Newry News and Irish Fun
It was Wednesday of Easter Week and the Rising in Dublin was in full progress.
I walked down Innisfallen Parade to Dorset Street and on to Gardiner Row. I had to detour as Royal Irish Rifles soldiers were clearing the people from Dorset Street from north to south.
As I said, I left Newry via the Dromalane Road and Kate Linnegan’s Loanan which took me out near where Cloughogue new chapel stands.
Preparations were being made for an uprising and the IRB, the Volunteers under Eoin Mac Neill and the Citizens Army were to be involved. On the Friday night before Easter John Southwell and I cycled to Dundalk to report progress.
To complete the list of Poor Clare nuns resident at 7a High Street in the 1950s, taken from the Elector Roll …
I was reliably informed that there are literally dozens (70+) of retired nuns resident in the new Poor Clares Convent in Ashgrove Avenue. I will ask the next one I see out walking and confirm with you.
Early in January 1914 I informed the Irish Club that I was going home to Ireland and they gave me a letter to deliver to John Devoy in New York (my point of embarkation).
After a month in Philadelphia in 1914, I joined the state’s National Guard. The Irish friends I had made at the Irish Club would not hear of joining, claiming that it was composed of the worst elements in the city. But I wanted military experience for the future. Also I wanted to acquire some ammunition.
Perhaps the most infamous character ever to come from Newry (it is said) in the past two centuries is William Hare.
In my youth, my role model patriots were James Larkin (mainly because of his strong working-class credentials as well as the fact that his parents hailed from here) James Connolly and John Mitchel. Where repression, discrimination and exclusion dominate, one tends towards the extremes.