Tag: Falls Road
Pádraigín Drinan
Pádraigín Drinan grew up in west Belfast and joined the Republican Labour Party in 1966 on the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising. “As I was very young and at school, I was probably the only person to bunk off...
WRDA Lecture Series – Dr. Avila Kilmurray
Dr Avila Kilmurray from the Community Foundation NI spoke about Madge Davison who was a civil rights organiser for the N.I. Civil Rights Association and barrister from north Belfast. Madge was born on 13 June 1949 ...
Annie Armstrong
Annie grew up in the lower Springfield area of west Belfast, a working class area of factories and mills, one of which was James Mackie & Sons or Mackies as they were known locally, a textile machinery and enginee...
Roisin McGlone
“The Troubles began at the time we moved up to Andersonstown from the Falls Road. My lasting memory is the raids, whenever the army and police came. This would be before Ulsterisation. They closed off streets and sea...
John McNally
John was born in the Pound Loney, West Belfast in 1932. He remembers a close, friendly community: “The people were great, they all looked after each other, there were no locks on doors, people just walked in and out,...
Albert Fry
Albert was born during the Second World War and grew up in a family of five in North Queen Street, close to Belfast City Centre. “My main memory is soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. Another main memory is prisoners from G...
Noelle Ryan
Noelle spent six years working in a Liverpool convent before being released. “I know there were some of people who felt, maybe fearful of me in ways, I’ve a fairly strong personality. I suppose it wasn’t my permanent ...
Ballymurphy – The People’s Co-ops
Like many cities in Britain, Belfast suffered industrial decline in the 1960s. High unemployment rates were the norm for many of the housing estates in west Belfast. “Official statistics in Ballymurphy had 37% of ...
Denis O Hearn
Denis’s scholarly interests are in social movements, the sociology of economic change, industrialisation and transnational corporations. Denis was brought up in the middle of the New Mexico desert and remembers a c...
Father Desmond Wilson
Father Wilson grew up in the mixed community Ormeau Road area in south Belfast. “Belfast, to us, was an amazing place. When I was growing up I was very fortunate, I was able to go to Saint Malachys Grammar School a...
Ruth Taillon
Growing up in post WWII Canada, Ruth left home at an early age: “I left home at a very early age following the hippy trail. I was very interested in music and it was exciting at the time. I quickly got involved with t...
Aodán Mac Poilin
Aodán grew up on the Norfolk Road in west Belfast with his two sisters, his mother who was an Irish speaker and his father who worked as a civil servant. His parents were avid followers of hurling and Gaelic footba...