8th September, 2022

In my late teens, I took a job in the sewing room at the Old Bleach Factory in Randalstown. I didn't stay long as my sewing was abysmal and the wee forewoman despaired of me. All I had to do was hem linen tea towels. It wasn't that hard. Even so, my efforts all ended up in the reject bin.

The 'girls' in the sewing room were a mixed bunch. All ages, all persuasions and all female. The only 'lads' were a couple of mechanics who were supposed to keep the machines running smoothly. From what I could see, that looked like a  very cushy number. The fellows seemed to spend most of the day hanging over the big cast iron radiators eyeing up the talent.

There was a group of young women from Toome who befriended me. Their leader, Marian came in one morning telling everyone how the Brits had smashed in their door while it was still dark and lifted two of her brothers. I was amazed that she had still bothered to come to work. If that had happened in our house we'd all have been bad with our nerves for weeks. Marian must have thrived on the excitement as a year or so after I left the job I read in the paper that she was up in court for hijacking a bus.

Our forewoman, whose name I cannot remember, was a small thin woman, probably in her late fifties. Her office, a roughly partitioned-off area, was covered in Union flags and pictures of the Royal Family. And even though she seemed a mild-mannered and unthreatening person I still felt uncomfortable with this display for she was marking her territory and asserting her superiority over the RCs.

So, although I did not have any issue with the Windsors it was made very clear to Catholics that they were not for the likes of us.

Fast forward to 1977. I'm in London for the summer and it's the Silver Jubilee and the place is decked out like the Twelfth with bells on. The Queen was out and about, she's all over the place and I never saw her once. My sister claims to have spotted her on several occasions but I had to make do with Connie Booth from Fawlty Towers, spotted buying calamine lotion in a Holland Park pharmacy.

It took another 34 years before I got the point of  Elizabeth II. I was in Donegal, recovering from a bout of food poisoning and the only TV channel we could get was RTE. And all that was on was coverage of the Queen's State Visit to Ireland. There she was, speaking a bit of Irish at a state banquet, attending a ceremony at the Garden of Remembrance, where she laid a wreath in memory of those who gave their lives fighting for freedom from British rule. And then, making a visit to the National Stud in Kildare, and just standing there quietly as a massive stallion reared up only yards from her. I have to say, I was impressed.

The Worst Year of the Conflict

In terms of people killed during the north of Ireland conflict, 1972 was the worst year for fatalities. There were 497 people killed over half of which were what is termed as civilians, people who were not part of the security forces or proscribed armed groups.

I was 18 years old for the most of 1972 and one of those people, as yet, living in an area relatively untouched by the troubles. The first casualty of that year (I refer to Lost Lives) was an 18-year-old English soldier. No doubt his death was announced on the evening news. I don't recall. The news on the 30th of January, exactly fifty years ago was much more dramatic. Thirteen men and boys were shot dead on the streets of Derry by British soldiers. This atrocity came to be known as Bloody Sunday. I remember it but, to be honest, at the time it didn't sink in. 

I had a friend from Derry, her name was Marian, a student nurse at Musgrave Park Hospital. Marian was a goth before goths were even a thing. My Daddy used to call her the wee black crow. She was always staying at our house and this one time she invited me to come to her house in Derry. She lived in Irish Street which I found odd as it was a loyalist area. But Marian was no loyalist. She socialised across the bridge and on that particular night she took me to a republican club. Marian told me that it was a 'Stickies' club and I had not a clue what that meant. Later on, I came to realise that the Stickies were the Official IRA which would be superseded by the Provisional IRA. It was all a mystery to me.

Back then I didn't even know that fifty years earlier my own Granda had been in the IRA. For some reason, it was not something openly discussed in our family. I knew my Granny was always ranting talking about the Easter Rising, the perfidy of the British and the tragedy of the Irish martyrs. I remember her shaking her stick at me in a rage because I didn't know who James Connolly was. So, suffice to say, I was a total ignoramus when it came to Irish history - even though I was living through it.

The day we took the bus to her city Marian brought home to me what Bloody Sunday meant to the people of Derry. She opened her bag and took out a handful of Mass cards. Showed them to me, pictures of wee fellows, some of them younger than me. she'd say about one, I went out with his brother. About another, I was at school with his sister. Another, my ma was friends with his ma. These were her people.

Years later and not long after the findings of the Savile enquiry, Bert and I went to the Museum of Free Derry. It was heart-rending. The man at the desk was one of the relatives and he told us that to hear that the enquiry had found all 14 victims innocent of all accusations originally used against them was a wonderful moment. I saw him on the news this evening. He is still fighting for justice.

 

Summer in West Ireland

What Type of Irishman Are You?

A while ago I found, and bought, a complete 10 volume set of Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopaedia. I think I gave some charity shop a fiver for it. At the moment there's someone selling a 1930s set (like mine) on Ebay for a ton but I'm going to keep my set because it provides Nellybert with a great deal of pleasure, education and entertainment.

Last night I dragged it out of the attic and started looking for interesting colour plates to upload to Flickr. I was diverted by a very interesting article on our own wee country. Last weekend Ploppy Pants really annoyed me by spouting some Orangeman rubbish about how the Scottish planters civilised County Down and County Antrim. Apparently it was a wild and tangled forest before the Scots came, cut down the trees and showed the savage Irish how to be farmers.

As I'd been looking for some killer facts to refute Ploppy's argument, I started to read. And was utterly diverted by these fascinating paragraphs about the people of this country.

The Three Types of Irishmen

There is a very primitive type still to be met with in the west. It is the one that was formerly used in Irish caricatures by unfriendly observers. The forehead is low, the mouth and lower part of the face are large, there is an inclination to a squat figure, and the general effect is that of a survivor from an early period in human history.

Then there is the tall, often blue-eyed, engaging Irishman of easy address and good-humoured air, who would wile a bird from a bough by his fluent tongue, ready for adventure anywhere.

And there is the business man, chiefly from the north, who carries in his speech and form and features signs of being a stiffer and less pliant breed, as from Norse, Scotch, or English forefathers. (Arthur Mee: The Children's Encyclopaedia, Volume 5, p3061)

Ploppy is definitely a mixture of the first and third types. For he has a simian appearance, a dour outlook on life and couldn't wile a bird from a bough if his life depended on it.

Here are some modern examples of the three types of Irishmen -



From left to right, the squat primitive, the silver-tongued charmer and the stiff Scottish type.

So what type of Irishman or Irishwoman are you?