M is for MOY

It's just a step over the Blackwater and across the bridge that separates two of Northern Ireland's six counties and also two of its villages, though for any passer by you wouldn't even notice the join. Charlemont and Moy merge together into one long street that is never wide enough for about an hour every morning and similarly in early evening when the faster roads on each side bring the traffic too quickly into a bottleneck unchanged for over fifty years. Relatives live in little estates on both sides of the bridge but although there is no dividing wall between the two, any mention of the traditional Irish sports of Gaelic Football or Hurling quickly delineate all into either Tyrone men or Armagh supporters, depending on which side of the river you are walking. For those whose traditions cause them to follow other sports played with a round ball or a stick, I guess the division is less important, yet even in this small community split by politics, religion and sport there is more than a hint of cooperation and tolerance even if they don't always wear it on their sleeves. In recent times, a vibrant population of European nationalities, mostly Polish, Portuguese and Lithuanian, enticed by wages that they can only dream about back home, has settled in the area and with it new shops catering for their specific needs and an influx of vehicles with strange registration plates and drivers sitting on the wrong side of the car! I wonder what my grandad would have made of it all?

It's many years since he used to walk a few animals the three or four miles from home into Moy for the horse fair, leaving his beloved County Armagh for just a short while and maybe returning with a good deal or a sore jaw. Aye, he liked the odd scrap, did grandad and even though I never met him, dad often told of him 'flooring' somebody who had done him wrong during the fair in the Moy square one evening. Yes, for some reason it has always been called 'The Moy' which probably seems odd except to those who live around the area and I can understand that it would seem strange to call our capital city 'The Belfast'.

Anyway, I've had a long association with 'The Moy'. When I was still in shortish trousers (nothing to do with my height), mum and dad dragged us off to the local presbyterian church for several years where we were 'entertained' by the minister, who had been a boxer in an earlier life and if his preaching paralleled his ring career then I reckon he had never won by a knockout, if you get my drift. I do remember one sermon that he gave on 'the yellow submarine'. In fact everyone remembers that sermon but not much really beyond the title! The church had a tennis court and during the summer evenings, dad swapped his dealer's boots for gutties and raced about the court while I became the ball boy and waited until it was almost dark and all the adults were tired, just to get a few minutes on the all weather surface. Most of the adults in fact were my cousins who lived down the main street of the village in a large, four storey house, where we often spent our Sunday evenings playing 'hide and seek'. My uncle was a competitive player on the court and liked to win so it was probably best that he and dad often played on the same side of the net in doubles matches. One other adult that I got to know well and who always had time for us younger kids was Tommy. He played and lived with a smile, was a fine player but had enjoyment higher than winning on his list of priorities. Some years later, when I knew him and his family even better, he and his brother became victims of our troubles while sitting in their own business in the village, courtesy of an assassin's bullet. Now the family business is gone but a thriving supermarket enjoys its space.

I often saw Moy before most people had risen in the morning, in the early hours when the sun was still hiding in County Armagh. For years, dad had rented land at one end of the village, just over the bridge and an early Friday morning was often the time set aside to round up some of our cattle and load them on to the cattle lorry which took them to market. The land consisted really of one very large field of about ten acres and a small field of about one acre joined by a small wooded footbridge than traverses a stream flowing into the Blackwater. Countless time I remember 'driving' the cattle all the way from the small lake at the far end of the big field as far as the foot bridge, when, suddenly, there would be a mass breaking of ranks and animals would scatter to the four corners, followed by a volley of expletives from the lorry driver. It was no use in trying to outrun them for experience had taught dad that eventually they would get tired and we had always won in the end. And so it was, by the time the first early risers were heading off to work, headlights on full beam, the load was heading to Armagh and probably a new owner. Often I would have loved to nip across the road into the petrol station / supermarket for one of their bacon butties but it didn't even exist then, nor did the housing estate directly opposite for the only noise on the other side was the slow grinding of a stone crusher in the Moy Sand and Gravel Company that occupied the place. And we were never bothered by patients or doctors trying to gain access to the Health Centre for the only building on our side was an old black shed in which we used to inject or drench animals that were ill. How times change! Many of the shops on the hill are gone too, including the little newsagents where I used to buy the 'Ireland's Saturday Night' after the local Youth Fellowship, the barber who cut my hair while I sat on a board, the undertaker who buried my grandad, the petrol station in the square where dad often stopped for a yarn with the owner and the bus shelter where many often congregated on late summer Sunday evenings. Even my relatives have long departed the village which is now more correctly called a large village or a small town, complete with craft shops, take-aways, stylish boutiques, hairdressers, bakeries, antique shops, restaurants, a dental surgery and a library.

So where does that leave Charlemont? Over the bridge, I guess. Almost part of Moy, but not quite. There are houses right beside the bridge and the river but not over them, so they might as well be at the far end of Charlemont.

I believe we can be that close to salvation, see all that God offers to us and still never step over to the other side. I believe too that we can walk up the main street of faith and still want to go back to our former comfortable existence. And I believe some of us yo-yo between two different places in our lives depending on what we want or who we're with. To the casual observer or the passer by, we're one and the same, a dependable, devout believer. Yet God, who has known us much longer sees the real change if it has happened and, more importantly, knows what's still the same.

After Joshua and the Israelites crossed the rive and failed to defeat the people of Ai, he said 'If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan.' But God knew that some hearts were not right and when Joshua dealt with the problem, he was able to face the same opposition with renewed confidence based on his God who told him 'Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.' That's what He says to us when we cross to the other side, for we know as the old hymn says, ' each victory will help us, some other to win.' Cross the river. It's a pity to come this close and just enjoy the view.