Easter in the archives: A look back at NI photo memories over the years

March 1976: Miss Pat Kane of Newtownabbey is helping to bring Easter a little closer (and sweeter) with some of the eggs on display in a city centre store where she works.

June 1969: Mr Alan Wilson of the Botanical Gardens, Belfast, inspects the banana fine crop growing in the conservatory. The bananas, botanical name Musa Paradisiaca, are native of Malaya.

March 1968: Lynda Swinterton (20), from Ballyclare, gets to know five-month-old Liza, a lioness cub, at Bellevue Zoo, Belfast. The cub was born at the zoo.

April 1981: Angela Spence (7) from Braniel understandably let this winning piece of floral art go to her head when she tried on this ‘Easter Bonnet’ at the Spring Flower Show.

April 1982: It’s a sign of the times as Sergeant Victor McCartney of the Automobile Association, and Stuart England, of the Belfast Parks Department, start putting up the first of 38 signs around the Belfast City Marathon route.

March 1985: Lynn Toye of Londonderry, aged six, found it hard to believe her eyes when she came across this monster-sized Easter egg at Woolsworth store in the city’s Ferryquay Street.

May 1982: Teenager Elizabeth Dickson had a splashing time as one of four lucky young people to visit Belfast Zoo as part of the Lord Mayor’s Cream Machine. Elizbeth (15), a student at Everton Girl’s Secondary School, gave Tina her morning bath during a tour of the animals.

April 1971: Five-year-old Mark Forsythe, of Temple Rise, Templepatrick, looks like a modern day Gulliver beside the model Ulsterbus vehicle in the Transport Museum, Witham Street, Belfast.

April 1981: Well, it wouldn’t be Easter if there weren’t chocolate eggs, would it? These youngsters are enjoying tucking into sweet treats. From left, seven-year-old Angela McWhirter (L), four-year-old Steven Martin and his sisters, Jill, 19 months and three-year-old Lynn, from Moygashel, near Dungannon.

May 1984: Five-year-old Pamela Boyd, from Ballyclare, as Mary had her little lamb in the Fancy Dress event at the Ballyclare May Fair.

April 1985: Tracey Coyle (7) has her hands full with this basket of decorated Easter eggs which she and her school chums from St. Mary’s Girls’ Primary School, Strabane, hand-painted while on an educational visit to the Ulster American Folk Park.

April 1983: Sharon Smyth (17) and Roy Wallace (19) have egg-sactly the right admission fee for tonight’s dance in Newtownabbey’s Palm Grove – one Easter egg.

April 1981: Teenager May Agar made friends with a clutch of Easter chicks at the premises of R A Wright, Newtownards.

May 1983: The mass start of the Belfast City Marathon at Maysfield Leisure Centre.

April 1982: That’s one way to stake a claim on a giant-sized Easter egg. This day-old Rhode Island bantam was one of the many hatched at Belfast Zoo, and now officials are waiting patiently to see what appears from this emu egg.

June 1988: Three-year-old David Gault of Carryduff got a lift on his dad’s shoulders to see the donkeys during the Pre School Playgroup visit to Belfast Zoo.

March 1959:Young patients at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children admire the giant Easter egg, donated by Littlewood’s stores to the Belfast Telegraph which presented it to the hospital. Also in the picture (left to right) are: Staff Nurse Dorothy Kells, Miss Betty Lowry, of the Belfast Telegraph, and Nurse Anne Kerney.

May 1966: The RUC band under the baton of District Inspector Alexander Hollick at a concert which they gave in Botanic Gardens, Belfast.

March 1975: Millisle beach with the amusements in the background, the perfect place for a well deserved rest when the weather is unusually pleasant.

May 1967: Trying his hand with the broom at Falls Park, Belfast, is two rear-old Patrick Greer, of Colligan Street, as Corporation gardeners (in the background) prepare the flower beds for summer bedding

April 1985: Seven-year-old Claire Peacocke’s Easter bonnet is a real eyecatcher.

March 1980: Victorious Campbell College Captain R Kennedy (right) holds aloft the Schools’ Cup at Ravenhill.

June 1975: A welcome helping hand for Mrs Sarah McDowell from her grandson John Patterson (10), as she tends the hedges surrounding her cottage at Ballykine Upper, Ballynahinch.

March 1965: Delighted children enjoy the swings in Dunville Park, in the Falls Road area.

May 1975: Operating a “cow” for the benefit of Randalstown Secondary School pupils is David Lambert, one of the family who runs the Lambert Puppets. The Randalstown pupils here are Henry Thompson (12) and Branda Logan.

April 1984: Alison Baxter (7), Caroline Gamble (10) and Katrina Page (8) are making the headlines as winners of Ebrington Primary School’s Easter Bonnet competition.

June 1975: There was a nanny job waiting for three-year-old Emma Gilchrist (left), from Strangford, and her friend Gail Greer (4), from Portadown, when they arrived at the Saintfield show. The children were looking after Daisy and Shona (right), a couple of pure Sannen kid goats making their debut. Daisy belongs to Mr Oswald Patterson, Portadown, and Shona to 13-year-old Ian Milne of Portadown.

April 1985: Winners in the paint-an-egg competition organised for local primary schools by the Stadium Recreation Centre, Shankill Road, were: Kelly Lemon (front), John Sloan (middle) and Glynis Sergison. With the children is Mr Ken Heasley who organised the event.

May 1975: Twins Hazel (foreground) feeding the kid by bottle and Sharon Johnston (12), from Ballymena, attend to their father’s goats before entering the ring at the Northern Ireland Goat Club’s annual Spring Show at Finlarig, Ballynahinch