Newry News and Irish Fun

Newry Drama Festival 2007

I have received the programme for the Newry Drama Festival 2007 which runs for nine nights from Friday 23^rd March till Saturday 31^st March inclusive. I know that most patrons appreciate a synopsis of the plot of each play before viewing it, in order to be better able to exercise their critical faculties.

Professor Lindsay Proudfoot is responsible for the Newry entry in the otherwise wonderful reference work, The Encyclopaedia of Ireland (Gill & Macmillan 2003).

Redmond O’Hanlon had an ‘active service’ life of a mere seven years, but in that time he acquired a fearsome reputation.

In brief then, Redmond O’Hanlon’s short and violent life followed what may be viewed almost as a preordained pattern.

Oral tradition in South Armagh holds fast to the folk memory of the seventeenth century local character, Redmond O’ Hanlon as a ‘Robin Hood’ type person who robbed only from the rich, to help the poor.

Thomas Martin and descendents

The photograph is of Thomas Martin, who was great grandfather to our esteemed readers Patrick J White (who supplied this information) and John McCaul.

It was a stifling hot day and a man collapsed in the middle of a busy intersection.

Of a Friday and Saturday night you wouldn’t want to leave the ‘Pass. They were here in droves! Women from Ballyargan, Glenn, Tyrone’s Ditches, Tannyokey and Drumbanagher – ALL in the ‘Pass for their groceries – in ponys and traps or walking or on bicycles. Ah, a sight for sore eyes.

Eventually in the second half of the nineteenth century the ill-fated Goraghwood to Armagh railway extension was completed. Local papers record that the navvies working on this section were a constant source of trouble in the district.

Jack McCulla walked slowly down Bagnall Street, feeling ashamed and angry with himself. He had raised the darkie boy’s hopes and disappointed him immediately.

There were many local names still familiar today in the lists compiled by Father Ryan of the householders in the townlands in his parish during the Great Hunger.

One night I was standing at the corner when Jim Pat McSherry came down the street, whistling.

Also from the newspapers of 1865 we read of the generosity and charity of Mr Dempster who owned a large Mill in the centre of the town (the long building on Monaghan Street, in the middle right foreground).

In view of recent ‘political and security developments’ we sent our roving reporter to the Ardmore Fortress on the Downshire Road, in search of an interview with a real, live, local PSNI man (or woman).

This is an anonymous letter to the Manager of the Newry and Warrenpoint Railway Company, published in the Newry Telegraph, 1^st August 1864.

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Newry Drama Festival 2007

Encyclopaedia of Ireland

Head on spike: Redmond

Tories: Redmond and gang

O’Hanlon Pedigree

Thomas Martin and descendents

Aromatherapist

A feed of buns

Grabbed by the ‘hinder part’

Hunter

Carrickovaddy 1848

Who whistles now?

Dempster’s Excursion

Ticket for Mars?

Thongs for Bedouins