Calls Come To Mark 70th Anniversary of Saul Street House Fire
17 February 2012 |
Posted by Anne O'Hare |
A CALL to mark the 70th anniversary of Downpatrick’s worst house fire in living memory came this week when our reporter, Anne O’Hare, talked to the families linked to the tragedy.
She looks back at the horror surrounding the event and highlights the bravery shown by neighbours who helped save the life of a toddler.
Six year old James Quinn, four year old Bernadette and their two year old brother Malachy lost their lives in a blaze which engulfed their home on Saul Street one Sunday morning in November 1942.
Their mother Annie Quinn, had left clothes to dry around an open grate before popping out to draw water from the street fountain. But when she returned, her home was ablaze. Her husband James had been stationed in England at the time.
Pictured are James Quinn and his children six-year-old James Quinn (jnr) and four year old Bernadette, a short time before they lost their lives in the tragic house fire. We are told two-year-old Malachy was unable to sit still long enough to have his picture taken with the family
A newspaper report described it as the saddest case the coroner had ever met with and claimed he looked forward to a time after the war when these old two-storey dwellings would disappear. He waited over 30 years before the already crumbling houses were finally pulled down.
Patrick Connor was one of the neighbours who tried in vain to save the lives of the children from an upstairs window. He died in 1976 an unsung hero.
It was reported Partick and another neighbour Walter Geary were both beaten back by the flames. They watched as the flooring gave way,falling into the kitchen below, before the eyes of horror-stricken onlookers.
When the firemen arrived later, a bed and mattress were found heaped up against the kitchen window. And inside an eiderdown they discovered the bodies of the three children.
Patrick's son, Sean Connor, well known in the town said: “My father believed he was just doing his duty. Anyone would have done the same, my father said, and that’s how he looked upon it.
“He never received any recognition during his lifetime. And in away it’s a shame when we look at it today.
Against the odds, a baby girl was rescued from the blaze. Her name was Marie and when she grew up she married and had four children of her own. Marie passed away in September 2011.
However, her daughter Tonia Bryne (Nee Doyle), from Downpatrick said: “My mother lived all her life without a word being spoken to her about the event. It was almost too harrowing for the people involved to recall and was treated as a taboo subject for years.
“Until this article, that is. Reading up on the tragedy, it brings it home to me as my own five children are around the same ages as my granny Annie's children were when they lost their lives. And my mother would have loved the event to be marked in some way.
“If it wasn’t for the good will of the neighbours on Saul Street, I suppose I wouldn’t be here, nor would my brother and sister and all our children. Yes, my mother would have loved this very much.”
It is hoped, on reading this article a local representative or councillor will pick up on the idea to mark the 70th anniversary of the Quinn tragedy in some small way and honour those who put their own lives at risk in order to save a young family and the countless generations to come.
Pictured here is Marie Doyle (Nee Quinn) who passed away in Septermber 2011. She was saved from the fire which took her older brothers and sister.
