Sport

A couple of years later when I was the ‘neutral’ judge in an Aer Lingus-sponsored school debating competition in County Down between two Catholic schools, I cast my deciding vote for St. Colman’s College of Newry.  

Read moreSean Hollywood and me

By the time I was attending secondary school, it became obvious that we were all being taught differently about the history of Ireland.  Catholic friends regaled me with horror stories about what the landlords and the English forces had done to the Irish over the centuries and I became fascinated by accounts of what had happened to poor Oliver Plunkett.

Read moreViews on Irish History

However much Gaelic games dominated the sporting scene in the 1960’s – and filled the pages of the local press with team photographs and match reports, it remained a closed world as far as I was concerned all through my teenage years.  

Read moreGAA & Protestantism

Awareness that a whole social and sporting culture existed of which I was not – and apparently could not – be a part, soon followed.

Read moreCultural & Sporting Divisions

What games did we play in yesteryear?

Well, it depended on ‘The Seasons’:

not those with which you are now familiar, but our own seasons;

you know, the ‘marley season’, the ‘caddy season’,  etc.

Read moreStreet Games Revisited

The Pillars were a soccer team of Newry/Bessbrook some sixty years ago. Sadly the majority here have passed on. But still very much alive and the donor of the photograph, is Dickie Rodgers, third from the left at the back.

Read moreThe Pillars

The Kilkeel Ramblers of 1945 consisted of Pat Hudson (the photographer here) and (L-R)

Frank McCann, Helen Fearon, Alma Nicholson, John McConnell, Tony Cunningham, Teresa Hudson, Maura Morgan and Tom Quinn.

Read moreKilkeel Ramblers 1945

A once-in-a-lifetime memory from Peter Hughes, who works as a librarian in Summerhill, Co Down . . .

‘I was born on 26th March 1967.  I grew up in the town of Newry in Northern Ireland during the height of the ‘troubles’.  It was just like any other working class town anywhere in Britain (apart from the noise and large military presence) and like other kids in these areas, we played football every day after school in our street.  There were a lot fewer cars to contend with in those days so we normally had most of the street to ourselves.

Read morePutting one past Pat Jennings!

There were no factories or offices on Greenbank Estate in my youth. There was The Showgrounds, or soccer ground, but there also was – wait for it! – TWO dog tracks! Owners, bookies and punters would travel from far and wide to ‘go to the dogs’ in Newry.  During the summer, race days were Wednesdays and Sundays, leaving Jack Mullan’s track after the first meeting and then into Matt O’Hare’s. In the winter months it was Sundays only but both tracks, so again it was out of one and into the other. 

Read moreDog Tracks