Inaugural meeting of The Docksiders Senior Men's Group
Caption Story:
Some of the 20 members of the Docksiders Senior Men’s Group (DSMG), who took part in a one-day seminar to discuss and plan their forthcoming book of memories of Sailortown, pictured outside the conference centre in Mullaghbawn, South Armagh.The book, which has been grant-aided by the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, will be published in November.
DSMG Secretary Maurice Brown said: "We have brought people together to discuss and challenge the memories of the past, to be interviewed about their experience of life in this district prior to and at the beginning of the Troubles and to share their memories as a common bond.
"It has been a very positive and rewarding venture that has focused our attention on the book ahead and given us the chance to both distance ourselves from the city which dominates those memories and to get a clearer perspective of that city and its multitude of stories
"This is the first of a series of educational and learning seminars that will address the legacy of the past through storytelling and we are confident that such a grant-aided
process will help challenge sectarianism, reduce isolation of individuals and contribute to the rebuilding of a shared community".
The book, which has the working title "Echoes of the Past", is set to be launched in
Sailortown in mid-November.
Dockers
Born for the quayside with the gulls and the tide
Inherited buttons from sadness and pride
The loss of a father a brother a son
A docker’s tradition forever passed on
Hard times and sad times before 1910
Till Connelly and Larkin unionised men
For pay and conditions together we call
United we win but divided we fall
Schooled on a corner and later a pen
Casual labour a derisory term
The art of experience from father to son
The skills of the father passed on to the son
Driving a winch or slinging a heave
The derricks controlled from a strong offshore breeze
Bowlines and sheepshanks or shortening a sling
Bollards and shackles and old mooring rings
High tides and low tides bring life even death
Low risk loose cargoes that suck out your breath
Ever present the danger from a heave that might slip
Or a fall down the haul from a knock or a trip
Remember the good times remember the cost
Remember the comrades in tragedies lost
There but for fortune could you be the last
For all the old dockers from the port of Belfast
Born for the quayside with the gulls and the tide
Inherited buttons from sadness and pride
The loss of a father a brother a son
A docker’s tradition forever passed on
© Tommy O’Hara
Book Launch
"Echoes of The Past"
Cover of "Echoes of The Past"
from
The Docksiders Senior Men's Group
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