Witches and Ghouls: Newry Drama Festival

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Tonight, Saturday it’s the turn of Waterford’s Ballyduff with the classic ‘The Crucible’ by Arthur Millar.
The classic parable of mass hysteria draws a chilling parallel between the Salem witch hunt and the McCartheyism of ’50s America.

The play is a savage attack on the evils of mindless persecution and the terrifying power of false accusation – anywhere and any time!

Tomorrow night we have a new and very shocking version of R L Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.  It is played by Nenagh, Tipperary, who are very welcome to Newry after their very long journey.

Turn out to greet them.

Please.

Meg Merriles

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Old Meg she was a gypsy
And lived upon the moors
Her bed it was the brown heath turf
And her house was out of doors.

Her apples were swart blackberries
Her currants, pods of broom
Her wine was dew of the wild white rose
Her book, a churchyard tomb.

Her brothers were the craggy hills
Her sisters, larchen trees –
Alone with her great family
She lived as she did please.

No breakfast had she many a morn
No dinner many a noon
And ‘stead of supper she would stare
Full hard against the moon.

But every morn of woodbine fresh
She made her garlanding
And every night the dark glen yew
She wove, and she would sing.

And with her fingers old and brown
She plaited mats of rushes
And gave them to the cottagers
She met among the bushes.

Old Meg was brave as any queen
And tall as Amazon
An old red blanket coat she wore
A straw hat she had on.
God rest her aged bones somewhere –
She died, full long agone!

The Old Academy

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Some philanthropists, solicitous about the possibility of my becoming bored with so much leisure at my disposal, naively advised me to open ‘a wee shop’.  However recalling all the money I had paid out of my own pocket for pens, pencils, jotters, catechisms, readers, copies and rubbers for some of my old pupils (who did me up to the two eyes!) I decided to steer clear and wide of any commercial reef. When I was young I had often heard people talk in awed tones of so-and-so who was in Stubbs Gazette.  I therefore had no great urge to appear in that dreaded chronicle of financial disasters.  Wisely I decided to play it cool.

Every morning, waiting till the streets are well-aired, I lie in bed, not having to clock in any more.  I read the civil register page of the Irish News and, on discovering that I have not yet died, I rise and start the day. Sometimes on my ambles I catch a glimpse of the academy wherein I wrought for so many  (forty) years.  It still looks right well from the outside, but not having entered it for the past ten years, I cannot vouch any more for the inside! Truth be told, for all I know or feel or care, I might never have been inside it!

Speaking truthfully, it evokes no nostalgia whatever!

…. more later …

‘of Retiring Disposition’: Crawford

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Shortly before I ‘packed up’ – continued Sean Crawford – ‘I happened to be in our crowded local Post Office. A lady with the invincible inquisitiveness of her sex spoke loudly to me. ‘Is it true, Mr Crawford, that you are soon to retire?’  Everyone stopped talking and looked in my direction. ‘Madam,’ I replied shortly. ‘You know me.  I have always been of a retiring disposition!’ She herself retired, not having got any change out of your truly. Around that blissful period, before I’d ‘swallowed the anchor’ (to use a nautical anology) I was often subject to some very subtle catechism. ‘Have you any idea who’s going to get your job?’  I was often asked. ‘No’, I replied, inevitably but gently, ‘I cannot tell you who he will be, but whoever he is, I wish him luck.  He will need it!’ … more later …

At the Crossroads of History

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Newry City Library presents  ‘At the Crossroads of History’ when Tony Canavan will be talking about Newry from the earliest times to the present. It starts at 7pm tomorrow Thursday 15th March.  However booking is essential. The library can be contacted on 028 3026 4683. P.S.  Tony was in fine form.  His address was lucid, informative and interesting.  It was also well-attended.  He answered questions for a half an hour and was very well received by all. Thank you!

Sean Crawford in Retirement

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I was browsing the other day and came across the retirement reflections of one Sean Crawford of Warrenpoint.  These are almost 50 years old so I have to take it that the great Sean has passed on.  He has left behind a wealth of reminiscences – and historical notes – which I mine from time to time for these articles.

He was recently retired from teaching at the time, but busier than ever, both in writing, researching, recording and teaching.  A bit like myself.  Anyway, here are his thoughts!

“I am now ten years retired from teaching and, like Jonny Walker, ‘still going strong’.  My ‘Old Age Pension’ now pays for the Income Tax on my teacher’s retirement pension.   I have extracted a fairly decent sum out of the authorities who used to pay me twenty-three shillings a week back in 1910 when I had to teach anything up to 60 scholars in three different classes. Some of these were infants: one was three years old, and sent to school to get him out of the road of his parents, who considered the classroom a creche. Nowadays I get three pounds, seven shillings and sixpence Old Age Pension every Monday morning for doing nothing.

Could you bate it?”

… more later …

Tass on a boogey!

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“This is Tass Murphy again!

I was born up in Derrybeg. Before the Derrybeg Estate houses were built.

There was a wee lane, up where Parkhead Crescent is now. There was a pile of us: the McCoys, Begleys, Hartes, McClellands – Michael John Benett, McKevitts, Raymy hamilton, Fegans, Gunner Devlin, Feehans – all gone! We were big into boogies. Ball-bearing carts.

We’d fly down the Camlough Road. Concrete surface then. Gave you a rollicking ride! Boy, we could go! Passed “Matchboxes”, sports cars … We were caught – more than once – by the infamous Sergeant Junk! Done us for ‘no lights on the boogies!’

Imagine! To be caught by the police at 7-year-old. He’d have a word with our fathers. Told them it was dangerous. Suppose, now you think about it, it was! But not as bad as it sounds. There wouldn’t be ten cars on the road -all day – in those times. The ’50’s. We got the wood from the oul’ tramline station. It closed in the late ’40’s. We were expert scavangers! We built a fleet of boogies. I’m sure – if you got talking to any of the men named above – it would be the same story! “

Lislea Church

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A hundred years I have stood

Looking out over those dark hills …

A hundred years I have seen them come

From child to man, down those stiffened slopes:

I have stretched my hand to grasp their fears

Soothed their sorrows, heard their grief

All their whispered words of hope, like silent encrustations –

Hang along my darkened walls.

For I am mother, seer and friend

And silent guardian of their fate,

My face turned towards the rising sun of time

And the growing prosperity of their race.

I note their rise. I mark their growth with pride.

But at my back the rolling years of pain are filed

That stretch in searing contour to a distant fast

For I am come of hunger, pain and great sacrifice,

Forcepted into being from famine’s womb.

The tortured seed Of countless generations gave me birth

Their faith, the cradle of my dreams.

Tonight, listen to my words

You who would be wise; mark my people

As they strove this barren land

Scratching dreams from broken hills

That stand in silent witness to their fate.

Mark them well as they struggle

Towards their distant hope – for they are you

Flung out along the quick of time – one century of pain removed.

Hugh Murphy