“This is Tass Murphy again!
I was born up in Derrybeg. Before the Derrybeg Estate houses were built.
There was a wee lane, up where Parkhead Crescent is now. There was a pile of us: the McCoys, Begleys, Hartes, McClellands – Michael John Benett, McKevitts, Raymy hamilton, Fegans, Gunner Devlin, Feehans – all gone! We were big into boogies. Ball-bearing carts.
We’d fly down the Camlough Road. Concrete surface then. Gave you a rollicking ride! Boy, we could go! Passed “Matchboxes”, sports cars … We were caught – more than once – by the infamous Sergeant Junk! Done us for ‘no lights on the boogies!’
Imagine! To be caught by the police at 7-year-old. He’d have a word with our fathers. Told them it was dangerous. Suppose, now you think about it, it was! But not as bad as it sounds. There wouldn’t be ten cars on the road -all day – in those times. The ’50’s. We got the wood from the oul’ tramline station. It closed in the late ’40’s. We were expert scavangers! We built a fleet of boogies. I’m sure – if you got talking to any of the men named above – it would be the same story! “