Sunday, 18 August 2019

Hard border – a lesson from history!

Reading Diarmaid Ferriter’s The Border – the legacy of a century of Anglo-Irish politics (Profile Books, 2019) and the following passage made me think of something close to home

‘…it has been maintained that the “general web of smuggling” was indulged in to a greater or lesser degree by the majority of the population in the border counties for the simple reason of the border line’s “invisibility” …
My mother (who was two months pregnant at the time of my dad’s court appearance) continued to be mortified by the memory of the occasion for the rest of her life. My father maybe less so – I can remember many occasions sitting on books and toys as we were waved past the customs at Lifford as he stocked up for the Christmas rush!
Customs Post, Killea, County Derry

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St Eugene’s Flute Band, Newtownstewart

(Left to right) Front row: P McGuigan, A Hackett, F McGonagle, H McGuigan Second row: J Devlin, E Gavigan, L Orr, L McGonagle, P M...