Northern Ireland’s post-War housing stock was worse than that of any other part of the United Kingdom, despite having been spared the worst of the German blitz. Most houses had been built before the First World War and they were grossly inadequate in quantity as well as in quality. In England the newly elected Labour Government was determined to make amends to the working class heroes who had saved the country from fascism. It quickly introduced the Welfare State and embarked on an ambitious house-building programme. The Education Acts (1944 in England, 1947 in Northern Ireland) opened up free secondary education to the baby-boom generation.

Early Days

Reminiscence of the first generation

Farmer Sandy McNeill was closer to us by dint of geographical location. He befriended some of us, inviting us into his milking shed at the rear of Helen’s Terrace. This was the first time I saw cows being milked. It was still of course done by hand into steel or aluminium pails. I had difficulty reconciling the all-pervading animal stench with food hygiene but things were less fussy in those days.

I was six months old when we set up home here, and I lived in The Meadow till manhood. Other family members still live in The Meadow. Very few of the original inhabitants survive.

At first there were just parts of Orior Road and Slieve Gullion Road completed. The flats (Nos 9-12) of Slieve Gullion Road were completed later, as was Orior Road’s Horseshoe.

Those of us less skilled on the playing field got more than our fair share of time to practice such extra-curricular activities, the most enjoyable of which (apart from ‘coourting’ for the teenagers) centred on the nearby river. I remember in later adult life being ‘introduced’ to the sport of ‘bouldering’. To the uninitiated, this involves pursuing a river towards its source, both along its banks and, more often, using stepping stones or ‘boulders’ to advance one’s progress. In the modern adult version, one is practically obliged to frequently fall in and get soaked.

I was scanning Newry Reporter back issues of fifty years ago when my eye fell upon a report from Newry Petty Sessions. Mr J C Austin R.M. on the evidence of Constables Ramsey and Moffett, found Bessbrook men Bernard O’Callaghan, William Walsh, Joseph Weir, Thomas McAteer and John Kane guilty of playing ‘pitch-and-toss’ in Frederick Street and fined each one ten shillings. 

We had little call to leave the Meadow for the essential foodstuffs, having Brian Donaghy’s and Crawley’s on Clanrye Avenue and The Hut at Helen’s Terrace as local shops and a plethora of vans regularly calling to sell their wares.