Travelling Back In Time

The other day I had a conversation with some friends about what we’d do if we had the opportunity to go backwards or forwards in time. Everyone, apart from me, was curious about the future but I’d be far too scared to know the future. Surely it would be far better not to know and retain some semblance of hope and optimism than to see the worst. I’d prefer to travel to the past.

Hannah said,

So you could prevent Trump becoming President?

I said,

I think that one might be entirely outside my control. And, going by popular fiction, it might be a very bad idea to meddle in those big events. The only thing I’d change would be to unfriend that blade on Facebook before I ever got to see the picture of the poor, tortured dog that she shared.

No. If I had a time machine, magic wardrobe or whatever, I’d go back to around 80 – 150 years ago and I’d stay in my own locality so I could see what the world looked like to our recent ancestors. I’d enjoy travelling the old roads, streets and loanins to see how my grandparents and great-grandparents lived. I know it’s mundane but it’s what I’d enjoy and I’d try very hard not to interfere too much in their lives in case I screwed up the future a la Marty McFly.

So, while I wait for the mad scientist and his time machine I can search the newspaper archives to get a taste of the past and it seems that that’s a very dangerous and frightening place too. There was carnage on the highways at the dawn of the twentieth century. There may have little need to worry about motor vehicles – horses and carts could mow a pedestrian down just as efficiently as the horses were always bolting and when that happened it was advisable that anyone who could should run for their life.

Derry Journal, October 1909.

Also in the Derry Journal, October 1909.

The fellow up the tree would have been my grandfather. His younger brothers would have been at college, Joe training to be a priest and James at medical school in Dublin.

Connections

I really need to keep tonight's blog post short and sweet as it is a Saturday (Treat Night) and that means I am drinking wine.

Tonight's story is about connections. Northern Ireland is a very small place and, I often think, take us all far back enough and we're probably all each other's cousins and, never mind all that Protestant and Catholic stuff, I reckon we married and mated all over the place in days gone by and we're all mixed up.

When Hannah was a teenager she'd mention a friend of hers and I'd say what's the surname, and she'd say, Mum! You wouldn't know him/her, yet nine times out of ten, if she even knew her friends' surname I'd know who they were.

So, this afternoon her friend's father gave her a lift home and he got invited in for a cup of tea and we got chatting about this and that. I've met him before, he's a local historian and before long we were chatting about the war years (after my time). he tells me that he was in Belfast when things started to get a bit hot and heavy and his father moved them to a place called Tannaghmore.

Tannaghmore! Tannaghmore where I was reared?

Yes. It's about halfway between Ballymena and Antrim.

I know! It's my home place. Where did you live?

There's three little houses, I think there is more than three now, near a pub, Byrne's pub.

 I know! Those three little houses (and the other one) where right at the top of the road I lived on.

Turns out he knew lots of people that I knew yet was gone from Tannaghmore 12 years before my mother got there and 13 before I was born. He even went to the same school my father attended. It's a small place, these six counties. All you have to do is get chatting. Incidentally,  the last time we chatted we discovered that one of his associate historians is my second cousin, once removed.

A Shooting At The Pub

On Friday 24^th May 1974, Day 10 of the UWC strike we went, as usual, to evening Mass in Tannaghmore chapel. As always we were in good time and there was the regular group of men standing chatting at the chapel door. This had recently become an ordeal for me, passing those men, neighbours and family members, for I was 20 years old, six months pregnant and unmarried. Forty years ago this was no light matter. John Heffron and Uncle Sean smiled and nodded at me but Uncle Brendan was not on speaking terms with me and made no acknowledgement. This was hurtful but understandable. I'm sure, that if given the chance, once my daughter was born, he would have come round. Brendan had a great fondness for children and was a very well-loved uncle.

After Mass my parents went to visit Mum's family in Randalstown. The first hint of something wrong was a series of strange phone calls. My younger sister took the first call that alerted us to something badly wrong. A shooting at the pub. A neighbour called to the door and took my brother down to Randalstown to inform my parents. I took a call from a woman who did not identify herself.

“Is that Byrne's?”
“It is.”
“Tell Sean we'll be over for a carry-out.”

There was laughter in the background. It sounded like they were having a party. I took it to be a malicious call.

The younger children were hysterical with fear. They thought that maybe the gunmen were coming to our house too. I tried to reassure them. By the time the tragic news came to us the gang had left the Wayside Halt and were already in police custody.

The thing is, the RUC were well aware of the gangs' activity. They were a ramshackle band of UVF, UDA and other loyalists who had come down to our area to reinforce the strike. Around thirty in number, they were armed with cudgels and sticks and at least one carried a loaded firearm. A neighbour of ours saw them at their work in the Harryville area of Ballymena where they smashed up pubs that were open in defiance of the strike. Their way back to Belfast took them past the Wayside Halt public house and it was there that a gun was used to shoot my uncles. That is when the police went in pursuit. That neighbour reported their activities in Harryville at the time. Had the RUC moved in Ballymena my uncles would not have died that night.

So there it was. Two devastated widows, eight fatherless children, a community torn apart, a loss felt as keenly today as on that terrible evening 40 years ago.

That link above is well worth reading as it is my sister's account of the events of that night and there are details that I have not included here.

A Cure For Ennui,Blame and Blue Funk

Sometimes things just get on top of me. Work can be difficult sometimes, as it seems to me that my role includes soaking up all the responsibility for things that go wrong. Guys - sometimes I screw up and sometimes you do too. I don't want to be the Designated Blame Monkey any more.

Hannah threw a little farewell shindig for the lovely Mel on Friday for she is going to Australia for a year. Many moons ago this gathering was supposed to be a demure little tea party with cucumber sandwiches and iced buns. Then 'The Trouble' came along and I got distracted from Nigella recipes and entertaining. Hannah and Raymond Party Planners stepped into the breach and my cucumber sandwiches were replaced by spicy party food from Iceland and my iced buns by something far more potent and the Earl Gray and Chardonnay by Buckfast and Carlsberg.

Mind you the guests were ever so, ever so... including primary school teachers, assorted geniuses, two people with firsts and two people related to people with firsts. Educated people - so rough and ready these days. You cannot take them anywhere! I blame the universities.

Before we got thoroughly drunk I took The Genius Dougie out to see the wildlife. I showed him the Bad Bees, one of which came up and hovered nastily just six inches in front of my midriff giving off buzzy fuck off vibes. I totally respected it and fucked off and it respected me by not stinging me. I then showed Dougie the Nice Bees and we were able to get proper close up to them and view them through the glass crown board. Then we viewed Pearlie through the front windows and she glared at us but luckily no stings or stinging remarks were made when Mel and Hannah ceidhlied with her later.

Saturday - clean, clean, clean. Buckfast everywhere. These geniuses and intellectuals throw more drink around them than they actually imbibe. Perhaps it's for the best. I wouldn't lip the stuff. It's worse than Lucozade (Pearlie's current poison). I'm sure I visited Matty at some point but I disremember the details.

Sunday was Aunt Mary's month's mind and I was halfway home when I turned and went home to bed. I was feeling rather unwell, suffering from ennui, cystitis, depression, the blues, fever, tiredness, blue funk, blame, guilt and a cold in the nose. Later I also suffered from regret. I should have went to Aunt Mary's month's mind. I had an awesome outfit consisting of a Primark vest, a Monsoon jacket, a Fenn Wright Manson skirt and Diesel courts. I was mixing it up. I was so ready for Tannaghmore except for the blue funk, fever etc. Still - Ganching went, worked the room, represented the family and sure I'd only have been in her road.

Monday - Duvet day. I was far too blue to go to work and I still had enough symptoms left to justify it to myself. Then in the afternoon - along came the cure for it all!

A Cure For All A Granny's Ills

After a lovely afternoon spent in the company of Miss Martha and her people and dogs I was ready to resume all my responsibilities.

They Do Things Differently In Wetherfield

Once upon a time Nellybert loved Coronation Street nearly as much as Hannah loves Neighbours. But no more. Now we think it is a very silly programme. For instance take the other week when Fred died. He died on the occasion of his wedding day which is exactly the sort of thing that happens in places like Coronation Street and hardly ever happens in real life.

In Coronation Street Fred dies after he slipped out of his own wedding for a clandestine meeting with Another – like that would really happen. Unless it was me marrying Bert, for I could just see Swisser putting her oar in and trying to get him to marry her instead. I actually accused her of that on Saturday night but she slippy-titted her way out of it.

They do funerals differently in England but if someone as well established as Fred had lived in Tannaghmore there would have been a bit more talk about his demise. In Coronation Street he was hardly mentioned until the actual day of the funeral except, of course, everybody had turned against Audrey and I warned Swisser that’s what would happen to her too if she tried to get off with Bert on his wedding day and killed him with the annoyance of it all.

Then comes the day of the funeral and there’s Bev making a complete show of herself by heading out in the wedding dress. That outfit was a holy show enough for a wedding never mind the funeral. Then Audrey turns up and they all start hissing at her like they’re at a pantomime. That would never happen in Tannaghmore. There’d be chat about it, maybe a bit of whispering, but no hissing. We’re better bred than that.

Then there was that tart Frankie done up to the nines with her tits out and her lecherous step-son at her oxter. You wouldn’t get cleavage or randy step-sons at a Tannaghmore funeral. Now that would lead to hissing. Nor would there be passionate ‘facing’ in the churchyard. That would lead to stoning.