Tag: Our Generation Stories
Hazel McCready
Marie Breen-Smyth, Associate Dean International, University of Surrey, talks to Hazel McCready, a former part time police officer who was injured whilst driving to work. Mother of one, Hazel McCready was a teacher ...
Michael Paterson
A path to clinical psychology
Marie Breen-Smyth, Associate Dean International, University of Surrey talks to Dr Michael Patterson, Consultant Clinical Psychologist about the injuries he received while on patrol with the Royal Ulster Constabulary. ...
Pilib O Runai
Setting up an Irish nursery
Pilib learnt some Irish at school, which was not common at the time something that was not very common at that time. He grew up with the language being spoken around him and always had an interest in it. He participat...
Billy Dunlop
WW2 & the trade union movement
After a pleasant childhood spent in Delaware Street on the Ravenhill Road in east Belfast, Billy entered the world of work in the post office as a telegraph messenger at a tender age, “I started at the age of 14 years...
Betty Carlisle
Shankill Women’s Centre Manager
As the youngest of five children, Betty recalls fond memories of the Woodvale area of the Shankill in west Belfast as she was growing up. “It was a very community spirited area, I spent lots of time playing and felt a...
WRDA Lecture Series – Dr. Avila Kilmurray
Talking about Madge Davison
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 ...
Noelle Ryan
A life in community education
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 ...
Tommy Wilson
Building the Empire Community Centre
Tommy Wilson grew up on the Donegall Road in the Village area of Belfast. “We had nowhere to go, we had to run the streets. The place where I lived was just housing and there were no green spots whatsoever to play gam...
Kathleen Kelly
Teaching and community development
The ten years, Kathleen spent as a teacher in the primary school in North Queen Street, brought home to her the poverty in which the children she taught, lived. Originally from east Belfast, where her father was a ...
Jonny Tiernan
A life in music
Jonny remembers his time spent at school as a turbulent experience. He was taken out of one school as he felt he was being victimised and at 16 Jonny left school and enrolled in a course called Quest. It meant he coul...
Joe O Donnell
Short Strand community development
Reflecting on the housing conditions of his youth, Joe O Donnell explains, “Conditions were all very similar in that they were terrible. Most of the small two bedroom terraced houses in all of the working class areas ...
Mina Wardle
Talking to the community activist
Mina’s father was an engineer on RMS Queen Mary, her mother suffered from arthritis. Mina passed her 11+ and was awarded a place at Grammar School but at 15 years, her parents could no longer afford to keep her at the...