A TRIP TO BELFAST.1966

A TRIP UP THE ROAD.......1966
"Right,Kitty ,you sit in the back with the Baby........Rick and Bem ,you 2 in the front seat",says the Da
as he tries to organize us all into his car.There were 6 kids now,young Philly,the baby was born the October before.  "Dad,can i go in the front too",says Ger.  "There's not enough room,Ger",says Da.

"That's not fair",says Ger.  They head off to the Ma's Ma down the North Wall where they were leaving in the Baby ,Philly to Auntie Joan and Lily for the day to mind him. The Ma's Ma (our granny) was coming with us on a trip up to Belfast.   Bem and Rick were put back in the back seat with Ger,Rob ,Jacqueline and our poor granny Maggie. Da driving and the Ma in the front seat.The car was an Green Austin A 40 (probably a bit bigger than a Nissan micra). We  were all pretty squashed in the back....Back then there was no Motorway so we had to go through every town on the way,Dublin city centre,past the Airport,Swords,Drogheda ,Dundalk before we crossed the border into the North and then it was Newry,Lisburn,Portadown and then Belfast. A total of over 100 miles.Bem suffered from travel sickness so he had to have the seat at the window.The fresh air flowing through the window kept us all nice and cool.

When we got as far as Drogheda ,we stopped and had a picnic on the side of the road.
Ham sambo's and egg// onion ones.
It was a welcome relief to be out of the car for a little while.
Finally we arrived in Belfast with great excitement.
Maggie,our nanny bought us kids an ice pop each.
"Can I have 5 ice pops,please?",says Maggie to the Shopkeeper.
"We call them Ice lolly s up here",says the friendly Shopkeeper.
"That's 3 Shillings please",says the guy.
Maggie pays for them and we all cluster around her and get our Ice "lolly s".
"Thanks ,Nanny",we all say excitedly.
"You're welcome",she says.

These were not the ones we were used to in Dublin.
These ones were shaped like rockets.
We had never had ones like this before. After we had our rocket lolly s,the Da went back into the shop and bought us chocolate.
The big kids  got a mars bar each.They did not have them in Dublin back then.
The small kids got milky bars.
Even white chocolate was rare in Dublin but was in every sweet shop in Belfast.
We all slept like babies on the journey back to Dublin.
.................................A Few Years later the Troubles started up in the North,We were lucky we were there in the calm before the storm.

The Titanic ship was built in the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast in 1909...
It was reckoned to be unsinkable according to experts at the time,unfortunately it sank on it's maiden voyage when it struck an iceberg en route to America in 1912.