The most recent Ice Age, which lasted in this region from c.30,000-12,000 years B.P. not only determined the topographical character up to the present, but eradicated almost all archaeological evidence of earlier habitation.
History
James Fearon
Three James’s were central to Ireland’s labour movement a century ago. Perhaps the most famous is James Connolly who led the Citizens’ Army contingent at the 1916 Rising and who was subsequently executed for his part [strapped to a chair since his injuries precluded his standing].
Life and Death of Cyril Wiltshire, Castle Street .. [1]
Ed and Bria Herron, Newry teachers by profession and, long into their well-deserved retirement teachers still at Newry U3A, are among the most popular and the best-esteemed of that august body of lovely people. Indeed they continue to this day to invest enormous energy and enthusiasm into their work, so much so that their French classes regularly spill into the corridors of my old Alma Mater.
Their own love story -and life story – I hope will one day soon be told in these pages, for it is truely a remarkable tale.
But first, we are pleased to tell the tale of Bria’s father, Lance Corporal Cyril Elwyn Wiltshire of the Fifth Battalion, Welsh Regiment, who fell at Calvados, France on 21 July 1944 aged just twenty-five years.
Much of this tale is reproduced from his letters and his diaries. Cyril was of 38 Castle Street Newry.
… more later …
Brigit’s cloak
The tradition of the St Brigit’s Cross also reaches back to Pre-Christian times (when it was made of straw). In Irish folklore rushes were associated with childbirth and were laid down when a woman was giving birth…
Bridgit: Bishop?
It is said that St Bridgit went to confession to St Mel, who pronounced the formula for the consecration of a bishop in place of absolution. From this derives the tradition that Bridgit was herself a bishop.
St Bridgit (1)
Wednesday of this week is St Bridgit’s day. In The Meadow we lived in St Bridgit’s ward and worshipped in St Bridgit’s Church.
Electoral canvassing of old
The smutty and libellous doggerel quoted below, and widely published at the time, demonstrates the extent to which the ‘establishment’ would go in 1832 to blacken the emerging Catholic political class.
1830s Catholic electors
The list of names of Catholic Newry electors (2/2) of 1832 reproduced here is more interesting in a variety of ways to us 180 years later, than was its original intent (which was to intimidate Catholic electors who had failed to vote for the Catholic Dennis Maguire).
Newry Elections 1830s
The following list of names of allegedly recalcitrant Catholic electors of the Borough of Newry in the 1832 election to Parliament (Imperial) was printed and produced to punish, by intimidation, those who had failed to wrest the seat from the agents of the landlord, the Earl of Downshire.