Pearse Kelly - When Coalisland was snooker loopy

Dennis Taylor's epic World Snooker title win is all of 40 years ago this week.
We celebrate a time when snooker in Coalisland was vibrant with players of all abilities and ages on the green baizes.
Snooker aficionado Pearse Kelly recalls men like Jim Joe, his son Joe, Vincent Gervin and Louis Conlon who ran Gervin's Hall a bastion of snooker and billiards in the North.
Lads turned back the clock to nick more time, got a swish of Jim Joe's feather duster when they climbed on the table, the hall packed and names listed as they waited to get a free table.
There were also superb cue-men including Johnny Rea, Sean T Hughes, Hugh Gerard Coney, the phenomenal Harry Morgan, Pearse's brother Colm, the Cullens with multiple snooker leagues in the area.
We recall local man Jackie Rea who reached a world final and appeared on the famous BBC2 Pot Black series where Dennis made his first TV appearance in 1975.
Those days stars like Terry Griffiths, Doug Mountjoy, Kirk Stevens, Graham Miles and Steve Davis played exhibitions in Gervins while the best players in the North took part in competitions in front of packed audiences: Joe Swail, Eddie Swaffield, Tommy Murphy...
The pinnacle was the 1985 World final when Dennis Taylor potted the last black ball to spark unbridled celebrations in the town. A week later, he came home with the trophy in a never-to-be-forgotten day as a packed Coalisland was top of the world and Dennis donned the Mayor's robes and was regaled with a song written in his honour by Dessie Symington.
Then came Eamonn Andrews' red book when Dennis was the subject of the celebrated TV show 'This is your Life' and his former team-mates and local characters joined famous snooker players and celebrities ..
Pearse managed to scoop the script from that show, a brilliant memory!
Those were the days! A world title when Coalisland was snooker loopy....

Bernadette McAliskey (Devlin) Part 2

Still campaigning for justice and equality for all.

Bernadette continues her journey as she advocates for justice and equality, not least for the bombarded population of Palestine, and all those downtrodden by capitalist greed and the rise of fascism.
She recalls 'The Greatest' Muhammad Ali requesting to meet her and attending 'The Fight of the Century', Ali versus Frazier in 1971 at Madison Square Gardens, during an incredible era for heavyweight boxing.
Bernadette and her husband Michael were shot by loyalists, and she tells how, as she lay injured, a British soldier told her he was ordered by his superiors to allow the gang into her home and arrest them on the way out.
Out of such trauma came the bizarre story of her crafted walking stick that was lost during a Hunger Strike protest riot in Dublin only to re-emerge years later in a retired Garda officer's Bed & Breakfast in Tipperary.
Bernadette suggests the 'Troubles' years, as they were labelled, will reverberate through generations.
Producer of the TwoMacs podcasts, Oliver Corr reads a beautiful and powerful piece he wrote, inspired by a photograph of a mountain scene; however a goldmining company, driven by greed, may be set to destroy that idyllic scene.
Bernadette is also writing an insightful and highly popular newspaper column these days... and gives a nod to 'Ronan's Rants' back in the day!
Despite the rise of fascism, billionaire avarice, local and global exploitation and the Trumps and Musks of this world, Bernadette still believes in the basic decency and goodness of people... a decency if harnessed, can give everyone their civil rights.
And there's always the joy of making blackcurrant jam and 'the best occupation of all', spending time with her grandchildren!

Bernadette McAliskey (Devlin) Part 1 -

The early years and making her mark.

Born in Molesworth Street in Cookstown, by the age of 21, Bernadette was the MP for Mid Ulster and on the front line of the march for Civil Rights in the North of Ireland.

Just nine when her father John died, she recalls her parents love and a note they sent annually to school to protect their children from corporal punishment. She also speaks of the strength and fortitute of her mother Lizzie, who instilled many of her traits in Bernadette.

Dungannon Academy was a happy time when Bernadette made many friends and relished the opportunity at learning. However at Queens University she went along to a Civil Rights march and soon saw the injustice and brutality being inflicted on those calling for equality. It was an activism that would define her life.

A jail term after a show trial didn't quell her passion.

Bernadette recalls slapping smirking Home Secretary Reginald Maudling when she was stopped from speaking in the House of Commons the day after she was in Derry on Bloody Sunday, when 13 civilians were murdered by British paratroopers.

It is a fascinating insight into Bernadette's formative years and becoming a world renowned Civil Rights' leader and orator.