Tag: Our Generation Stories
Margaret McDevitt
Growing up on the Donegall Road
As a child Margaret lived on Ulrika Street now Ulrika Terrace on the Donegall Road with her older sister and brother. “There were no nurseries and you didn’t get to school until you were seven years old” Margar...
Roisin McGlone
Life as a Falls community worker
“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...
Peter Heathwood
Talks about rebuilding his life
Marie Breen-Smyth, the Associated Dean International at the University of Surrey, talks to Peter Heathwood. At home in Cliftonville in north Belfast, Peter was sitting with his wife and three young children after f...
Joe Baker
Memories of New Lodge
Joe grew up on the New Lodge estate in north Belfast. “When we moved into it, it was a construction site, everything was brand new and spic and span. It was a lot of adventure and a lot of fun playing on the buildi...
Sam McAughtry
In conversation with Sam
Internationally respected, Sam McAughtry is a writer and broadcaster who was born in the Tigers Bay area of Belfast in 1923. Sam, one of a family of ten children, recalls the living conditions of the time “Tigers Bay ...
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...
May Blood
Talking with Baroness Blood
May was born during World War Two and grew up in Roden Street, a mixed area of Belfast with her mother and sister. He family was separated due to the evacuations during the war. “For the first six years of my life I t...
Albert Haslett
The Shankill during WW2
As a child, Albert grew up with his parents and 9 brothers and sisters in the Hammer, a poor neighbourhood of Belfast. The area was characterised by poor housing conditions. “The houses were just two up and two dow...
Annie Armstrong
Tales from lower Springfield
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...
Jonathan Bardon
Bernard Conlon interviews
Bernard Conlon talks to retired lecturer, historian and writer Jonathan Bardon. Jonathan Bardon was born in December 1941 in south Dublin into a middle class Protestant family. He recalls memories of austerity, ...
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 ...
Henry Bell
Henry talks teaching and history
Bernard Conlan talks to Henry Bell about his teaching career and his passion for history. Born in Belfast in 1949, for the first few years of his life Henry lived in a wooden bungalow in Islandmagee in County Antri...