On Thursday night last, along with my sister Vera who nowadays lives in Belfast and my brother Harry (a Born Again Newryman) I was privileged to attend the Chapel St/Boat St Reunion in the Canal Court Hotel.
We were in the company of Margaret, Noel and Tony McLoughlin, Sadie and Joe Fearon and that ‘font of knowledge’, Muskie Cunningham. These people are all originals from the Chapel St/Boat St area and all cousins and friends of my late mother who hailed from Chapel St. Margaret McLaughlin (Mrs. McGrath, nowadays) was my godmother. I tried to convince her that my Christening took place in 1963 but she is quite convinced it was 1949.
With company like that, all one had to do was light the touch-paper and stand back, figuratively speaking. We were regaled with anecdotes and narratives from an era gone by, side-splitting stories so funny that you could not do them justice when retold later, and stories so sad it would have brought tears from a stone.
T.C. Gorman whose formative years were spent in Castle St briefly joined our company and recounted a tale about his mother and my Aunt Mary Dean going to tackle a local teacher over some minor misdemeanour that T.C. committed during his schooldays. Modesty forbids me retelling the tale because I would not do it justice, and it was a bit risqu
