One year tomorrow the horrific attack on the festival goers in Isreal. It was terrible to read of the carnage but there could be no idea of what was to come. Just like the worst times of the Troubles here, words fail.
This morning more news of bombing in the region and by teatime today it will be even worse. Death and destruction on a scale that is difficult to imagine. Families torn apart, families walking the roads looking for a safe place but finding none. Take your own week and the freedom to do what you need to do or want to do and imagine suddenly having nothing, your home reduced to rubble, aunts and cousin, parents and their children murdered, perhaps only one small bag containing all that is left in your world. What would you pack. Imagine being ill, having a baby days old, being in your 80s with limited mobility. I write about families in Northern Ireland living in fear for their relatives in the Middle East in tomorrow’s Irish News. I found it difficult to listen to their stories, now I find it sickening when the news rolls on from this expanding story to Strictly or Trump in little more than a heartbeat and you could be excused for moving on with it. We do so at our peril.
Had a great lunch during the week in NUCCI restaurant on Belfast’s Antrim Road. Phone number 024 90 228345. Make a note of it because as far as I’m concerned it’s a joy to eat there, lovely setting, excellent food, cocktails and moctails to die for and Corina and Rachael make you feel very special. Virgin French Martini, Mojtto Bacardi, glass white wine, parmigtana di melanzana, (aubergine) pepperoni pizza, Mediterranean grilled vegetables and tagliatelle al ragu (cousin of spaghetti bolognaise) and dips. Not all for me, three of us, and the bill came to £61.45
Once Upon A Time, The Way It Was
“Could I have your attention ladies”. Tuesday April 18th 1911. Campbell is the foreman .
Nan Rose is a child, a doffer in the linen mill. With her sister and her mother they man their frames, change the bobbins and turn out linen to go round the world. She loves working with her friends and family, a family who share everything, who link arms on the way home and sing My Aunt Jane and the craic is great. So it’s a blow when Campbell spoke.
“If there was less chatter we’d get things done quicker round here and the new rule will make sure of that. As of tomorrow morning there will be no laughing, singing or talking during working hours. If I find anyone doing so I am instruct to fine them a farthing a time.’”
Although they were little more than 12 years of age, for Nan Rose and her best friend Bridie this was so foreign to their natures that it sowed a seed to fight the unfair regime.
In her first book, ‘Belfast Song’, Mary Marken paints a vivid picture of family life in West Belfast in the early 1900s, a time of turmoil with the emergence of unions, women holding meetings at Custom House Square and working with trades union leader James Connelly to take forward their determination for better conditions and women’s suffrage. We experience the fight for Home Rule, the visit of Churchill, unrest in Dublin and Belfast between Catholic and Protestant and the shadow of a World War.
Looking Back
As I read I was reminded of Sadie Patterson born on the Shankill, a woman who also worked in the textile industry where children as young as eight started working in the mills at six in the morning and after half a day were sent off to school tired and dusty. Like Nan Rose Murphy, because of the treatment of the women workers she became deeply involved in trades unions and was famous as the Irish Peacemaker,
Nan Rose tells the story of poverty and fear, of a community under threat from so many sides, the Irish News brought them news from beyond before it was used to fill the holes in the window frames to keep out the drafts. Mass at Clonard offered a time of peace and dancing was where the young ones met and matched.
Mary tells me the book has been taking shape in her mind for years, the memories of her great aunt Nan who was so instrumental in her growing up and whose spirit guided her through the story of the Murphy family. “It was as if her voice was the narrator throughout the writing.” The book is dedicated to her aunt who died in 1970 but spoke about her own youth, the hunger, the civil unrest, the Black and Tans and the closeness of friends and neighbours. Mary knows the area well having been born in Campbells Row before it became Divis Flats, she attended St. Dominics and then studied physics at Queens University. She worked in cross community development and with youth groups in Belfast before moving to live in Sheffield where, since her retirement, she has worked as a part-time mentor and psychotherapist as well as graduating from Sheffield University with a Certificate in Creative Writing.
Living In The Troubles
When she was 15 she moved to the main Falls Road to live with her great aunt and there experienced the height of The Troubles, throughout she organised play schools for children coming together from both sides of the divide.
All this was settling in her mind and a plot line began to form. It first came to light in a short story ‘Brothers in Arms’ where Nan Rose and her Bridie were born. Bridie was full of craic. One night sitting by the fire she describes how an old woman, nearly 90 and not able to get out of her bed, had missed death by inches when a truck load of Black and Tans came clattering down the street firing all round them. “Would you believe it? Seven bullets came in at the bottom of the woman’s bedroom window and passed over her as she lay in the bed. And as if that’s not enough of a miracle the bullets sprayed the wall in between the pictures of the Secret Heart and the Blessed Virgin. Seven bullet holes and there wasn’t as much as a mark on either of them. Would you ever credit that?”
The story speeds along with letters between the two girls, Nan Rose in Belfast and Bridie from her position with a wealthy family in Sheffield. This is a history book as well as a story of human endurance, of heartbreak and humour.
Published by Troubadour Publishing £10.99 Available in book shops and on Amazon.
Playhouse Special
Commedia of Errors theatre company will be arriving at the Derry Playhouse in time for their current production on 10th an 11th October. Written by Rose Coogan and starring Rose as Rose and Conor Cupples playing Bud this is an interesting play about a young man who was tied to his mothers apron strings before heading to Magee College in Derry to study theatre. But who is Bud, he doesn’t know himself. His mother says he’s girly, he reckons he’s gay but there is something deeper than that, he suspects he’s in the wrong body and his alter ego, Rose, is the woman he longs to be. A clever two hander, witty and wise and a play which will be talked about long after the spotlight fades.