A Letter from Ulster.
''A Letter from Ulster '' This little film of about 34 minutes has a special place for me in my heart as the first 15 mins was filmed in and around the area that i was brought up, so some of the places are very familiar, Tynan Abbey/Caledon.
The film is about the 151st Field Artillery, U.S.Army arriving in Ulster and how they are being looked after so that when the film was shown back in the USA the people could see that the men were well looked after.
I would like to talk about the young boys in the film because they were all local lads from Caledon, when you see them playing Baseball with the soldiers there is a little boy jumping up and down shouting ''your out! your out!'' that little boy was called Edmond O'Conner and he was the man who told me how they came to be in the film.
Edmond told me that half of the boys came from the National school in Caledon and the other half came from Churchill P.S. they all traveled up to Tynan Abbey in the back of an American GMC Truck and the weather had to be just right for filming or they would be sent back to school,
also they got paid if they managed to get in the film.
The Names of the boys were, Edmond O'Connor, Leo Daly, Jackie Gillispie, Samuel Houston, also Jackie and Bobbie McGee. Tom Paul Hegarty.
Jackie and Bobbie McGee were two evacuees from the Blitz in Belfast and they ended up in Caledon.
Samuel Houston ended up drowned in the river Blackwater a few years after this film was made.
Jackie Gillispie died very young as well.
The film is about the 151st Field Artillery, U.S.Army arriving in Ulster and how they are being looked after so that when the film was shown back in the USA the people could see that the men were well looked after.
I would like to talk about the young boys in the film because they were all local lads from Caledon, when you see them playing Baseball with the soldiers there is a little boy jumping up and down shouting ''your out! your out!'' that little boy was called Edmond O'Conner and he was the man who told me how they came to be in the film.
Edmond told me that half of the boys came from the National school in Caledon and the other half came from Churchill P.S. they all traveled up to Tynan Abbey in the back of an American GMC Truck and the weather had to be just right for filming or they would be sent back to school,
also they got paid if they managed to get in the film.
The Names of the boys were, Edmond O'Connor, Leo Daly, Jackie Gillispie, Samuel Houston, also Jackie and Bobbie McGee. Tom Paul Hegarty.
Jackie and Bobbie McGee were two evacuees from the Blitz in Belfast and they ended up in Caledon.
Samuel Houston ended up drowned in the river Blackwater a few years after this film was made.
Jackie Gillispie died very young as well.
A nice picture of an Lt Col in the U.S.Artillery taken in Belfast by R.Clements Lyttle.
