Searching For Sailortown

Searching For Sailortown

By Paul McCann

In 1989 I went back to Ardoyne in Belfast in search of Sailortown . Daddy was born in Great Patrick street in Belfast and lived upstairs with his Parents , three sisters and a brother . My Granda Frank McCann nick named Yank worked on the docks on a regular basis he always had a go at the Peelers passing by on the street  At that time the area was known as Sailorstown  

in the 1920’s my Granda Frank put all his possessions into a hand cart and left their wee home in Great Patrick Street to search for somewhere to live . He had no choice after the threat of getting burnt out arrived on the doorstep .In the hope of finding a safer place to live off he went pushing the cart up the Oldpark road until he came to the new development being build in Ardoyne . He looked at his wife and children and said that’s where we’ll go and over he went and put the right foot key in to open up the front door of a house in Jamaica Street where he squatted until eventually he was able to get a rent book .

I started my search for Sailortown talking to some folk in a few of the places like the Three C’s , the Dockers Club and other halls like the old St Marys Hall  that stood in North Queen Street . Then I met a man called Jay Jay McCullough who knew my Granda . Jay Jay must have been 70 years old but we got on well and I moved in with him to his flat just off the Cliftonville Road where we spent a lot of time talking about my Granda Frank and what it was like then in Sailortown in the 1920’s  .

My Granda Yank as he was called has to choose ten men every morning to unload the ships and each day he chose a different ten men , There were many in the queue looking for work . It was a hard life then slogging down there on the low dock with the troubles then and times , unloading ships and pushing carts of potatoes around for the market men to collect .Working long hours starting at sawn and finishing after six o' clock.. Counting the ships as they all came in , one, two, three, four, five potato boats and more to be unloaded for a few coins only if you were lucky enough to get a start .

Day followed day and when you got your  pay it was already spent .
Half went on food and the rest on rent barely enough for a pint . Your sweat and blood thrown to the wind like a penny flip , it was odds or evens depending on where it landed . You either got a clip on the ear or if you were lucky some Guinness to wet your lip . Black porters was your man and it made it hard work worthwhile .
Making a living and jiving around the waterline where the Dockers wore their caps with the wind in their faces and the rain soaking them to the skin as they pulled in the ships and tied the ropes to their mooring at the low dock in Sailorstown.

Before I left Belfast I wandered around what was once called Sailorstown but the houses and streets had long been demolished .

My search for Sailortown was not a wasted effort I had met some of the people who had once lived there .

The End