Just at that moment the school bell rang, coming to my rescue! Although he was dead, I took up my wooden horse and tethered him to a nearby rail so that I could return to the classroom.
Buzzard Carrion!
John McCullagh
Linen Industry in Newry
Newry was late on the scene in establishing powered flax mills, exploiting the boom that inevitably followed the closure of American ports during their Civil War.
Cursed in the Seven Languages!
There was a man once set out to market with a few bags of corn. It was the early hours when the sun hadn’t riz yit and the dew clung to his eyelashes like cold rain. As he came to the graveyard he saw two cats sitting facing each other on the wall.
‘That’s a damp breed o’ a mornin”, says one cat, stiffening the man with fear.
”Tis,’ he muttered trippingly.
‘Where are ye for?’ asked the other cat.
‘The town’, the man answered, stupefied and gawking at them both.
‘Well, turn back and tell your wife that Craw Luk is dead.’
Glad to escape from such unearthly cats the man turned his horse and galloped home. His wife saw him coming so fast and ran out in dread. He couldn’t answer her rush of questions. He slumped into a chair in the room.
‘A.. a… drink.. of water’, he begged.
When he had drank he told her, in stumbled words, of the two cats, while his own black cat sat on the hob winking at the burning turf and gazing now and then at the man in drowsy glances.
‘An’ one cat told me to tell you… that Craw Luk is dead!’
‘Craw Luk! Craw Luk!’ screeched his own cat. ‘Me own grandfather!!’
And it instantly began to whine and cry.
The man realised at once that his own cat was no right animal. Later he went to the master of the Big House who had a pack of hounds and told him the whole story.
‘I see,’ said the master. ‘Well, let you put your cat in a bag saying you are taking it to the graveyard wall to meet the other cats – and that you’re afraid the neighbours might wonder why you’re fetching a cat, and that’s the reason for the bag. I’ll be there with the hounds and we’ll soon see what sort of a cat you have.’
The man did as he was told. As he came to the crossroads the hounds began to yelp and the cat in the bag scratched and whined. In a human voice it said,
‘Tom, if you let the cat outta the bag, I’ll cut your bluddy throat!’
But the man dumped it out in the middle of the hounds and away goes the chase. Crossing a ditch one of the hounds bit a piece out of the cat’s thigh but it escaped nevertheless and was seen to leap through the open window of an old house on the mountain-side.
And when the men reached the house, all they found was an old woman spinning.
But there was blood on the floor beside her thigh.
And they say she just cursed them in the Seven Languages.
Rachel: 7 .. ended
I need not have worried. Turning the corner I was confronted by a newly constructed shop built from wattle and mud but this time it had a gleaming tin roof. Sitting becalmed like a sail boat on a mirrored lake with book-in-hand was my dear friend Rachel.
Kilfeaghan
The townland of Kilfeaghan forms a wedge shape, rising from the shoreline a few miles beyond Rostrevor up the slope of Cnoc Shee (Fairy Mountain) and facing the flank of Formal. These are the Southern or Low Mournes.
Modern Newry, Aerial, Point Rd
These slides concentrate on the Old and New Warrenpoint Road areas, St Mary’s Cemetery, Greenbank Industrial Estate and Estler Park (The Marshes) and Newry Town grounds. The latter has since changed its name (if not its fortunes) to Newry City.
Confraternity
It constitutes a slight curiosity only, now, I’m afraid, but fifty years ago and more, it played a fairly central role in many of our lives.
‘Do ye want the keg?’
Lou Morgan, who took fourth prize in our recent Reminiscence Competition for his series of anecdotes, first regaled me with an account of his progeny.
GAA’s divisive role
There is an essential dichotomy in the essence of the GAA’s role in Irish society.
It is hardly necessary to explain this. No one can be in any doubt that in its successful quest of popularising and maintaining core values of Irish culture, the GAA has also been a participant in the process of cultural separation.