John McCullagh

When I’d be eariwigging on adult conversation then, I’d hear lots of similar allegations about them ones that ‘made their money’ during the blackout – the local opportunists. 

Read moreOff the Omeath Train

Our men folk, in those war years, were mostly in England or had joined the coastal fleet plying between Newry and England. In any case they were seldom at home. A lucky few here got employment as Air Raid Wardens, worked in the local gas-works or helped the war effort at home by labouring in one of the many army barracks dotted around the locality. 

Read moreAir-Raid Shelters

We all have local idioms and peculiarities of speech. We acquire these from the people around us. I remember once being verbally assailed on the soccer pitch and angrily asked what I thought I was doing.

Read moreA hen kicked me!

To this day funerals to St Mary’s cemetery pass up Chapel Street.

We were obsessed as children with funerals. Ned Murphy’s hearse was drawn by huge black shire horses suitably plumed and adorned for the occasion. The aura of death and mourning had a peculiar effect on us as youth, so far removed, we felt ourselves, from all of it. 

Mourners were dressed in their Sunday best, and in black (if indeed they possessed either one or the other). One’s wardrobe was severely restricted then!

Read moreFunereal Times

There were things to be said for and against growing up in Newry in the war years. There were shortages but our fathers weren’t enlisted and we weren’t bombed. Belfast was different. I learned as much, as a seven year old boy, when a family of four suddenly arrived at our door for lodgings.

Read moreBelfast Evacuees

Paddy Smith was my companion when we were at school.

Read moreAt The Wake!