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A Catholic in the Sea Cadets

and other tales of working class life, mostly in Belfast

by

Wilson John Haire

Joiners in Harland & Wolff shipyard, Belfast. Wilson John Haire front row on the right

Introduction

PART ONE

Jobs for working class teenagers in London - Poverty in Northern Ireland in the 1930s - Effects of religious discrimination on a single family - The Indian Muslim brother-in-law - Protestants in the Communist Party - Zionism in the CPGB - Working class life into the 1950s - Catholics in the shipyard - Mixed housing estates

PART TWO
The Young Workers League meets the Republicans - William Carleton, tramps and holes in the ground - Phoney war in Northern Ireland - The joiners' shop in Harland & Wolff - Affectionate Racism in Northern Ireland - Youth violence in London - Schooldays in Co Down - Smallpox, diptheria and yellow fever - Donegal men on the post-war construction sites

PART THREE

The assassination of Sir Henry Wilson - A Catholic in the Sea Cadets - Mixed housing in Rathcoole - Catholic politics in the thirties and forties - Thoughts provoked by Sir Kenneth Branagh's success with the film Belfast - A 'lunatic asylum' - Dictators at War

PART FOUR
Learning about guerrilla war - Irish Turks - Oatmeal, dogs, birds and coal-gas milk - Invulnerability of practising Protestants - The shipyard expulsions - Royal Navy contract for Harland & Wolff - Orangemen and Socialists in the shipyard - Life before the NHS - Wedding Breakfast - One cigarette


APPENDIX

Two pieces prepared for the BBC series Your place and mine
(1) Life in the Yard
(2) The first apprentices' strike in the yard