Prison Notes

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Newry Journal was delighted recently to have been offered a few reminiscences of veteran Republican Dan Moore from his early days of resistance to British Rule. 

I walked the road

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Today I walked the road

I skipped along when I was young

And fought to quell the rising melancholy in my heart:

Paddy’s first flight!

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As I write this story, my best friend is taking a flight over Newry on board a microlight. You know, one of those tiny airplanes. And it’s on that account I recall the story of Paddy and Biddy Rice’s flight some eighty years ago over Dundalk.

Second Russell ‘Sister’

St Catherines Newry

The Russells of Dominic Street in the nineteenth century had a privileged childhood. Although well-off they were still unpampered and unspoilt. Of the five surviving children, all three girls became Sisters of Mercy one of the two boys became a Jesuit priest and the other, Charles a famous lawyer and eventually Lord Chief Justice of England. 

Annamar school: Petie the rogue!

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In those days at Annamar School, my older brother Petie was a real scamp! If there was devilment, it was he who was at the centre of it. There was a house of the road that doubled as a local shop – there were lots of those in them days!

Air Raid Shelter

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He might have been Joe’s father or grandfather. Certainly he displayed signs of similar mental function. The time was back in the war

Newry Canal Opens

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Contrary to frequently expressed sentiment, Newry Canal was not the first in these Islands, but the first summit-level canal; the first, that is, to be fed from a lake at higher level, in our case Acton Lake, some half-way along its length.


The Bus is Coming!

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The sudden appearance of Old Felix at the corner of the house, his cloth cap pulled down over his eyes, startled me out of my reverie. He cut a sorry figure, the pockets of his ancient coat sagging from years of carrying stone sinkers, floats and fish hooks.