Archive (334 life histories found)

I went to St Columban's Primary School in Glenview Street. My first teacher was Miss Margaret McCaughan from Ballycastle. She was a lovely lady and very kind to us. We were fifty six children in the class, as a lot of children had been born in the…

I made my First Confession on 26th May and my First Holy Communion on 28th May 1953 in Sacred Heart Church, where we went every Sunday and often daily for Mass. I was confirmed there as well, with Cecilia on 27th February 1956. Uncle Willie's wife,…

An event on 8th October 1946 changed life irrevocably for some folk. Some may say it was for the better, but no doubt there are a few, who might wish the change had not happened. This world would never be the same again. I was born in 50 Rose vale…

I remember one day at the school when I was in one classroom of the old building and Patsy was in the other a great din broke out outside and the teacher and the bigger boys ran out to see what was happening. It transpired that my father who had come…

As children we all attended Lislea Primary school which was situated about two miles from our house, on the Ballyards road. The quickest way to get there was by taking a shortcut through a nearby farm, Nicholsons, which had an existing lane from the…

If we were too long away from home or didn't go back for our lunch etc. my mother would blow a pea whistle which she had and believe me it was shrill and it could be heard by all the neighbours who would know it was Mrs. Murphy's whistle. After long…

I don't think I had ever met a child whose mother was dead until after 1964 when a family of seven children and their father came to live in the farm across the road from us. Tommy Loughran was a hard working man whose young wife had died about a…

When I was about 10 years old, my cousin, Paddy Reilly who was just twenty two was drowned in a swimming accident. He and two good friends who worked in a sawmill in Armagh were coming back into the city after delivering a load of timber when they…

Road bowls or bullet throwing as it is also called is a game played mostly in Counties Armagh and Cork. It is a game where the 'thrower' has to throw a heavy smooth round ball made of lead over the longest distance along a road without it touching…

With no bathroom in the house the only way of having a bath was to use a tin one which I remember being sat in front of the old Doric range on a Saturday night to get us bathed for Mass the next morning. The said bath is at this moment in time…