June 2005 | Page 4 of 4 | Newry Journal

Newry in the 1920’s

June 8, 2020June 2, 2005 by John McCullagh

There was a great variety of feelings palpable in the attitudes and the demeanour of Newry people in the immediate aftermath of the 1921 Government of Ireland Act : anger dominated – at forcible inclusion in the Six County State, but the people, though largely nationalist, were divided denominationally and politically, and each side was resentful of things from the recent past and suspicious of the other side’s every move. Yet apprehension for the future was the overriding feeling.

Demob crazy Black and Tan

June 8, 2020June 1, 2005 by John McCullagh

It was late summer of 1922 when we boarded a train at Dundalk bound for Clones. We lowered the window with its strap and watched as others boarded. A small group of laughing men came walking along the platform. There were five or six large men who looked like farmers grouped around one small man wearing a brown trilby hat and a grey tweed overcoat that reached down to his toes.

Rathfriland long ago

June 8, 2020June 1, 2005 by John McCullagh

When we lived there almost eighty years ago, the town of Rathfriland was small, gathered together on top of a gusty steep hill at the very foot of which the farms began.

Orange Marches

June 8, 2020June 1, 2005 by John McCullagh

An Outsider’s Twelfth

The Orangemen had come from all over and for several hours they moved in procession past our door, walking four abreast, all of them dressed in navy blue suits with bowler hats and ornate sashes of orange decorated with metal trinkets representing five-cornered stars and Jacob’s ladders and Masonic symbols.