Lisburn Exiles Forum
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The Lisburn Exiles Forum is dedicated to the memory of James Goddard Collins (The Boss) who single-handedly built LISBURN.COM (with a lot of help from many contributors) from 1996 to 29th November 2012. This website was his passion and helping people with a common interest in the City of Lisburn around the world is his lasting legacy.
I have always spoken perfect, accentless English, as indeed did most educated people from the Low Road.
It is difficult to imagine losing one's accent no matter which part of the world one travelled to.
Incomers to the Low Road area were easily distinguishable by their lack of grammatical nuances.
As you can detect I am an afficianado of all things associated with matadors.
{Work that one out kitchen maid(s)}
LR I think you're still half cut after your birthday party yesterday coming out with a mouthful like that. Put your dictionary away immediately. We in Lisburn always know the "blow-ins" immediately when they ask for directions to a particular place. When they ask where HAZLEMS Lane is, as opposed to as we called it Hazelems Lane (I know that's not the correct spelling but its just so that the innotation is in the right spot - get me, LR, get me, I'm away on one), we always know they're not a Lisburnite. Another one they refer to is MENAARYS while we always knew it as Menairys (I know its not the right spelling either). We have ways of rooting them out, I say we can root them out. Did you know Chitticks is now closed. Do you remember the oul fella who owned Chitticks. He used to chase my mother up the street telling her of all the bargains in the store, and almost trailing her inside. No-one does that now. I HAVE WORK TO DO TODAY, as I said earlier, AND YOU ARE KEEPING ME BACK!!! GO AWAY UNTIL LATER.
Low Roader This is a wee bit rude but my mother always thought it was funny so it can't be THAT bad. It was the time (lots of times in fact) when Duncans had a MONSTER SALE. My mother said that there was a notice in the window as follows
KNICKERS DOWN, NOW'S YOUR CHANCE. Oh dear!! I'll get barred!!
I tried to post this yesterday, but my computer refused to accept it. I’ve changed a couple of words and here goes again:
So, what was I sayin’? Oh, aye, the grandchildren. Well, I’m absolutely shattered. That wee girl can run as fast as me. No, I’m not jokin’. She’s only three and a half, but, boy, can she shift! The minute I loosened my grip on her hand, she shot off like a bullet out of a gun. It wasn’t so bad when she did it on the football field, but on the pavement! She nearly gave me a heart attack. Yis may well think that, at seventy, it’s no surprise she can almost outrun me, but I can tell yis, when we were out the other day at a leisure park-cum-zoo place, there was a thing that measures your speed, and I did 38 kms per hour against the eight year-old boy’s 34. I’m very competitive, as long as I’m not against anybody over ten.
They went back on Monday, a day later than we expected. We’ve had texts from the grandson saying that he misses us so much he’s in tears. Aye, I know, it’s heartbreaking.
Yesterday, I painted the living room, and helped the wife with vacuuming, polishing and all that stuff. She is in the living room now, with a neighbour, showing her our new table and chairs – and she has just this minute had a phone call from our son asking us to go somewhere, but I can hear her saying no thanks, couldn’t be ready in ten minutes.
Accent? I can switch from Belfast to a fair imitation of received BBC English at the drop of a hat. Aye, and, as oul Fitzpatrick used to say, when somebody said somethin’ stupid at school; “ Your granny was Docherty, and she was the stuff!”
I remember my cousin telling me about that notice in the window, followed a few days later by ‘Knickers Up, You’ve Lost It’.
I’m away now.
Dabbler, been lost a long time now. WHAT!! I meant no such thing, how dare you.
