King Coal gone

In 1987 after having been made redundant from the Head Line, G Heyn and Sons, I found work with another shipping company, Cawoods Container Services.  At the time containerisation had just begun to supersede the famous Kelly coal boats.  Coal came from South Wales and the North East of England in 20foot open top containers to Ellsemere Port in Cheshire. Much of it came by rail.  It was then shipped across to Belfast where it was distributed to coal yards throughout Ulster.  We would generally distribute around 90 boxes of 23 tonnes or more a day.  Our boxes went out to Cawoods at Queen’s Quay where the Odyssey Centre now stands; Carryduff Coal; Charles Neill of Bangor; Howden’s of Larne, Lane’s of Londonderry and Kane Fuels here in Carrickfergus.
  Prior to this, Kelly’s vessels used to call at Belfast, Larne and Carrick to unload coal in bulk.  Younger folk living in the town may not recall it, but the area around the marina was once a working harbour. Kane Fuels used to have quite a sizeable coalyard there.
  Kelly later began to operate a rival container service in collaboration with Dragon Shipping Line from Swansea in south Wales.
  Gradually, though coal started to fall away.  Though he was foolish in many ways, Arthur Scargill’s predictions during the 1984 miner’s strike were spot-on.  Once the strike was broken it was only a matter of time before mining ceased as a large-scale industry in Britain.  There is virtually no British coal industry left even though there are hundreds of years of useful coal still to be mined should it become necessary.
  Most of the coal coming into Northern Ireland these days is foreign.  Bulk coal ships - much larger than the friendly Kelly coal boats – now bring in all the coal we need.  There are fewer separate distributors now, too.  Kelly Fuels’ boats may be long gone but the company itself has gobbled up many of its former rivals here and in Scotland.
  The company has not forgotten its history and still sells prints of oil paintings it commissioned of most of its former vessels.  If you or a relative ever sailed on the Ballyduff, the Ballykern or any other Kelly boat you’ve a good chance of getting one of these prints.  Check out the picture gallery on the company’s website www.kellyshipping.com or drop into their offices in Lombard Street the next time you’re in Belfast.
  I was chatting to a work colleague the other day about this largely forgotten history.  There were some rare characters working in the coal trade in the postwar years right up to the late 1980s.  Some day I’ll tell some of these tales in a future Kerr’s Corner.