Up the Murph My mother was allocated a house in Ballymurphy in the mid 50’s. It was 11 Divismore Park, at the corner of Glenalina road. At around the same time, Maureen McKee was allocated a house in the same street, 20 Divismore Park. It was just across the street from us. Maureen and Josie ‘Boxer’ McKee had fourteen children. Rosie, Josie, Seamus, Packie, Ned, Martin, Cookie, Anthony, Chick, Delores, Bernie, Maureen, Maggie and Tessie. Big families were the norm in those days, there were 13 of us also. And they like us, came from the Falls. Maureen was from Ton Street, ‘Boxer’ was a boxing coach with the Immaculata Club. He was from Baker Street. Times were hard, Gerard ‘Chick’ McKee remembers six of them lying in their bed with Ned’s feet in his face and coats over them to keep warm. Like my brothers, the McKee boys went to St Aidan’s and later St Thomas’s on the Whiterock Road. Our national poet Seamus Heaney was a teacher in St Thomas’s. So was Michael McLaverty. His wonderf...
AN OPEN LETTER TO MY ORANGE NEIGHBOURS | The Outdoor Relief Riots | Save Moore Street – Buy the Terrace!
AN OPEN LETTER TO MY ORANGE NEIGHBOURS A Chairde, Now that the British Secretary of State - recently landed among us – has banned the Portadown Lodge march on Garvaghy Road all of us should take time for a quiet reflection. Time also to be thankful that the stand-off was peaceful. You and the people of Garvaghy Road deserve credit for that. All thinking people want to see our society moving beyond the sectarian hatred that has cursed us for so long. Division in our country was created and is exploited to keep us apart. This is our home place. Your homeland as well as mine. The land of the Orange and the Green and many others as well. We have a deeply toxic past and a troubled present. But we have the opportunity to build a peaceful shared future. Many of us disagree with aspects of what the loyal orders believe in and they disagree with us. But there is no harm in that if we can respect and tolerate our differences. We recognise that you are an integral part of the culture ...