‘.. there was no central heating in houses. In our house there was a big range .. like a modern Aga .. that heated the kitchen. There was no heat in our bedrooms at all .. so we had to have hot water bottles in bed. You looked after your bottle. There weren’t many then, like there is today. I’m thinking it must be word-and-idea association that drives me! Anna Belle spoke of Ballinliss and that brought to mind another past-pupil of that tiny school. John McNally of Ballinliss, Killeavy spent twenty years gold-mining and prospecting in The only school in the district was a one-room Protestant school two miles away. Our parents were reluctant to send us but keeping up with our ‘larnin” was more important than religious persuasion so off we went, Sally and I! “As motor boat trips along the Ship Canal go, ours was relatively eventful. We met no sea-going cargo ship … Yesterday’s questions were really, really easy, weren’t they? Well. Let’s see how you scored. Just one right from eleven and you pass! We had a lively and entertaining start to the Newry Drama Festival last evening. Your editor ended the evening in the pleasant company of Barry and Donna Crawford [in The Bridge] and reminisced of Mark Burns, Donna’s brother in faraway San Francisco. Greetings Mark! That last poem (W Allingham’s The Fairies) brought back another old favourite in… This morning I tended the grave of Sonny McCullagh. It is the forty-fifth anniversary of his death. Tonight we will celebrate mass for the repose of his soul. Sometime around midnight on 13 July 1972, I was making my way down Lindsay Hill after having just seen my girlfriend Margaret home to her house in High Street. Though we are happily not aware of it most of the time, we are all familiar with parasites living in our bodies – especially, as now, in winter, when it seems we are constantly assaulted with a host of viruses and bacteria living off us.Miscellaneous Memories: 1
Son of Ballinliss
Miss Munroe: First School
Dundalk, Newry, Greenore Railway
Easy Quiz Answers
Tony Rushforth at Drama Festival
By the Light of the Moon
Sonny McCullagh
A Close Shave 1
Mitochondria
