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[from the Appletree Press title John McNally - Boxing's Forgotten Hero published by Appletree Press]
EARLY DAYS IN THE POUND LONEYFor he comes, the human child,The Pound Loney district of Belfast has now largely disappeared from the physical landscape of the city, but not from its collective folk memory. Originally an area set aside by the city fathers for the impounding of stray cattle and other such miscreants, the Pound became settled with mainly Catholic migrants from throughout Ulster as Belfast grew in industrial importance during the Victorian era. Nestled uneasily at the foot of the Falls Road, the nationalist people of the Pound lived cheek-by-jowl with the adjacent and staunchly loyalist Sandy Row. The animosity between the two areas erupted into open sectarian warfare on many occasions during the nineteenth century. The Saltwater – now Boyne – Bridge, where the two districts met, was the scene of many pitched and bloody battles as the sectarian tensions which blighted Belfast erupted in full-scale violence. The Pound was an area that produced many great characters from within its vibrant streets, but it was also a place that never suffered fools gladly. It was a harsh location to live and survive in, which by the beginning of the twentieth century had evolved into a myriad of close-knit, red-bricked terraced streets. Whilst the linen industry provided work for most of the female population in the district, there was no similar level of employment for the menfolk. As a consequence, poverty, scarcity, and endless struggle characterised the lives of the vast majority of families. Despite the starkness of daily life, the Pound Loney was renowned for its humour and toughness, as well as its tight-knit sense of community, unified in a collective quest to make ends meet. The period surrounding the partition of Ireland in 1921 saw some of the most vicious sectarian outrages ever perpetrated in Belfast. The Pound Loney was caught in the midst of the violence and this turbulent period partly contributed to the heightened sense of community within the district. The state of Northern Ireland was born in 1921, and an uneasy peace eventually returned to the city. By the early 1930s the main consideration for Belfast citizens was to make a decent living in the face of the devastating economic Depression. In the mean back streets, poverty was still very prevalent and dictated the daily life of the city’s inhabitants. John McNally, the first child born to George and Maisie McNally, entered the world in Belfast’s Jubilee Maternity Hospital on Thursday 3 November 1932. Born the very same day in the Co. Roscommon town of Roosky, future Taoiseach Albert Reynolds would go on to play a pivotal role in the Irish peace process. It was also the week that saw Franklin D. Roosevelt elected to the Oval Office in the United States, when he defeated President Herbert Hoover by a virtual landslide. In June of that year, Catholic Ireland had welcomed the International Eucharistic Congress to Dublin, in what was one of the largest manifestations of religious fervour ever witnessed on the island. In Belfast, two weeks after John’s birth, the official opening of the Parliament Buildings took place at Stormont. The imposing edifice made of Portland stone signalled a new Unionist confidence in the future of Northern Ireland. However, the opulence of Stormont was in sharp contrast to the reality of life and daily grind of the vast majority of the citizens of Belfast. The year 1932 was also a year of division and rioting on the streets, as most of the traditional industries, including linen and shipbuilding went into decline. Unemployment was rife and serious rioting – which for the first and only time in Belfast’s history united briefly both Protestants and Catholics – occurred as the inadequate nature of the Poor Law relief became a cause for all the poor of the city. The McNally family lived at No. 13 Cinnamond Street in the middle of the Pound Loney, in a traditional two-up, two-down house in which scarcity was a fact of life. The area was dominated by the spires of St Peter’s Catholic Cathedral, from where the monotonous regiment of streets spread out towards the south and west of the city. George McNally worked at a number of menial jobs to keep the family of five daughters and two sons solvent, while Maisie was a devoted homemaker who catered for the whims of their growing family. Living just around the corner from the McNallys was their ever-generous grandmother, Rose McCaffrey, whose kindness and love for John was evident for all to see. As was traditional in the area at the time, Rose provided accommodation for two of the McNally daughters, which helped address the overcrowding in Cinnamond Street. Despite the hardships, John McNally’s memories of the Pound Loney are fond. “We were like everyone else in the area in that we were poor, but there were families worse off than us. The houses were built for the linen industry and very soon they were seen to be too small for the size of the families who lived in the Pound. I recall that my father worked very hard, and he always talked about the time when he worked in the shipyard, putting red lead onto the boats and he always hated that job, as it was so dangerous and dirty. My granny Rose was just special to me as she looked after me and I was the apple of her eye, she was just wonderful. I also recall that there was great laughter in the area, and some great characters that were an inspiration at that time.” In 1936, John entered the local St Comgall’s primary school on nearby Divis Street. Three years later, on 3 September 1939, war between Britain and Germany was declared. The wide-eyed pupils of Mr Quinn’s class were told the following morning of the historic declaration. However, it was more in excitement than fear that the children greeted the news. Belfast was an important strategic outpost for the war effort and during the opening years of the conflict the citizens had been provided with fabulous displays of derring-do by the legendary Spitfire planes. However, it was felt that the German Luftwaffe was incapable of attacking the city since it was considered to be too far away. That false sense of security was exposed cruelly on the night of Easter Tuesday 15 April 1941, when the city bore the brunt of a devastating Luftwaffe attack. Chapter 1: continues here
From the Appletree Press title: John McNally - Boxing's Forgotten Hero by Barry Flynn. |
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