An old Tan Yard separated Numbers 2 and 3 (Turleys and Carrs) and was a long time abandoned when I became aware of it. Windows were blocked up and the entrance gates were never opened. It was, in other words, irresistible to us!
Street Battles
School Days
Loughview Grandchildren
Our photo, taken in 1989 shows:
Robert Quinn: Aidan Campbell: Paul Campbell: Joseph Kavanagh: Jacqueline Kavanagh: Cathal Grant: Carla Campbell: Angela Campbell: Martin O’Brien: Aine O’Riaordan: Patrica Kavanagh: Sinead Campbell: Charlene McNally: Stephen Campbell: J J McAnulty: Darren McNally: Francis McNally
Boys’ and girls’ street games
In the War Years, British Summer Time added two hours to summer evenings, the government’s intent being to facilitate the harvest.
It helped us too. Darkness didn’t fall until eleven or half past and the stretch on the evenings was enjoyed and appreciated by those of all ages.
Survival
We were born before 1940….
..before TV, penicillin, polio shots, frozen food, Xerox, contact lenses, videos and the pill…
Off the Omeath Train
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.
Air-Raid Shelters
Our men folk, in those war years, were mostly in
A hen kicked me!
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.
Funereal Times
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!
Belfast Evacuees
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.