We look back at the stories that were making the headlines in the Andersonstown News this week in 1979
All the winners from the Holy Trinity prizegiving
Final touches being put to the Ardoyne Fleadh
ALL arrangements have been made for the launching of the tenth annual Ardoyne Fleadh on Sunday August 5. This year’s Fleadh will be the biggest and most ambitious to date.
The committee have been working very hard over these past couple of months to ensure the success of all the events. The week-long series of events will commence on Sunday the 5th and continue every night until Sunday the 12th.
All the clubs in the Ardoyne area are represented on the committee and each club will be used as a venue for the different activities. Football matches; snooker games; table tennis competitions and darts have all been arranged to be played off in the first four days of the week, culminating in a hectic three-day bonanza on the 10th, 11th and 12th, when many well-known folk groups, such as Batterin’ Ram and Hogs Eye will play at open air sessions throughout the Ardoyne area.
Two very popular events will be held on Saturday afternoon 11th August – an all star tug o’ war match and the Donkey Derby. The Fleadh will finish on Sunday with a long list of events including the ever popular ‘Guider Race’ when ‘Dan the Man’ will take on all challengers, and a quiz competition will be held in the Holyrood Hall, followed by a monster ceilí organised by the Ardoyne GAC.
The Ardoyne Ladies Gaelic footballers who defeated Sarsfields GAC Ladies
United front by republicans
Provisional Sinn Féin have taken a significant step towards the formation of a United Republican Front against repression with their announcement this week, that they have invited representatives of the IRSP and the Peoples Democracy to take part in their mass demonstration and march on the 12th of August.
Although all three groups have co-operated with one another on the various Relatives’ Action Committees this invitation to actively participate in a Sinn Féin sponsored demonstration is considered to be quite a breakthrough.
The march and rally will be the culmination of a fortnight long series of meetings and demonstrations to highlight the British presence in Ireland and will coincide with the mass demonstration and rally in London, calling on the British Government to withdraw from the Six Counties.
The London rally is sponsored by a wide cross section of people from English public life, ranging from the House of Lords and MPs to journalists and ex-soldiers.
The march and rally is timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of British troops being put on the streets here in 1969. This united gesture by Sinn Féin in Belfast should ensure maximum turn out at both rallies, despite the deep ideological differences that exist between the groups.
The Sarsfields Ladies Gaelic footballers
Mary celebrates 103rd birthday
MARY McFall, who lives in Milltown, Derriaghy, celebrated her 103rd birthday last Thursday with her children and grandchildren.
Mary, who was born in 1876 in Derrytrasna near Lurgan, was the daughter of a well-known solicitor Thomas McAlinden, and had three sisters and a brother. She was married in 1896 to Joe McFall of the Bann Foot in St Mary’s Church at Derrytrasna, moved to Portadown and later to Belfast.
On moving to Belfast and before the First World War, they settled in Suffolk Road where she lived until the early Sixties when she went to live with her grandchildren in Milltown.
Mary is as bright as a button and remembers walking up Hannahstown every Sunday to Mass as a young woman. She also remembers Canon Boyle as a young man and his keen interest in horses.
She worked as a dressmaker for many years in North Street and still has her sewing machine at home. She had six children, 56 grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren.
Mary enjoys a glass of brandy since she went to the Lagan Valley Hospital some time ago and was advised by the doctors to have a glass now and again. She has never smoked but enjoys her snuff.
To round off her conversation with our reporter she sang her school song which she learnt 95 years ago.
Linden Street and O'Neill Street party in summer 1979
