The moon shone on the village pump,
Which stood soundly on the green,
This ancient form of watering hole,
Is something rarely seen.
Village life has changed so much,
But this pump has stayed around.
A symbol of the days gone by,
Keeps each village sound.
Watering horses as well as men,
When passing folk came through,
These days are gone, But it's still here,
To prove that life goes on.
So when you see a village pump,
It's history will unfold,
A visual sight of village life,
And maybe legends will be told ... Robert McLean

Vogans Lane Ballymacash, 1946

Alexander Irvine, either in his book "My Lady of the chimney corner" or "The Souls of poor folk" wrote that many a boy´s first act of chivalry was to carry a pail of water for a young lady home from the pump.

Who remembers the watering troughs around Lisburn? There was one at the Belfast Rd. entrance to the Wallace Park, another at the junction of the Moira and Causewayend Roads and one near the Union Bridge. On the Dublin Rd. was also one I think.
donald

'mornin' Donald! Yes, I remember breaking the ice on top of the water in the trough at Dublin Road, by the
side of the Smithfield Market wall.

the mccabe's family home was in green lane lambeg.,adjacent the bleachers ground, and their water came from a pump ,operated by a handle,in the lane itself. saturday afternoon to see the bleachers play was also a time for filling up buckets, and having a play we were quite young then.

Tom
I remember in the early 50s with my father visiting Johnny McCabe there, it was up a short lane if I remember correctly.He then moved to Grafton Crescent and when I was about 10 years old when jumping from the spiked railings there I slipped and became impaled upon one.Another resident there Mr Adair freed me and my dad was sent for and he ran and got Johnny who was one of the very few with a car then to take me to the Infirmary
to be stitched up.
donald

donald,
my grandfather was thomas william in green lane but johnny mccabe maybe another branch lived in that lane also, there was quite a few mccabes around lambeg.
i got a ''history of the mccabes'' sent to me by a kind author, it's a lovely book about the local mccabes. at the turn of 19000s afew mccabes moved to lambeg from armagh and tyrone. the hilden mill was just firing up then i think and they had experience in bleaching etc. it's quite a story. in 1898 my grandfather married mary, a weaver, in a lovely wee church in ballygortreary near dungannon. a lovely church i've been there