It was a case of dejavu at St Patrick’s Primary School, Burrenreagh, this week, as four-year-old Rian Walsh started Reception Class in the school. St Patrick’s has been proudly framing and displaying each Mourne Observer First Days pictures and now has an impressive display in the foyer of the school, stretching from 1987 to the present. Rian made a little bit of school history as the first child to start school whose parent features in one of the First Days photos. Rian’s mother Elaine (nee Brannigan) features in the Primary One photograph of 1987.

Dog fouling on Newcastle Promenade — Is it time to ban dogs completely?

If there’s one subject that is sure to anger Newcastle people it’s the amount of dog fouling on Newcastle’s new promenade.

If the mess is cleaned up every day, then as sure as the sun comes up there’s a new load of mess the next morning. The promenade becomes an obstacle course for walkers and the negative impact this has on visitors can not be underestimated.

The council, to be fair, even in these hard economic times, still sends the occasional enforcement officer out on patrol, but they can’t be everywhere at once and the promenade must be at least a mile long.

Some people have suggested that the only way to get a handle on this problem is to ban dogs on the promenade completely. This may sound draconian and it means that responsible dog owners will be punished along with the guilty.

If any readers have any suggestions on how to improve matters, drop us a line.

Aislinn Smith took this spectacular photograph last week from Dundrum Castle.

Memories of a terrible

maritime disaster

DEAR Man About Town – I remember 31 January 1953 well.

I got up to cycle to work in Tollymore (not many cars in those days) but by the time I got to the Orange Hall the blizzard was in full force, so I turned for home.

Entering the house my father was just coming down the stairs, and looking out the front door he saw six large trawlers anchored in the bay in front of our house, No 4 Deleary Terrace (now 159 King Street).

He turned to me and said it must be purty (pretty) bad outside for them boys to be in there.

Then came the news of the Princess Victoria in distress and the Newcastle lifeboat was called but by the time it got to St John’s Point they were told to return to base as it was too late to save anyone.

There was a small paperback written by Bill Pollick entitled Last Message 13.58 which I still have a copy of and this poem came out about the same time:

’Twas January the thirty first
The year was fifty three
The Princess Victoria left Stranraer
To cross the Irish Sea
A northernly gale was blowing
The waves were mountains high
When the captain sent an SOS
Portpatrick tugs stand by

With over one hundred passengers
And sixty of a crew
When the gallant ship went down
The saved were very few
With lifeboats out of Clocey
Portpatrick and Donaghadee
They done heroic work to save them
From the raging Irish Sea

To all the bereaved we sympathise
And may they rest in peace
For they have found a harbour
Where troubled waters cease

(The next few lines I can’t remember but it ends with ...)
The raging Irish Sea

Leo Paul

It's never to early to

start reading your favourite weekly newspaper

Maria McCaffrey, daughter of Brenda and Sean Eoin McCaffrey, catches up with the news in the Mourne Observer at nanny O’Hare’s house in Kilcoo.

Appeal for old photos

DEAR Man About Town – Does anyone have any old photos of Castlewellan Forest Park and Arboretum, either from Annesley’s time or the early years of the Forest Service?

Our family has lived and worked on the estate for many years and would like to preserve archive material relating to the estate. If you can help please phone Robert on 07979 948478.

Granite Trail exhibit damaged

These photographs were taken on Newcastle’s Granite Trail, above the Harbour. The exhibit along the side of the trail is an example of a ‘slipe’, a wooden sleigh on which heavy rocks were trailed off the mountain. However, this particular example is the worse for wear. It would be easy to say it has been vandalised, but the truth is that the wood is rotten and needs to be replaced.

Caption mix-up

A caption in last week’s coverage of the launch of Bobbie Hanvey’s About Faces exhibition made reference to the artist Basil Blackshaw. As eagle-eyed readers will have spotted, the artist in the photograph was actually Neil Shawcross. We were perhaps on this occasion guilty of using a little artistic licence! Apologies about the mix-up.