Year: 2005

Divil’s own sister

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This man one time had the real targer of a wife and after the holy terror of a row, he tore out of the house cursing and damning her soul into hell and out again.

 
 
And here, all of a sudden he falls in with this strange man who walked out from under a bush along the road where he could have been sheltering.
 
They got into crack anyway.  Passing this house, here wasn’t there another man and wife flailing oul’ hell out of other and calling other for all the wrong names in the wide world.  The two on the road stood to listen.
 
‘What’s going on in there?’ says the strange man.
 
‘Need you ask?’ says our man.
 
‘Can’t you see that’s the devil outa hell in that house?’
 
‘Go long wi’ ye!’ says the strange man, and he drew the back o’ his hand across the other fellow’s jaw in a welt that stumbled him.
 
‘It’s you and the likes of you that gives me the bad name!’
 
”Why?  Don’t tell me you’re the Divil himself?’
 
‘I am,’ say the Divil, an’ him still mad.
 
But the other man put out his hand in friendly greeting.
 
‘Put it there!’ says he.
 
‘We could be related.
 
I think I’m married to your sister!’

Hummerly Bummerly Counting

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More curious counting:
 
Yen, twa tippling
March, mapplin
Mapplin how
How harry
Bow barry
Biddery gan
Gan gibby
Gilby nowd
Dis cum towd
Ten you marry.
 
 
One-ery, two-ery, dickery davey
Allibo crackery, ten-ery lavery
Just contendium merricum time
Hummerly, bummerly, twenty-nine.

‘Ye’re not as slow as ye walk aisy!’ says Gwendelene McEvoy to me, as I trumped her ace.

‘Aye’, says Peter Cunningham, ‘the softest part of him is he’s teeeth!’

 
 

Church St People’s Story

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Luke Burke Newry
The gable house here (the street signs read Church Street and John Mitchel Street) was the home of the Lundy’s.  May, recently deceased, was waked from her home then in John Mitchel Street.

 
 
P. J. Manly, retired caretaker of the Abbey School, still lives two doors up. Two further doors up is the home of Jean Rooney, sister of Eamon and Councillor John McArdle from High Street. 
 
I am reliably informed that the lady, Margaret Hart, residing at 48 with her niece Eileen, was widowed when her husband Peter (of 1 Chapel Street) was killed in Burma in the last week of the Second World War.
 
The Bears Bar (Windmill) is at the other end of this terrace, and jutting out in the distance is the Cavern Bar (now owned by Dominic Boyle, formerly by Tommy Courtenay). 
 
Lucia White of Number 26 tells me she was clearing the attic some years later with her young son when she came upon a discarded baby cot.  ‘Did you used to have a baby?’ he asked innocently.  ‘Yes’, she smiled.  ‘What did you do with it?’ he asked in alarm!
 
There are far too many families here for individual comment.  Your author as a child, was brought to visit two old ladies, Camille and Mary Warrinnier (we said Warner!), some friends of my mother.   
 
Everyone in the town knows Dickie Rodgers who still resides in Number 11. 
 
Other families included McCaul, McLoughlin, McGovern, McCourt, Hughes and many more. 
 
A few lines of comment from old residents would prove very welcome!   

Old …. never die..

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Match these phrases with their endings below: 
 
before that, however, try guessing the answers…
 
 
 
Old teachers never die, they just lose..

Old golfers never die, they just lose..
Old convicts never die, they just lose..
Old sculptors never die, they just lose..
Old bankers never die, they just lose..
Old actors never die, they just lose..
Old professors never die, they just lose..
Old Egyptian tourists never die, they just go..
Old surgeons never die, they just..
Old farmers never die, they’re just..
Old geometry teachers never die, they just..
Old hookers never die, they’re just..
Old journalists never die, they just get..
Old rulers never die, they’re just..
Old magicians never die, they just..
Old pilots never die, they just go to..
Old thieves never die, they just..
Old foresters never die, they just..
Old vets never die, they just..
Old upholsterers never die, they just..
Old puncture repair men never die, they just..
Old blacksmiths never die, they just..
Old bakers never die, they just lose..
Old butchers never die, they just..
Old tailors never die, they’re just..
 
Answers: 
..their class
..their balls
..their appeal
.. their marbles
.. interest
..their parts
.. their faculties
..go senile (think about it!)
..get bypassed
..put out to grass
..go off on a tangent
..laid off
..depressed
..thrown away
..disappear
..to a higher plane
..steal away
..pine away
..go to the dogs
..don’t recover again
..are retired.
..forge on!
..the bap!
..get the chop!
..stitched up!
 
Your own contribution to Guestbook, please!
 
 
 
 

Seein’ Double: Woman Trouble

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Ah might a given ye the wrong notion of it that the travelling woman was al’ays a gracious and charitable cratur wi’ cures aplenty and such like.  Well, though her great knowledge was respected, she cud be a schemin’ oul wan too!

 
 
There was this woman an’ she was married but wasn’t she carryin’ on with another man unanownst till her husband.  He had he’s suspicions though an’ this time, didn’t he catch them, this man an’ the wife together, an’ there was holy murder.
 
There was an old travellin’ woman used to be around that country – I mine her meself!  She’d get tay and’ a night in the house.  She come in and the woman was on her lone.  She seen there wus somethin’ up an’ she axed the woman was there anything the matter.  
 
‘Oh, an awful unlucky thing happened this morning’, says she, telling her what happened.
 
‘Ah well, no matter’, says the travelling woman, ‘I think I know a way of curin’ that! Lav it till me.’
 
They had sowans for their supper an’ the oul’ travelling woman ate a big baul.  Next morning she asked the woman where the man was.
 
‘He’s away out working in the field along the road,’ says she.
 
Off goes the travelling woman and she seed him working like mad in the field along the ditch.  He was in bad humour.  She raised her hand up to her eyes, the better till see, and she says,
 
‘Good morning to both of yous!’
 
 ‘What do you mean?’ he says, as mad as hell.
 
 ‘Good morning to both of yous?! There’s on’y me here..’
 
‘Ah!’ says the travelling woman.  ‘I had a big baul o’ sowans for supper an’ it puts a great mist over me eyes, she says, so that I see two where there’s on’y the wa’n!’
 
An’ he got to thinkin’ for he had a big feed o’ sowans the night before he’d seed he’s wife wi’ the man.
 
‘Maybe that’s what came over me’, he says, ‘for I had sowans myself before I saw that!’

Forkhill Village

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Forkhill today has become somewhat of a dormitory village with extensive new housing largely out of character with the village we so love.  It retains its unique appeal however, and is an ideal site from which to explore the charms of South Armagh.
 
In the nineteenth century it was quite an industrial village with a corn mill, a scutch mill, a hotel, a post-office and several grocery and drapery shops.  There was also a Petty Sessions Court once a month and frequent fairs.  The surrounding countryside was sown in oats and flax and potatoes.  In 1881 its population was 177.  The main attraction then for tourists was a trout lake on Alexander’s estate which also had picnic sites.  It sits at the western end of Slieve Gullion which dominates the skyline.  Just outside town in the townland of Shean were the remains of an ancient priory.  Urney Graveyard is a half a mile away.
 
Squire Richard Jackson (remembered in the beautiful song The Boys of Mullaghbawn, elsewhere quoted here) was the most renowned local landlord, highly thought of in life, though one clause in his will which clearly discriminated against the majority population caused untold hardship after his death. 
 
Forkhill school under his bequest had a schoolmaster called Knowledge (a nickname, it is believed, deriving from his profession) who was willing to teach the local children their prayers in their native tongue.  The Rector Rev Edward Hudson (1779-1795) removed him and replaced him with a teacher named Barclay who would ‘educate the children in the Established Church’ as the bequest had stipulated – teaching the ‘Established Church Prayers’ in English.  Barclay had a brother-in-law, Dawson, who was Hudson’s bailiff and rent collector, and a spy and informer.  On his word two local men were convicted of some crime, one named Bennett being transported and the other, Donnelly being subsequently hanged.  Dawson was also the chief suspect when the parish priest’s home was broken into and his holy vestments shredded.  Local anger boiled over.
 
A group of local Raparees set out in search of Dawson, but failing to find him attacked Barclay instead.  Three members of one family were caught, tried and sentenced for this crime, one being executed.  Local tradition has it that they were all innocent.  English security presence in the area increased.  On December 19th 1789 the Rev Hudson was himself shot at and the horse under him was killed.  The whole area including nearby Mullaghbawn was active in the United Irishmen insurrection at the close of that century.
 

 
There are some among the older generation of Forkhill who still remember the mills operating.  One was owned by a family called Brooks and one by a family named O’Neills. 
 
Local farmers had their corn threshed by steam threshers in the field.  It was then taken in sacks to the mill in Forkhill.  It was crushed fine and made into pollard (crushed oats with nothing removed).  This was a winter foodstuff for cattle.  Farmers took their oats themselves to the mill by horse and cart, and were willing also to take their neighbours bags of oats with them.
 
The flax mill employed a lot of local people as scutchers and beetlers of the flax.  Flax was grown locally and at Dungooley, Co Louth, just a mile away.  At flowering flax fields with cornflower blue flowers on long, thin, delicate stalks was a sight to see!  At harvest it had to be pulled from the ground, a back-breaking task.  It was left to rot (retting) weighed down in flax-holes in a stagnant pool and creating the most awful stench.  When it was judged that the stalks had separated it was brought to the mill to be scutched and beetled.  Then it had to be bleached on bleach-greens.  Men from the mill used to go door-to-door to collect urine from chamber pot for the purpose!  The ammonia did the job!  The final product, linen, became the staple product of Ulster.  Expensive to buy, it was made into bedwear, tablecloths, underwear and the like.  These were sold abroad where people could afford such luxuries.   
 
Today mills are found only in large towns or cities.  Linen making is a smaller, specialist enterprise and almost all local, rural mills have closed.  It was the increasing popularity of the more versatile and softer cotton cloth that caused the linen trade to collapse.
 
Forkhill retains its rural charm and much of its traditions.  Don’t miss out on it in your travels through South Armagh!

Newry Military Barracks

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The White Linen Hall in Newry was built about 1783 to promote the direct export from Counties Down and Armagh of linen products manufactured there and to bypass the services of dealers in Dublin.  The spinning-wheel motif and the crowned harp on the piers of the gate date from this period.  The crowned harp symbolises the involvement of the state with the linen industry of the time.  
 

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