As I mentioned before, life in Warrenpoint was very similar
to the television series The Dukes of Hazard.
I wouldn’t match any character from the television show to a person in
Warrenpoint but the good humoured lawlessness was quite a feature of
Warrenpoint life. The idea that the
border, between Northern Ireland and the Republic, was a very important
definition was of course a huge joke to many people. It didn’t matter how many customs men, or
soldiers, or police you placed on the border, it was still possible to cross
from North to South and back again without encountering one road block.
As a youngster I remember having to have the family car
searched when crossing from the North into the Republic and then having to
display a special paper triangle in the windscreen to show that you had legally
entered the South. But this was Ireland
and some custom posts would close at six o clock in the evening leaving the
road wide open. The main smuggled items
were petrol, cigarettes, poteen, condoms and butter. These items remained the stable units of local
smuggling however other items would come into the flow now and again such as
video recorders or new electrical devices.
The CB radio network helped greatly and with a huge community
of truckers reporting on roadblocks the odds were quite often in favour of the
smuggler. We were not full time
smugglers. Someone would telephone, an order
would be placed, a price agreed and the transaction would be put into
play. A few years ago I was sitting in a
pub with Peter, Phelim and my wife. The
barman held a telephone receiver out to Peter informing him that the call was
for him.
We didn’t know who was calling but we heard Peter, now
operating as a truck driver, agree to buy five thousand, at one pound each, the
following day. The receiver was returned
to the bar man and we of course asked Peter what he was buying. Viagra he replied then excitedly telling us the
price he knew he could get for them from his contact in Belfast.
Poteen was a favourite commodity, always in demand, not just
from tourists but from many of the ordinary decent citizens. There was a fair amount brewed in the North
but it was a great cloak and dagger affair to get some, much easier to drive
into the south and fill a car boot. We all
would find our own little niche, if we were interested at all, and as you may
expect I eventually found mine.
You may wonder what relevance small scale smuggling has on a
Master Candle Maker and future King of Ireland.
Well; as King of Ireland I would be responsible for raising taxes and I
should have first-hand experience of how certain people might circumvent the
law. My chance to enter the smuggling fraternity
came when I was working behind the bar at the Osbourne Hotel in Warrenpoint. I was only a part time bar man but would
spend most of my free time there.
Warrenpoint had a large docks complex served well by a major
road network. As such, many container ships
from different countries came into Warrenpoint.
The sailors would spend their free time in the pubs and clubs although the
captains and senior engineers would socialise in more upmarket establishments
such as the Osbourne. One captain, who was
in charge of a vessel that went back and forth between Warrenpoint and Rotterdam,
claimed that I made the best Irish coffees in the world. Had we then known that I was the future King
of Ireland we would have been aware why
I made the best Irish coffees in the world.
This fellow encouraged me to buy some smuggled cigarettes,
which I did and sold them on, making a small profit. Staying within my own circle of friends I
accepted his offer of being able to get anything I wanted and was soon moving quite
a large quantity of booze, tobacco and cigarettes on a regular basis. He kept offering me German porn magazines,
which were very explicit and crude although, truthfully, I wasn’t exactly sure
what was going on in many of the photographs, such was our innocence.
We established a good business relationship and I was bringing
in specific orders. One of the three
brothers, that owned the Osbourne, had me get him French cigarettes while
another brother wanted a specific French brandy. I had been offered free passage to Rotterdam
any time I wanted and as often as I wanted and this started me thinking of what adventures
might lie beyond Northern Ireland.
One day my captain announced that it was too dangerous for
him to take the goods off the ship. He could
lose his job if he was caught while I was underage and would only get a slap on
the wrist. It was quite a simple and
plain statement which would have been hard to disagree with. I however found that for the first time I didn’t
trust my captain and under no circumstance was I going to his ship on my own.
It was a Saturday evening and the weekly electric shuffle was
beginning to fill with people. I managed
to get one girl to agree to accompany me, to collect some stuff, and the pair
of us set of for the docks. We boarded
the ship and met my captain who brought us below deck to his cabin. Here he offered us a drink, which was Bacardi
and coke with a squeeze of lemon. It was
really quite nice but time was passing and I had to get back to work as the Saturday
evening crowd would be growing as would the pressure on the remaining bar
staff.
I asked if we could conclude the transaction and his whole demeanour
changed. He wondered if it were possible
for the two of us to get into bed, the girl could watch or, better still, join
in. I now found myself in another ‘sleeping
in underpants is unhygienic’ situation.
But rather than shake and cry, this time I stood and clenched my
fists. Business was forgotten about and
I used every ounce of cunning and guile to get off that ship, unmolested.
The girl that had accompanied me was unimpressed, she never
wanted to see me again or speak to me again, we were finished. I felt bad that she had been put in such a situation
but knew also that our relationship was not the only thing that was finished, so
was my smuggling career.
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