Well everyone had told me to be ready for the "big changes" in Newry...

After all Newry isn't "the little town" it used to be, but a city now.  

There may have been plenty of vehicles on the roads.. and even traffic jams down Hill Street 

… but it was the same old Newry to me.

They tried to fool me of course, by adding new fancy buildings and a big hotel..  but the Newry Canal still runs along.. and the swans may not be the same ones I used to love, but, in ever greater numbers, the swans continue to swim along ...a lovely memory of youth, unchanged!

And no one could have hidden "the factory" (Sweet Afton!!), Catherine Street, Magennis Street ... it was all instantly recognizable...and even the addition of a brand new Courthouse to try to confuse me didn't work for a minute, either...

Home will always be home, no matter what they try to do to it!  And walking down Hill Street, and running into familiar faces..

.. seeing Kathleen and Doris O'Hagan.. looking just the same to me as when we were all living in Magennis Street long ago, and having a little chat with them... 

..sitting with my cousin Gerard and his wife Anne in their lovely house with the cousins.. still the same as it always was.  

Phyllis holding another baby, just like she was doing long ago when I last saw her.  Just another addition to our family chain. Going to visit my brother Derek and his wife Rhoda and laughing and being happy like we had never been apart...  

..that feeling of seeing people you are always going to be family with, even if the years carry you apart... 

..even the cup of tea I drank at Gerard and Anne's house.. it tasted like the same cup of tea I drank there when my aunt Alice and uncle Michael were there... 

..looking at my cousins Josephine and Theresa, and still seeing the faces as I remembered them..unchanged...  causing me to remember that their mother was my beautiful aunt Josie....knowing I am part of them too... 

..well, it was just that same comfy, cozy feeling "of home" that nothing and no one can ever take away...  

..and the walk through the graveyard .. where my parents, my aunts and uncles are all buried ..

..everyone just where they should be...  

..my memories of Newry are secure, safe and sound, and tucked away...never to be changed or altered because of a few shopping malls, or the changes that time makes.

In my mind and in my heart,

NEWRY IS EXACTLY AS IT WAS, WHEN I WAS A CHILD...

bernadette manley

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