Stories
Coleraine Remembered

William (Bill) Connor was born and educated in Coleraine, Northern Ireland. He became a Queen’s Scout and attended the 8th World Jamboree. His visit to Canada inspired him. At the age of seventeen, he left Ireland to seek a new life in Canada. After completing university studies at Huron College and the University of Toronto, he spent the greater part of his career in public service, eventually becoming a deputy minister in New Brunswick and serving as CEO of the Niagara Region Economic Development Board.

Bill Connor was a leading member of the 8th World Jamboree 50th Anniversary Committee.

Bill has published a novel that reflects upon the time of his youth in Ireland. The book is called Coleraine, A Time Remembered.

About the Book

Set in Northern Ireland in the late sixties and early seventies, the novel recalls a chapter in Ireland’s troubled past. In the aftermath of a bombing in the quiet town of Ballycastle, Willie Thompson’s family struggle to make sense out of what has happened, unaware that this tragic event foreshadows something even more terrible.

It is a story of ordinary people who courageously confront their own fears and human frailties and in the end find a measure of faith and renewal. The characters portrayed in this evocative book afford a glimpse into a way of life in Ireland that has all but disappeared.