John McCullagh – Page 209

Money from England

June 8, 2020May 1, 2005 by John McCullagh

Newry suffered very little over the Second World War years. I remember going with my aunts to be issued with my Mickey Mouse gasmask. I can still smell the rubber from it. Of course we never had to use it in earnest. We were also issued with identity cards and ration books.

Maura: Grandparents’ deaths

June 8, 2020May 1, 2005 by John McCullagh

My earliest memory is of waking up in the pram and being given a bottle. I also remember being carried downstairs each morning in my pyjamas to get a miniature cooked breakfast with the family.

I recall having measles, with the lights out to keep the room dark and a tilly lamp burning (the same tilly lamp I keep today). I was bundled in a quilt on the armchair and constantly fussed over.

Importance of meeting Ernie

June 8, 2020April 30, 2005 by John McCullagh

The boy walked down Bagnall Street carrying a brown-paper carrier bag that clinked each time it brushed against the side of his leg. The front doors of the small terraced houses were open in the heat. All the doors were painted dark green except for the Haverns which was bright blue. Across the street the yellowing grass banks of the unkempt park rose to the graveyard wall of the church the English had built in the fifteen hundreds.

His grandmother had died on Christmas Eve and was buried behind that wall. He could see Brooke Street curving down along the other side of the park. His destination was the little public house on the corner where the two roads joined at the bottom of the hill. In the bag were six empty Guinness bottles. In the right-hand pocket of his short green corduroy trousers there were two shilling pieces and a scrap of paper on which was pencilled ‘2 stout’.

Communion Choir, 1976

June 8, 2020April 28, 2005 by John McCullagh

The young ladies pictured here will soon be approaching that dreaded ‘bump’ birthday of forty! Then they were attending St Joseph’s School where the Walking Nuns taught them well.

The 150th Anniversary of the Mercy Nuns coming to Newry is currently being celebrated with an exhibition in the Catherine Street home. Don’t miss it! Also purchase their commemorative book, The Walking Nuns which is on sale there, and will soon be reviewed here (when I get time to browse it!)

How many faces can you put a name to? Answers on Guestbook, please!

War is Over!

June 8, 2020April 28, 2005 by John McCullagh

Eventually the war was over. Everyone was delighted, with the obvious exception of those who had lost their sons and loved ones (see Newry’s War Dead, reviewed here).

Joe Aisles

June 8, 2020April 27, 2005 by John McCullagh

I’ll have to tell you the story of how Joe Aisles came by his unusual name.

In my time there was no such thing as Social Services to arrange adoption for unwanted, orphaned or bereaved babies. There was no need for this was an area where the Catholic Church came into its own.

Willie Burns

June 8, 2020April 26, 2005 by John McCullagh

One gentleman who entered my life when I was about seven years old was Willie Burns, my mother’s uncle. He lived with his sister Lily at No 82 Chapel Street. Before that time I didn’t even know he existed!

Lily was ‘odd’ in her way and never bothered much with any one. She worked in Dromalane Mill and called regularly at our house. She asked me one day if I would whitewash her yard and I agreed. It was only when I called to her house that I was confronted by her rather stern and gruff brother, who found it hard to communicate with me.

Lonan Teach an Conais

June 8, 2020April 25, 2005 by John McCullagh

Lonan Teach an Conais, or Tan Open, or Customs House Avenue as it is now known, was a seven house cul-de-sac under the shadow of the gaol wall. I first saw the light of day in Number 5 there. I had sisters Maeve and later Carmel and Anne. We shared a yard with Number 6 – Dolly (Kearns) and Jamsie Duffy and their son Pat (Sock). Not just the yard (too small to contain a baby Austin car!) but we also shared the water tap and box toilet.

Brother Lynch’s Class

June 8, 2020April 24, 2005 by John McCullagh

I was exchanging e-mails with my new mate Deano (Jim Dean) about the identities of that host of thumbnail photos of past Abbey Boys, when he recklessly decided to send me photos of himself and his good wife then and now (at marriage 1972, and after 30 years of wedded bliss in 2002). I say recklessly for your editor tends to upload such photos as ‘timely lessons’ to the young: examples of what can happen if you ‘let yourself go!’.

Anyway it was dwelling on the ravages of time caused me to recall that I had failed as yet to upload to the new site, that most popular of photos from the old: the Brother Lynch class that included such miscreants as Gene Falloon and Davy Hyland, not to mention Donal O’Hanlon. So here I go again!