OUR investigation into the Buckle family whose family photos were discovered in a loft in Lenadoon Avenue after 47 years has ended on a happy note when we were able to return the collection to the family.
After seeing our story regarding the trove of family photos which were handed in by Deirdre Finnegan who was clearing out her loft, we were able to get in touch with Joan Morris née Buckle, daughter of Harry Buckle Jr and granddaughter of the famous footballer Harry Buckle.
After a quick chat on the phone we paid a visit to Joan's Stewartstown Avenue home to hand over the photographs and talk more about her family.
MEETING: The Andersonstown News' Joe McCann and Joan Morris with the returned photographs
Joan said she had not seen the photos in almost 50 years and was amazed they had been found and handed in. She was also delighted with our investigation into the Buckle family and confirmed that the family had been burnt out of their home on Percy Street in 1969 and subsequently moved to Lenadoon. She was also able to fill us in with some more details about the family and her famous grandfather.
In the match programme this Friday a bit on the 1924-25 season, the first to feature Cork side Fordsons & a little bit on Harry Buckle, the Belfast man who worked on the Titanic & saved Munster football.
— Gerard Farrell (@gerrytastic) April 12, 2022
His son & great grandson would also win FAI cup medals for Cork teams. https://t.co/sneRee3O0X pic.twitter.com/GL1eB6YMjg
Seeing the photographs Joan said: “There’s photos there of myself and my brother. He was Harry too, all the men were called Harry – the same as my daddy and granda.”
Featured in a great many of the photos are Joan and her siblings when they were younger and also her mother, Mary. Joan said the holiday photos were photos of her mother during holidays in America.
COLLECTION: The photos which were handed in to the Andersonstown News. Joan said many were from her mother's trips to America
“My mother was a dressmaker and she used to make dresses for everyone in the area. Our house on Percy Street was one of the bigger ones so the double rooms when you went in were for her dress shop and our sitting room was upstairs. I can still see her at night laying out all the materials. She was very popular with the women in the area – from both of the communities – and I remember after we got burnt out her business just went.
“Afterwards a lot of the women from the Shankill came around looking for her to get their dresses done but we’d already moved by then up to Lenadoon. She did carry on dressmaking but not as much as before. She made the dresses for McCoy’s School of Irish Dancing. She would take their measurements and draw a wee diagram and then make them all by hand.
When talking of her father, Harry Buckle Jr, Joan said: “My daddy worked in Fords as well down in Cork. When my grandfather settled in Cork most of the family went with him. My father stayed in Belfast because he was 18 and was just about to get married to my mother. However, my daddy eventually did go down and work for Fords in Cork but we stayed in Belfast.
"We would go down to Dublin and my daddy would come up from Cork and we would all meet up there. I never thought that was strange but I think my mummy didn’t want to go because of her business."
Images found in a #Lenadoon loft could feature Belfast Celtic legend Harry Buckle, manager of @Coventry_City, victim of the shipyard expulsions, burned out of his home in 1969 pogroms, friend of @FAIreland president Oscar Traynor. Know the family? Please contact @ATownNews pic.twitter.com/ilQyNqi72N
— BelfastCelticSociety (@belfast_celtic) June 1, 2023
When speaking to us Joan was able to fill in some of the blanks regarding her footballing grandfather and was able to tell us about his time in Cork and how he established the organisational side of football in Munster.
“My grandfather Harry Buckle, the footballer, he stayed in Cork and lived in a lovely wee cottage down there. He was a great man for gardening and the Cork side of my family were always very keen on sports.
MEMORIES: Joan (right) with her mother Mary and brother Harry from the photos handed in to the Andersonstown News
“Of my grandfather, we were all very proud of him. He was the nicest, quietest man, and it’s true the story of him and some others being thrown into Belfast Lough when they were working at the Shipyards. That was why he moved to Cork because they were looking for workers and when he was down there he saw there was a great love for football down there but no organisation at all for the playing of it, so he helped set up the football team Fordhams which went on to be Cork FC."
FOOTBALL: Harry Buckle (bottom left) played for Belfast Celtic in 1912, the goalkeeper (horizontal stripes) is Irish revolutionary Oscar Traynor
Joan continued: “However before he played for Belfast Celtic he was in England playing football for years and that’s where he met my grandmother, when he was playing for Sunderland.
When asked if the wedding photos were of her mother and father Joan said they were of her cousin Jim Devlin’s wedding where her brother Jack was the best man. Joan also said she herself worked in the HR department of Bass Brewery until she retired some years ago.
WINNERS: Fordsons FAI Cup winners 1926. Players only: Back: Paddy Kelly, Mal McKinnie, Dinny Driscoll. Centre: Sally Connolly, Barney Collins, Billy O’Hagan, Jimmy Carabine, Jack Baylor, Jack Finn (Trainer). Seated: Billy Hannon, Jack “Hatcher” O’Sullivan, Frank Brady, Harry Buckle, Dave Roberts, Paddy Barry.
And just to confirm how famous her footballing grandfather was 100 years ago, Joan then sang us a song which was passed down through her family when she was growing up. It was sung to her and she in turn sang it to her children who now sing it to their own. Joan very kindly gave us a rendition of it which you can see in our video.
For ourselves at the Andersonstown News it was a brilliant experience to be able to reconnect Joan with her family's photos. Jean said: “It’s just lovely to have them back here again, to see all our yesterdays again.”
