Reminiscence

Mary Street

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Recent pictures and stories of Mary Street and its residents reawakened my own memories of the street.

In fact my very earliest memory is of Gerry and Maura Hand.  They were friends of my parents and they would visit for supper and a game of cards.  When my family moved to Edward Street, the visits continued as did the card games!  I don’t think much money was won or lost but a lot of fun happened along the way. According to my mother, Maura would collect me and take me out and about in my pram.  The last time I saw Rowan he was in his pram!  We have, however been in touch in recent years, via the telephone.

There was a time when Taeve Carroll’s home was my second home.  I loved their little house and always found a very warm welcome there.  I cannot quite remember whether it was Taeve or his brother who played violin.  When my family moved to Dundalk for a short time before eventually moving to England, I continued to travel to Newry for school.  I always waited in Mary Street for the evening bus to Dundalk.  I hardly ever waited at the bus stop.  I was fortunate enough to enjoy the comfort and hospitality of the Carroll household knowing for certain that the arrival of the bus would be either seen or heard from within. 

Stress-free days when all I had to worry about was what kind of cake Mrs. Carroll would offer me with the hot or cold drink!  Mrs. Carroll was a lovely lady and I remember her with deep affection.

Sadly as my visits home to Newry grew less frequent, so too did the visits to Mary Street.  However, along with The Mall, Hill Street, High Street, Monaghan Street, Edward Street, Corry Square, and Caulfield Place, it remains deep within my memory, never to be erased.

This girl was taken from Newry.  But Newry can never be taken from this girl!

Ethel Fitzpatrick

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Ethel Fitzpatrick lives today at Carrick Ard on the Fullerton Road, just yards from where she grew up in High Street.  She has contributed a lot to Newry and her people. 

She is Past-Chairman of Newry & Mourne Arts Committee, for years presided over Newry Musical Feis and before that again produced prizewinning shows in the popular Top Talent Contests.

Known affectionately by one and all as Miss Ethel, she is a vivacious raconteur and a teacher of high renown.  She once turned down an attractive offer to present educational programmes on American television, preferring to live and work in Newry.  She was a gifted actress with the Abbey Players and she sparkled in comedies with Newry Musical Society and in a number of pantomimes.  She has given elocution classes to hundreds of Newry folk over the decades and she has also conducted the Phoenix Singers.  Amongst the hundreds she has inspired with her love of music, dance and the spoken word are Sean Hollywood, Margaret Nolan and Gerard Murphy.  The latter in tribute remarked, ‘When she saw how I loved Yeats, she took me to his birthplace in Sligo and showed me the scenes that inspired his poetry.’

Comments in Guestbook here have already shown how much she inspired a wider audience of Newry people.  Those privledged few who visited her school classes could feel the sense of mutual love and harmony. There was a certain inevitability about the way her St Clare’s class won the prestigious Harry Heather Trophy at Newry Musical Feis for thirty years in a row. 

Her stage career began with the Abbey Players under producer Jimmy Canavan.  She joined Michael Mathers, John Bell and Kathleen O’Donnell in presenting O’Casey plays.  She had a variety of Newry Musical Society roles opposite Michael Mathers in shows such as ‘Desert Song’ and ‘Rose Marie’.  She recalled once having to ride a donkey which was pulled up a ramp at the back of the stage while Terry Rafferty brought up the rear carrying a brush and shovel to gather the droppings.

In the late 50’s she joined with Pat Byrne and Quinn Bennett to form the Newry Pantomime Society which put on productions in the Town Hall (fund-raisers for the new Parochial Hall).  Other artists included Charlie Smyth, Irene McCourt and Hugh Magee.  With the launch of the Top Talent competitions she took on responsibility for the High Street entries and appeared in comedy sketches.  She helped to present Newry’s entry in the Top Towns Competition.  A Pub Opera that Miss Ethel organised was televised on the David Frost Show. 

When she retired from teaching, members of the choir of Newry Catholic Girls Club, which she had conducted to success at festivals in Belfast and Dublin, gathered to serenade and to honour her.  She advised they start anew.  They did.  They are today’s Phoenix Singers.

Perhaps the least of her achievements was to be serenaded at Stormont Castle by the then Secretary of State Tom King, rendering ‘The Mountains of Mourne’! 

It’s comforting to know that Miss Ethel is now enjoying a long-delayed rest!

Women of Newry

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It was with astonishment that I realized, on paying tribute to Miss Ethel in this section, how few ladies have so far appeared on Characters pages.  Of course my late friend Alice McKay has been lauded, and Newpoint Players have many strong females, past and present, but overall I feel I have been remiss. 

Although I am contrite I accept too that our womenfolk have in the past, and the great majority of them also in the present, made their greatest contribution in the home, in rearing our finest citizens and often in the most difficult of times and most stringent of circumstances.   May I attempt to make amends by stressing that, regardless of what tributes have already been paid here, or will appear in the future, that this author unreservedly admires and salutes the mothers of Newry, and especially of the poor of Newry over the decades.

I pay especial tribute to my own mother who reared fourteen children by the finest man I have ever known, and one of the most humble.  She never in his lifetime had more than a

Miss Ethel again

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Miss Ethel remembers the midwives of old on the local beat in High Street. 


They were Nurses McKegney and Loughran.  When they were spotted arriving, with their large leather Gladstone bags, the children raced after them for they knew they were bringing a baby, and they all hoped it was to their own house.

Read moreMiss Ethel again

Headless Horseman

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Miss Ethel remembered The Rocks of High Street where many generations spent idyllic days of youth.  Even in your editor’s time, when inter-estate soccer leagues were first established, we played many of our games there.  I’ll never forget our first ever game up High Street way.


Meadow Rangers were 2-0 up against our bitter High Street rivals and confident we could hold them to a draw in their home leg.  They for their part were suspiciously ebullient as though they had a trick up their sleeve.  As already indicated, due to the efforts of our parents the Resi was transformed into a rush-less, fairly even surfaced playing field.  By way of contrast, The Rocks were no less than their name implied, an undulating stony surface interspersed with strategically-placed sharp-edged rocky outcrops.  I had failed to impress the selectors in the season to date and I was relegated from my position of left-half to goals [next step, behind the goal!].  By common consent, the goals could be stopped by any gauche individual capable of getting in the way.  (Pat Jennings was the only but very obvious exception).  That was my speciality.

Read moreHeadless Horseman

A Country Lane Walk

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We have basked in summer temperatures for weeks, strolled the canal banks admiring the cherry blossom, and now the hawthorn is in full bloom.  Let’s share Carmel’s reminiscences!

‘Yesterday I walked an English lane.  The cloudless blue sky nestled contentedly atop the green hill.  The cows chewed the cud. The birds sang.  The hedgerows were blanketed in hawthorn – how I wish I could bottle that scent – and the poppies wore their best frocks and danced flamenco in the breeze.  Idyllic.  And yet, and yet………..how I wished I walked an Irish lane.

A Newry lane, byway, hill or field. The choice was endless in those far off days when I rambled with my Dad. Regardless of weather, Sunday was our walking day.  Come hail, rain, snow or sunshine, dressed appropriately, we’d set out.  Our “together” day, my hand in his and my young legs striving to match his purposeful strides.

The Bessbrook tramline was a favourite walk, with me attempting to jump from sleeper to sleeper while keeping eyes and ears alert for the sight or sound of an oncoming tram.

The Camlough road and the three blind fields.  Why were those fields known as blind fields?  As a child I accepted the name and didn’t question.  There we’d gather watercress from the brooks and streams and if feeling peckish, a snack of “bread and cheese” from the hedgerow would suffice.

The Fathom Line at the outset appeared endless but always there was the hope of sighting a boat or ship with cargoes of coal or oil or other essentials.  And of course we never walked the Fathom Line without an empty bottle!  As I recall, about half way along there was a barrel into which splashed spring water…….pure nectar…… and always so very welcome on a hot summer day.  Sometimes the promise of a drink from that spring was the only incentive my young legs needed to continue the walk.

The Warrenpoint road with its greyhound stadium and gypsy encampment and much further along, Narrow Water with its castle and bluebell wood.

The Rathfriland road with its ash grove and the hospital where I was born.’

So many walks!  So many miles!  So many happy memories!                                                                        

1930s Upper North St Residents

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Eileen Malone of Cherrywood Grove grew up in Upper Mill Street.  Later she met and married Thomas Malone, butcher, of Upper Water Street and raised a fine family including Jackie, now married to Jennifer of Concern.  I showed the photo here to her and asked for comment of the district in which she was reared.

‘Of course I remember this.  Next door, going down towards North Street was a little shop called Ma Hughes.  She and her daughter who was called Nellie sold chips and peas and ice cream.  Next was a house and a little shop also.  The people were called Sheridans.  Next to that was the home of the Stokes.  Then there was a large hoarding and bills were posted on it telling what was on in the town.  After was another little sweetshop [boiled sweets, toffee apples] tended by a lady called Maggie Vickers.  She was married to a man called Meekan, a seaman and they had two children, a girl called May and a boy called Joe.  Maggie also had a brother called Joe Vickers who had a barber’s shop close by.  This Joe was the grandfather of two girls Marie and Joan Vickers who married two McAvoy brothers and live still in Mourneview Park.

Close by there lived two brothers Freddie and Peter Troy, tradesmen who worked all week in Balbriggan and came home only for weekends.  They had a sister who was called Madge and she was married to a man called Ronald Rogers.  They had a son and two daughters.  They lived in Magennis Street and would visit the Troys on Sunday.  One daughter, Stella survived into adult life but the other children died young.  Also visiting the Troys were a brother and sister Bridie and Paddy Vickers who were the children of Joe the barber just mentioned.  This was about the year 1933.  Joe the barber was a fattish man with black, shiny hair and tanned skin.  He cut hair in a room at the back of the sweet shop, down past Converys in Upper North Street.’

Paul Mac [Guestbook!], a much younger man, tells me his parents in the 50s had one of the two houses, round the corner in Chapel Lane [the other was the Magills, John etc].  Ma Hughes’ name was Margaret.  Ma Hughes, in later life resided with her daughter Nellie in the small pensioner bungalows of Clanrye Avenue.  Ma died c. 1968.  Her daughter Mary Ellen [Nellie] died in 1985.  Another daughter Lily married a Mr Lennon and she lived to the ripe old age of 102, and is only recently deceased.