working for Protestant compared to Catholic employers?

You were treated as well, if not better, by the Protestants.  With them there was no work on a Sunday.  With your own the real work only started on a Sunday!  “Seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, and the rest of the time’s your own!”  What kind of work?

Cleaning drains, carting out muck, harrowing (2-3 horses), you were often in sheughs to the eyebrows [I think that’s what he said!]

My next job I was paid £26 for 6 months.  It was in Ballela.  They were all badly paid.  Another was digging boats for next to nothing. [Coal boats whose hold’s had to be emptied with men using long-handled shovels]. You turned up and waited to be asked to work.  If you didn’t turn up, they’d say,
‘You weren’t out yesterday.  You mustn’t want work.’
About 1936 the old Pine (Fisher’s boat) was lost at the bar, with her Captain. 

I asked Kevin about other work and his family.

From 1958-1960 I worked for Banbridge Council.  It paid less than Newry did.  I had about £14 a fortnight for a 50 hour week. 

My father walked to Newry to dig coal.  There was corruption there too, one reason so many boats were lost with all hands.  The checker at the dock in England was bribed to overload the boat.  If 400 tons was allowed, it’d carry 450 tons.   At Newry there’d be sixteen men digging out of two hatches.  Fisher got his labour cheap!  My mother worked at Crowreagh Quarry, where they dug setts – or letts or ‘shoddies’- for road paving.  She worked before in McCoys for £5-6 for the half-year.  Many left for factory work when it became available.  My sister worked in Warrenpoint for just £1 a month.  Then it was 2d for the ferry at Narrow Water. 

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