‘As a child I was mesmerised by it’: Falls Road pensioners recall 1953 coronation

When nine-year-old Bridie Park discovered that a queen was being crowned, she walked all the way from the Falls Road into Belfast city centre to steal a glimpse of a screening. The schoolgirl felt like she was “going to Hollywood” making her way to the former Plaza Ballroom on Chichester Street in June 1953.

“Nobody had a television in those days and my chum’s daddy told her the Plaza was going to have a big screen for the coronation. We thought it was like Cinderella. So about six of us went down into town at nine years of age; it was as if she [the queen] was a movie star.

“You needed tickets to go but we didn’t know that. There was security on the door and they wouldn’t let us in. I came home and told my granny and she said ‘what do you want to look at those old ladies for?’.”

Giggling as she tucks into a bowl of apple tart and custard, Park leans over and whispers: “I wouldn’t go looking for the queen now to tell you the truth.”

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She is among a group of pensioners returning to the twice-weekly St Peter’s seniors’ luncheon club after the pandemic closed it down for two years.

“We prayed every night for it to open, for two years we didn’t go anywhere; it was the only time we got dressed up,” says Margaret. Neatly-laid tables with jugs of water, vegetable soup and bingo pens greet the guests in the small community hall next to St Peter’s Cathedral in the heart of the Lower Falls. Street parties to mark Queen Elizabeth’s platinum jubilee are taking place across many parts of the North over the two-day bank holiday, but in this staunchly nationalist enclave of west Belfast the British monarch’s 70-year reign will be largely ignored.

Settling down for the afternoon’s first raffle - prizes this week are bags of bleach, kitchen roll and washing-up liquid — Jean Fox insists she has “nothing against the queen”.

“She’s a good woman and there were no scandals with her,” she says. “I watched the coronation as a child and was mesmerised by it, her gold carriage was beautiful. So I’ll sit down this weekend and have a celebration too.”

In a state created for a unionist majority over 100 years ago, Lambeg drums sounded in Hillsborough Castle for the visits of the young princess Elizabeth in early 1950s. Royal visits to the North were an “exclusively Protestant and unionist experience”, according to political historian Dr Éamon Phoenix. The former Nationalist party protested at Stormont over an invitation to a coronation event saying they “rejected the authority of her Britannic Majesty over any part of Ireland”. “The Lambegers came right up to the door at Hillsborough Castle for a visit where tranches of Protestant schoolkids in their neat uniforms turned out waving little Union Jacks as B Specials lined the route.

“At that time, 35 per cent of the nationalist population were deemed not to exist. You marry that to the South where there’s always been a sneaking regard for royalty.

“Of course there has been a change of attitude in recent years, especially after the 2011 visit to Ireland when the queen spoke as Gaeilge.”

Pre-Troubles, the only street parties taking place on the Falls Road were on August 15th to commemorate “Our Lady’s birthday”.

“When the Troubles started and internment came in, those parties stopped and it brought the bonfires on August 9th. But that wasn’t for us, it was only kids. That’s all stopped now thank god,” adds Margaret.

St Peter’s member Kathleen Mayes says there was “no interest” in the queen pre-Civil Rights — and that’s still the case.

“People were more worried about their work and getting jobs,” the 80 year-old says.

Vera Gormley, who turns 90 this October and was brought up in a Catholic-run orphanage in the 1950s, agrees.

“I never liked her enough to take an interest in her. I can’t be bothered with them. I can’t tell lies about it, I just can’t be bothered about them.”

As tea and chocolate biscuits are served, Pauline Shaw recalls that pupils in the former St Colmgall’s school on Divis Street “got a big red apple” ahead of the coronation. She breaks into a song taught by her teacher, Miss Kerrigan:

“In the Golden Coach, there’s a heart of gold driving through old London Town; with the cutest queen the world’s ever seen wearing her golden crown. As she drives in state through the Palace Gate, her beauty the whole world can see, in the golden coach there’s a heart of gold that belongs to you and me.”

Shaw is note perfect and receives a round of applause. Empty teacups are whisked away — the lunch is free thanks to surplus built by the club during the pandemic — and the bingo cards come out.

Ann Donaghy is keen to tell me she “loves to know the history of the royals” but admits she can’t remember much about the coronation as she was “too busy dancing”.

“I went to a dance every night of the week in ‘50s,” the 84-year-old says laughing.

“We learned to jive in a wee place called The Jig and I also went to The Hibs Hall on the Falls Road.”

When asked what she’ll be doing this weekend, she replies: “We’re going on a wee bus run to Newry for dinner in a hotel, it’s all arranged. There’s a ballroom there; we’ll be dancing.”