This is the first landing for my writing. The regular posts cover a variety of subjects and styles: fiction and family and social history. A few have been published elsewhere. Why the curlew or crotach? Known for its long, elegantly curved bill and its haunting call, the curlew’s call, once common on wetlands a generation ago, is now is seldom heard – like many of the subjects in this blog.
Maggie Long worked in Gillmor’s shop in Dromahair at the same time as my mother, Ena, during the late 1940s. She was originally from Ballybofey, in County Donegal and had worked in the household of Lofty Bothwell in Fermanagh before coming to Dromahair to work there as a servant. This song tells of her courting by John “Sonny” McCauley, and of the humorous impact of the bicycle on romance during the 1940s.
Maggie Long on her wedding day June 1951.
I’ve changed the name in one line to ‘We’ll hire Wally Davis and his new taxi car.’ which was a line remembered by one of my cousins from a song heard on a visit to Manorhamilton with their father Wallace Davis in the 1960s. It was most likely sung in a version of this song.
In the song, John McCauley’s estimate of Maggie’s age as being ‘around thirty’, was somewhat amiss. Years later when Maggie received her first pension and Johnny discovered her real age, she turned out to be considerably older than him. Shocked, and rather than continue to live with the shame of it in Creevelea, Sonny up sticks and they moved north to Ballybofey, where they lived out the rest of their days, being known as a “couple of characters”.
John and Maggie on their wedding day June 1951.
The Courtin’ of Maggie Long
My name’s John McCauley, I'm from Creevelea.
I’m courtin a girl from Ballybofey.
She’s aged around thirty, she’s both handsome and strong,
And her name now I’ll mention, she’s one Maggie Long.
To tell you the truth it was love at first sight,
And I dream of her always by day and by night.
I’ll never be happy ’til I see the day
That I’m married to Maggie from Ballybofey.
I met her in Newbridge out there at a dance.
Her attractive appearance I saw at a glance.
When a foxtrot was called, we were soon on the floor.
For dancing her equal I ne’er saw before.
I immediately asked her if I’d see her home.
She said ‘Right you be for I’m out on my own.’
I said ‘Get your coat now and we’ll make no delay
For its a long way from here to Ballybofey’.
She put on her coat and we stood near the door.
She says ‘Have you ever been down there before?
For in case that you haven’t we might go astray
So I’ll mention some towns we’ll pass through on the way.’
‘We’ll first have refreshments in Drumkerin town.
From there to Manorhamilton we won’t find going down.
Kinlough and Bundoran we’ll pass through them all
And next to Ballyshannon in old Donegal.’
From there to Ballintra is ten miles or so,
Then Donegal Town, not too far more to go,
Across Barnesmore Gap and we’re most of the way
And the next town we’ll meet will be Ballybofey.’
Now I looked at my bike and the back wheel was flat.
Says I ‘I’m not game for a journey like that.
The night is so bad and the journey so far
Sure we'll hire Mat Roddin. He has a new car.’
(or We’ll hire Wally Davis and his new taxi car.)
Says she ‘If you like sure we needn’t go down?
Cause I’m working in Gillmor’s in Dromahair town.’
So I pumped up my bike and it ran fairly free
And we soon pulled in at the Hotel, Abbey.
We spent a full hour there and we both ate our fill.
Then we took a stroll down by the sawmill
And ’twas there by the road in a shed full of hay
That I first courted Maggie from Ballybofey.
ENDS
Notes
The author of the song is unknown. The words are recorded by Padraig Fitzpatrick. Photographs and further information on the couple are from John Long.
This piece would have served better as an introduction to the series on the young lives of my mother, Ena Davis, and her siblings, starting out on their independent lives, rather than occurring, as it does, at the end. Following this will be a short piece based on a song which humorously reflects life during this period.
Reco,Ena, Jack and Cecil c 1948.
Ena and her siblings were looking to their futures; their world was opening up. The 1930s and 1940s brought the bicycle, bus, car and taxi to rural Ireland expanding horizons beyond local townlands and parishes. The gramophone, cinema and the wireless brought new experiences in music, pictures and news. These young people were eager to get out there into these new times.
However, the period was seen by the clergy and many national leaders as a time of moral decline and increasing depravity in the general population. The rise in nationalist fervour across Europe, coupled with the Gaelic cultural revival and a religious zeal drove efforts to stop the rot in Ireland. External cultural influences were seen to be the root cause; the very things that fascinated young people at that time, jazz and modern dancing. The inherent racism of the Nationalistic era was obvious in the claim that jazz music, and the ‘suggestive and demoralising’ dancing it inspired, was a black, pagan influence, ‘borrowed from the language of the savages of Africa.’ and foisted on pure Gaelic culture.
On New Year’s Day 1934 Fr. Conefrey and a group of parishioners marched down Main Street in Mohill, County Leitrim at the start of what was labelled as The Anti Jazz Movement. While the movement quickly ran out of steam, unlike jazz itself, the wheels of opposition were turning and the upshot was the Dance Hall Act of 1935, licensing all public dances through the district courts.
There was another pressure that would see an attempt to stop the young Davis family from taking part in these new recreations, and to row back the coming jazz era in Protestant communities.
If debates about the self-governing Home Rule bills had put the wind up Protestant families in Ireland, the Ne Temere decree by the Catholic church of 1908, brought the first winds of a hurricane. Ne Temere required that all children of a mixed marriage be brought up as Catholic. This was generally supported by the Irish State and legal system. Protestant families in a minority community felt it would be their end; numbers would decline, lands would be lost. The infamous case, which made international news, of a young couple Agnes (Presbyterian) and Alexander McCann (Catholic) in Belfast, just after the introduction of Ne Temere, confirmed suspicions when Alexander ran off with their two children, after Agnes refused to be “properly” married under the terms of the new decree. She never saw her children again.
So, Protestant communities circled the wagons. The message was simple, marry your own. Anyone marrying outside the community brought shame to themselves and their families and were frequently ostracized. The impact of the decree was felt for decades to come. The whisperings heard in my grandparent’s kitchen were likely to be about these impacts; who had left the fold, what farms that passed to the other side, and indeed stories about their son and brother – my Uncle Wallace – who had been banished from the family for marrying Rita, a Catholic.
Jack, Cousin Corrie and Reco c 1945.
So how did this small community encourage boy-girl contacts that might end in straightforward Protestant marriages. While some marriages were arranged this practice was dying out. More important were the local socials, Protestant only socials. They took place in church, school and orange halls of the district. Organised by the older men of the community, they who would sometimes have to evict the odd Catholic lad who managed to get in, although some were ‘deemed suitable’. Catholic socials, which were larger and open to all, had an illicit attraction.
The socials were simple affairs with dancing to a small band, servings of tea and buns – non-alcoholic like all such events of the time – and with the appropriate mix of young people including the young Davises. The band played traditional tunes for set dances and games such as ‘The Waves of Tory’ and ‘The Farmer Gets a Wife’ but also more popular music being played on the new Radio Luxembourg. Unlike the Catholic socials and dances they were not held on a Sunday, at a time when strict Sabbath day observance was the norm. Reco and Cecil, the eldest, cycled miles to socials in Lurganboy, Dromahair, Carrigeencor, and Manorhamilton and back, while Ena’s social life was under the watchful eye of her cousin’s family in the Dromahair shop. Phyllis, Alf and Wallace would join them as travel became easier.
After the introduction of the Dance Hall Act, local Garda enforcement was often accompaniment by a Parish priest. There was a sudden growth of parochial halls while many simple structures appeared on the edges of towns and villages, built by entrepreneurs seeing an opportunity. Typical of the time was Glenfarne’s corrugated-iron “Nissen Hut” – of WW1 army design – built in 1934. It would later become The Rainbow Ballroom, and better known as the Ballroom of Romance in its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. Initially Reco, Cecil and Ena, the older siblings of the Larkfield family, were forbidden from attending these Sunday evening dances. While their friends dressed up for a night out, a frustrated Reco and Cecil would cross two fields to their neighbours, old James and Maggie Maguire, and spent each Sunday evening with them in their small corrugated-iron three roomed home.
Ironically, the Dance Hall Act put an end to many traditional music activities in houses and at crossroad, forcing them into a controlled and commercialized environment. Thus, the ceilidh – large musical ensembles in big wide-open spaces – was born at the expense of the older traditional culture. As the crowds at the dance halls continued to grow so did the number of dance bands playing around the island.
Tess McManus and Jack Davis at Tess’ sister Bridie’s wedding 1963.
Phyllis trained as a nurse in Belfast and was independent earlier than her other siblings. The first in the family to own a car, she had enjoyed the fun and excitement of nights out around the City. On her regular visits home, she was instrumental in overcoming her mother’s resistance to Sunday entertainment. Her father Richard was more broad-minded, encouraging Phyllis and a car-load of passengers, to make their first Sunday-night trip to the cinema in Manorhamilton. In Belfast Phyllis had heard Omagh’s showband, The Melody Aces and when they headlined in The Rainbow Ballroom in Glenfarne, she took off with Cecil to dance the night away. The Rainbow was now attracting large crowds and was full of friends and neighbours, with others from Fermanagh, Leitrim and Cavan, arriving by all means of transport. The Melody Aces would play to packed crowds at The Rainbow Ballroom for many years to come. Phyllis drove home, her car packed. One of the car’s occupants that night was Padraig Fitzpartick, a good friend and neighbour of the Davis family. Padraig would meet his wife Bridget at the same Ballroom of Romance over a decade later. A song from this era, often sung by Padraig, “The Courting of Maggie Long” is presented in the next blog.
END
Notes
The Anti Jazz Movement and The Dance Hall Act 1935:
‘Different and the Same: A folk history of Protestants in Independent Ireland’, Dierdre Nuttall. This works explores the folklore, traditions and narratives of the Protestant minority in the Republic of Ireland. With the support of the National Folklore Collection, Deirdre Nuttall investigates the cultural, rather than simply faith-based, aspects of the group, incorporating folk history, custom and belief and identity. A unique work including memories of socials, gatherings and dances.
The second and final part of Ena’s move from her home in County Leitrim to Bellaghy and then finally to County Antrim where she settled in Ballymena.
Ena, right, with friend Issie in Magherafelt c 1949.
The shop on the corner of Main street and Mullaghboy Road in Bellaghy had recently transferred to Jim Hutchinson from his wife’s family, Vance. Jim’s brother Tom would shortly leave the town and set up Tayto Crisps in County Armagh. It was a busier town than Dromahair and the shop and yard bore a strong resemblance to Gillmor’s. At the time Wallace, Ena’s brother was working on a farm in Co Antrim, and her sister Phyllis was coming to the end of her nurse training in Belfast, and they all met up often.
Bellaghy in County Derry was a very different place to her home in County Leitrim where the tensions of the War of Independence had eased, or at least had been buried, and the new Irish Free State was to a large degree stable. The Irish Government had decided to make a complete constitutional break from the UK Comonwealth, finally enacted in April 1949 when The Republic of Ireland came into being. This further encouraged any southern Unionists sitting in the fence to reconsider emigration and it also heightened fears of abandonment among northern Unionists. The UK attempted to allay these fears guaranteeing Northern Ireland’s position in the UK until a majority voted otherwise and by the visit to Belfast of their Princess Elizabeth, soon to be Queen. But discontent was steadily building and in the early 1950s the IRA began its Border Campaign. Mid Ulster was not adrift from these tensions.
Tommy McWilliams was a daily visitor to Hutchinson’s shop delivering fresh bread and cakes. He worked for Morton and Simpson, a Ballymena bakery and confectionery, and quickly struck up a rapport with Ena over the counter. As well as her good looks, perhaps he was taken by her exotic southern brogue, of which he had some experience when lay-preaching in Co Cork a few years earlier. He courted her, suggesting she write to her Sligo boyfriend and give him the bad news. As the relationship grew, he visited Ena’s home where his humour and northern swagger left an impression. It also helped that he was familiar with the ways of farming life, gleaned from the many rural families and farms he visited on his delivery run.
Ena and Tommy at Lough Gill, Co Sligo c 1950.
Ena and Tommy were married in Manorhamilton Parish Church in July 1950. On the morning of the wedding, as was the local custom, John McPartland, a good friend of Ena’s father, arrived at the bottom of the lane to discharge a few gun shots in celebration. Tommy’s father and mother, sisters and cousins attended the wedding and reception in Sligo, and it is likely that the day was full of surprise for them given their strong religious-based abstinence of alcohol and tobacco. Shortly afterwards Ena moved to Ballymena.
Ballymena was a large town, predominantly Protestant and mainly Presbyterian, Tommy’s family church. The accents were different to Ena’s and the unfamiliar religious norms and expectations would have been difficult to fathom. Church attendance and sabbath observance were noted in the community, as was testimony of religious practice and personal salvation. It was a long way from the more liberal attitudes of Ena’s Church of Ireland, which was regarded by many Ballymena Presbyterians as a church tending towards Roman Catholic practices. You could be forgiven for thinking that with her accent, she may have easily been taken for ‘the other side.’ For years she sought to change our regular use of the Braid’s Valley’s broad affirmative ‘Aye’ to ‘Yes’.
While none of Ena’s family had been active Orangemen for at least two generations, Tommy’s father was a member of his local Lodge and as a young man had been jailed for defying a marching ban. In Manorhamilton the two communities worked together and mixed easily, albeit that the minority Protestant community needed their Catholic neighbours more than the other way round. In Ballymena there was effective segregation, which was culturally, religiously and politically sanctioned.
Ena with children, Ivor, Nigel and Elaine playing to the camera at Portrush c 1968.
Ena had just over a year to adjust before her first child was born in the Cottage Hospital and the coming years would be dominated by child rearing and housekeeping. With her gregarious nature, whether in the hospital or at home, she would take the first step and introduce herself to neighbours, often becoming their lifelong friend. And likewise, in her eighties, living in Portrush after the death of her husband, Tommy she showed great resilience building up another circle of friends.
Tommy did not involve himself with childcare or housework and his time off was largely taken up by his role of Church Elder – a religious counsellor. To some degree this insulated Ena from the strictures of their church – the redemption of women’s souls could wait a while, until their maternal duties eased. When we got older, she became involved in the Church’s women’s group.
From the outset of their marriage Ena maintained a close connection to her family and home in County Leitrim. A pattern of three and four annual visits quickly became established and soon we were drawn into the life of her family at the Larkfield farm.
In Ballymena Ena’s skills, learned from her mother, were at the core of our household. Jam making and cooking, knitting and bargain hunting – for thrift rather than fashion or flavour. And always “ask for discount” she advised; sometimes to our embarrassment as a simple purchase would get complicated and drawn out. She frowned on the attitudes of her in-laws who tended to “spend it when you have it” while she was saving to fund some plan or other, be that their first mortgage or later a small business venture.
Her family had for generations a drive to better their lot, to advance through some scheme or other, and Ena was no different. She perceived this attitude in contrast to what she saw in her husband and his family, with little appetite for change or risk. So as her family grew, she wanted more; be that a few hundred laying hens, a part time job, a small business, or to go back to study; only the latter of which she never achieved.
When Ena and Tommy retired it was to a farm, recently purchased by my brother Nigel near Dromahair, a few miles from Ena’s Boggaun home. Their first task, with little experience, was to manage the renovation of the old farmhouse, where the cattle had taken up residence the previous winter. They lived there for over 20 years, amongst good neighbours and a wide group of friends.
Ena and her husband Tommy are buried in the graveyard at Dromahair Parish Church in Co Leitrim.
This is the last in the series of stories focused on my mother, Ena, and her siblings as they grew up and left home. Ena Davis first worked in Gillmor’s shop in Dromahair, then in Hutchinson’s shop in Bellaghy in County Derry, before marrying Tommy McWilliams and settling in Ballymena. The story is in two parts. At the end of Part 2 there are links to other of Ena’s stories.
Ena, centre, with a friend in Gillmor’s Yard, Dromahair, c 1946.
Ena left Masterson National School in Manorhamilton at thirteen in 1937, having previously gone with her siblings to Mullaghduff National School, a short walk from their farm. Leaving Masterson’s five of her siblings were between the ages of five and twelve and her labours were needed at home, where the family still struggled with its financial debt. She was keenly aware of their straits, and the measures demanded by their mother, Annie, to keep the family afloat. Their frugal self-reliant lifestyle left its imprint on Ena and all her siblings. Extremely limited household cash, homemade clothes and bed linen, all belied the outward prosperous look of the large two-storey slated house.
Had secondary school been an option – The Manorhamilton Tech had not opened at that time – she would have chosen to go but it is likely the needs of her family would have prevailed. Her school achievements at Masterson’s, particularly in Irish and her contributions to The Schools Collection, a 1937 folklore collection, attest to her diligence and love of learning.
In the early 1940s her family found a position for her in Gillmor’s shop in the small village of Dromahair, owned by a cousin of her mother. Stuart J. Gillmor’s was a general store which had been running in the village since the 1700s, supplying household, farm and hardware goods. The building, the shop and house, fronted the main street. From the Back Lane there was an entrance into a fine yard bounded by attractive stone buildings; housing a bakery, numerous store rooms and staff living quarters overhead.
Gillmor’s Yard, as it was called, was often packed with donkey and horse-drawn carts, the smell of fresh bread had drifted over the awakening village for decades. Ena lived in and cycled home the six miles each weekend. With her experience at home, she was often called upon to look after the young Gillmor children, providing a welcome change to her duties in the shop and yard. Wednesday, her regular half-day off was anticipated by excited children along her route, particularly by the pupils at her old Mullaghduff school as she passed out treats from her deep pockets.
These years were packed with new experiences and responsibilities; at Gillmor’s a serious attitude to work was expected. While she knew many around the area, she made new friends among the staff sharing and supporting some in unexpected challenges and grief. With girlfriends she went to socials and dances, and in summer to nearby agricultural shows.
Wallace, Ena’s brother, with friends in Magherafelt, 12th July c 1949, likely taken by Ena.
The late 1940s in The Irish Free State did not signpost a rosy future. The disastrous consequences to the Irish economy of the 1930s Economic War with the UK resulted in high tariffs on agricultural exports with farming going into an irreversible decline. The loss of rural employment with nothing to replace it forced a mass exodus of young people, most leaving for the UK. The numbers grew through the 1940s and 1950s. Large swathes of Ireland, particularly in the west, emptied, leaving numerous abandoned homesteads.
Many of Ena’s family, friends and contemporaries left for the large cities of England and further afield, while there were those, mainly from the Protestant community, who felt their prospects were as good in Northern Ireland. In 1948 Ena and her friend Izzie, both working at the Dromahair shop, moved to Hutchinson’s shop in Bellaghy, Co Derry where their families had found work and accommodation for them.
“Ena’s going now.” Her father Richard said, his neighbour noting the undertone of loss at the imminent departure of one of his favourite children.
In this story Reco and Cecil make a trip to Sligo on a horse and cart in wintertime. Reco is twenty-two years old and Cecil is nineteen.Whatever your means of travel it is some 16 miles from Boggaun to Sligo, avoiding steep hills, and the return is shorter by 3 miles if you take the route over Benbo Mountain.
A shower passes over Benbo Mountain, seen from O’Donnell’s Rock. Image from Google maps.
Their Mother Annie sees them off to the bog.
“After days of rain, it finally stopped. Before lunchtime Reco and Cecil set off to the bog on two empty carts, the horses well fed. I made them up a basket with eggs, bread and bottles of tea. They would need it when they got to the top of O’Donnell’s Rock. There’s be no shelter up there, a cold wind always blows, worse in November. Maybe they’ll hunker down behind the turf stacks for a while. I was up there once, in the summer but it was enough, I’ll happily leave it to the men. It’ll be after dark when they get back, there’s not much daylight now. And tomorrow they’ll have a longer and harder day, if they can get through the floods.”
Their Father Richard sends them to Sligo Town.
“There’s a powerful price to be got for turf, what with the curse-ed Germans sinking all the coal boats. Arragh, we should’ve gone into the war with England, this neutral thing’s a cod, we’ll pay for it yet, mind my words. I bought extra turbary up on O’Donnell’s Rock these last few years, it’s paying black gold now. Reco and Cecil are taking two load to Sligo tomorrow morning and we might get another two off next week if the weather holds. It will be a long day for them, but they are young, there’ll be no loss on them. The radio forecast says it’s to stay dry and I’ve arranged for their cousin to meet them in the town and make sure all is well. Anyways, I had harder in my day.”
A neighbour meets them on a flooded Sox Line.
“I met the two boys coming out of the Bonet flood water on Sox Line. I was coming home from Dromahair with a bag of flour on the bar of the bike. They were taking the long road to Sligo, on account of the full carts. Cecil looked soaked and miserable. Apparently, he was leading the horse through the flood, couldn’t see the edge of the road and fell into a pool of water. Must’ve have come up over the top of his head by the look him. His over coat was hung on the cart, dripping and he was shaking the water off him like a drowned dog. Reco and himself wrung out the big coat. No heat in the day either. I told him to come to the house dry off, but he would hear nothing of it.
‘I’ll take a sup of the warm tea, and if I’m still cold I’ll call into Ena in Gillmor’s shop in Dromahair.’ He says.
I don’t think he ever did. A hardy young buck he was. There’s nothing to bate the good woollen clothes when you get a wettin like that.”
Their cousin meets them in the Market Yard.
“The midday Angelus was still ringing when they came into the packed Market Yard.
‘What took ye so long?’ I asked them. ‘I’ve been here this hour.’
‘Arragh, Cecil fell into the flood coming over Sox Line, held us back a bit.’ Said Reco.
When they found a place to park the cart, Reco pointed to the town and said to Cecil.
‘Go down there and into the first place you smell a hot dinner. Don’t come back without getting something into to you.’
He put the nose bags on the horses and we chatted, all the while hoping for a quick sale. The yard was full, with a good few loads of turf but the boys had the right black stuff and was it sold before Cecil came back. I got away fairly handy and I’d see then again around Christmas”
A woman from the town buys their turf.
“Myself and a neighbour woman bought the two loads. The turf was the best, hard and black and would keep the fires lit and the cooking done well into next year. Grand young lads they were, not a complaint between them, unlike my fella. We lived close by the Market Yard in James Street, so at least they didn’t have to go too far before unloading. They carried the turf in creels through the house to the small yard at the back and the both carts were emptied in just over an hour. I had tea and a few rashers ready for them when they were done, but they hardly sat down to eat it, said they wanted to be on the road with over two hours to get home. I felt sorry for the two of them having to set off into the darkening evening with such a long way to go. But they were lucky, after the days of rain we’ve had, it was a dry and they had a bit of a moon.”
Phyllis waits for them to return home.
“I heard the dogs bark as they turned into the lane. It was after six and thick dark. I saw their lamps from the window and heard the carts rattle up the lane. The youngest, Jack started shouting their names.
‘Reco! Cecil! Reco! Cecil!’
Earlier, after I got home from The Tech, we all got their jobs done before it got too dark. Mammy had a big dinner ready for them. They were famished when they came in. We were full of questions, but they just ate and ate without a word. It was only after they were finished and sat back from the table that we heard Cecil’s story.”
End
Notes: This story was given to me by Padraig Fitzpatrick. I have told it through six imagined voices.
Of his generation Cecil was the one who remained farming at Larkfield while his siblings emigrated or moved away. The harshness of the times and his mother’s disapproval of his girlfriends, left him a lifelong bachelor. Cecil is at the centre of many of my enduring teenage memories in County Leitrim; incidents and adventures that I share with my brother Ivor, being of a similar age. My sister Elaine and youngest brother Nigel recall him slightly differently, but nonetheless warmly. Stories involving Cecil have already appeared in this blog and others will no doubt follow.
Cecil about 12 years old, cropped from family group photograph c1935.
Cecil was the third surviving child of seven. After Herbie died Reco became his father’s golden boy and Cecil fell into the role as Reco’s workmate. He was not keen on national school and had no interest in going on to The Tech; perhaps his father was happy to see another set of hands on the struggling farm with its burden of debt.
After Mullaghduff National School he went to Masterson’s in Manorhamilton with his sisters Ena and Phyllis. His contribution to The School Collection is sparse, unlike his two sisters. His Uncle Alex, who had returned penniless from County Meath, gave him three short pieces which he copied into his special homework book. Done. Given Alex travels they are interesting:
“Praise the young and they will come to you. Hills are green far away. A stitch in time saves nine.”
Through the 1940s and 1950s Cecil worked on the family farm as it gradually threw off its debt. With his father, and brothers Reco, Alf and Wallace, they put in long days of hard work in all weathers.
He had been going strong with a local girl in the mid-1940s. Their plans, however, were stymied by his mother Annie who disapproved of the relationship, despite the religious affinity. Perhaps Annie felt that the struggling farm could not sustain another family at that time, or that she feared a re-run of the long struggle with Cecil’s Aunt, Mary Jane, when Annie arrived at Larkfield as a young bride a generation earlier. But for decades to come Cecil would get a regular Christmas card from his former girlfriend.
He had other girlfriends, but none that would get his mother’s blessing. Annie had made similar interventions in the lives of Reco and Wallace; Wallace’s effective banishment being the most extreme. Despite her husband’s more liberal attitude Annie’s force of will on such matters would hold sway into the mid-1950s. Cecil’s choice was between the farm or the road, to join the stream of unskilled emigrants leaving for England at that time. He never did leave and never married.
Cecil, his Aunt Hilda and father Richard c1945.
After my Grandfather, Richard died in 1961 we kept up our regular holiday visits, three or four times a year. Cecil and Granny would greet us warmly, a welcome after the long car journey, the table set in the farm kitchen. Cecil had taken over the running of the farm with his mother keeping a sharp eye on all transactions. He was quieter more reserved that his father, but like his father found ways to involve us in the life of the farm, affirming Larkfield as our second home.
We would follow him around like lap dogs, watching him work, giggling uncontrollably when he lost his temper, cursing. And trying to carry out the small jobs we were offered. As we got older, we worked with teenage effort and at the end of the summer holidays would leave with a roll of notes pressed into our hand. During the 1960s and into the early 1970s we became vital part of summertime’s hay making and farm work.
On both sides of my family honest physical work was valued and carried an expectation of progress; at Boggaun this was most likely elevated further after the collapse of Cecil’s father’s business years earlier. While I had no great strength, I developed a stamina for work and with Cecil garnered much of the practical skills of running a farm and managing stock that would stand me in good stead in years to come; all bound to a love of the farm’s fields – the White Field, the Angle, The Well Meadow – and the surrounding streams and hazel wood scrub, crisscrossed with tracks of rabbit, badger and fox.
Cecil drew us to a world that was fast disappearing; a time of paraffin and Tilley lamps, of horsepower, of cycling and walking cattle on empty roads to fair days in open streets, of bachelor farmers living in two-roomed thatched cottages that doubled as outhouses, a lifestyle little changed for generations.
We became more aware of lives of Cecil and Granny. Weekdays Cecil was up as we slept in the nearby bed, the rattle of buckets from the yard outside the small window our alarm clock, while from downstairs came the soft warm sounds of Granny preparing breakfast. Weekends Cecil would often return in half light of an early summer’s morning to skip, jump into his bed still buzzing from the revels of the night. Of course, he would then sleep in until we heard Granny’s hand on the squeaky brass door handle in the room below.
“Cecil! Cecil! Do you know what time it is! Get up!”
Which was repeated every five minutes until he groaned out of bed and pulled on his clothes.
Once or twice during the summer he would drive us to Bundoran on a Sunday afternoon. His father and mother had for many years taken a week’s holiday in a boarding house there, but a holiday was not on Cecil’s calendar. The buzz of the packed amusements in the crowded town was a teenager’s heaven. We sometimes ended up at a small, cramped table in the lounge of the Holyrood Hotel. Cecil would inevitably fall in with some friends at the bar as we sat sucking on minerals and listening to a Country and Western band play over the hum of the packed room.
Reco with author, Ena with Ivor, and Cecil c1953.
When his mother died in 1978, he was forty-four and on his own. He accommodated the changes taking on cooking and limited housekeeping, falling into a routine suited to his own patterns and favour. There was talk that he should get someone in to help with the house, that it was not too late to find a partner.
He could have married, the house was free for a woman to take over, and there were attempts to make a match. At the time rumours abounded as he was judged a fine catch for the right woman.
During this time John James Davis, Cecil’s cousin from Daysville in Alberta, Canada made his only visit there with his cousin Tommy Davis from County Meath. They arrived at what they took to be the right lane and enquired of men working there if this was Cecil Davis’ farm.
“You’re in the right place boys.” They were told.
“In fact, Cecil has just married a widow with 4 children, and they are all above in the house now. They’ll be glad to see you.”
Of course, only Cecil was in the house, and he would have laughed with them. However, none of these arrangements, real or imagined worked out and Cecil remained a Leitrim bachelor all his life.
On the farm the meitheal – communal work, reciprocated in turn by neighbours – had disappeared by the mid-1970s. Emigration had reduced the numbers living on the land and those who remained often had part time jobs. As a result, farm help was hard to come by, although the work was eased somewhat by the introduction of tractors; Cecil bought his first one in 1970. Like many farmers at that time he had moved over to a more extensive suckler cow breeding enterprise and had bought two additional out-farms.
While I would continue to visit him regularly, by the time we had all moved on after secondary school, the summer-long family exodus to Larkfield had come to an end.
A year ago, I wrote the blog “Finding Bertie Gillmor” about locating the grave of my Granduncle from Boihy, Co Leitrim. A shot-in-the dark email found an extremely helpful Steve Logan from Oliver’s Funeral Services in Grand Prairie, Alberta, Canada. Oliver’s had undertaken Bertie’s funeral and burial in 1960 and within two hours of my email to Steve, he found and visited Bertie’s snowy unmarked grave in Grand Prairie cemetery.
An advert in the Leitrim Observer 20th Feburary 1904
Since then I sent out a few emails searching for anyone who might have known Bertie but until now I have drawn a blank.
Recently, I have been emailing Tina Wolfe, at the same Oliver’s Funeral Services, to arrange a small marker for Bertie’s grave. Tina asked me where he was buried, unable to locate him at the small cemetery near his home outside Goodfare, but this was quickly followed by another email from her, with the line that got my attention.
“I found someone that knew him and he told me where to look”
Later that night I phoned Walter Pfau (pronounced Fow) in Goodfare where he farms with his wife, Thelma, and looks after the small Lutheran cemetery, the connection with Tina. Goodfare is a hamlet of some 8 homes, a community hall, an outdoor ice hockey rink and a mailbox; the nearest large town Grand Prairie is 61km east.
“Oh ya. I knew Bert well. He used to come here regular, to buy cattle, when I was a young fella. Lived about 3 mile away. Nice guy, true farmer. Good fun too. He grew grass, wheat, oats and tall sweet white clover. I heard him say a few times in his funny accent – I love the sound of a field of rippling golden oats in the fall.” Said Walter.
He told me a lot more. I will talk to him again and fill out Bertie’s story. In the 1920s Walter’s father and Bertie were among the first white settlers in that part of Alberta.
Today the small community of Goodfare have messaged on Facebook saying that they have members who knew Bertie and will be in touch.
Goodfare is 8 hours behind our GMT. There is 4 inches of snow on the ground. With daytime temperatures around -6°C dropping to -16°C at night, Walter’s cattle are housed for the winter. Walter and Thelma don’t travel too far because of Covid-19.
John Christopher Davis was the youngest of the family. He emigrated to England in 1952, aged 20 and then on to New Zealand in 1957, but returned to Ireland seven years later. At home and with his family he was Jack, as he was in New Zealand and it is Jack that I use here. On returning to Ireland from New Zealand he used John.
At a break from saving hay, from left, Jack, His Uncle Alex (Gillmor), brother Cecil, Aunt Hilda and his father Richard, circa 1949.
Jack was born the seventh surviving child into a household of eleven, ten years after the worst of the family’s financial crisis. The novelty of a new baby had worn off by then and a good deal of his care fell to his sisters Ena and Phyllis. Jack’s aged aunt Mary Jane and uncle Alex were living at the time and it is easy to imagine the household into which Jack arrives, throbbing with life and activity; the busy mealtimes, hectic mornings as some go off to school the others to farm work, long bedtimes gradually filling the three upstairs rooms, some partitioned off, full of beds and cots.
By the time he went to Masterson National School in Manorhamilton he travelled on the family ass and cart, the only one not to walk to school. A year or two later on an errand to the town, on the same ass and cart he was stopped by the Guards as the poor ass was unshod. His age got him off and he carried home the verbal warning.
He laboured on the farm like the rest of them producing the crops and livestock that would eventually help settle the farm’s debt, but Jack was not destined for a life on Leitrim’s dauby clay. At The Tech he was an eager student and was soon applying what he learned. He expanded the vegetable garden, planted more apple trees and set up a small apiary. With an aptitude for carpentry he made furniture and cabinets for the farmhouse. But at a time with few employment opportunities and when emigration was peaking again, he set his sights on England as his best hope for the future.
Jack left home in 1952 for London with a small nest egg from his parents, like the rest of the family’s emigrants. In London it was relatively easy for him to get work among the many Irish arriving there at that time. His skills were quickly evident and with his attitude to work he was welcomed on many building jobs. Among these were the renovation of London’s historic buildings including Buckingham Palace where he further developed his craft. By comparison to Ireland busy central London offered the young man work, money in his pocket and plenty of ways to spend it. However, he had an eye on distant shores.
Jack with friends John Gallagher and Denis Coffey on the SS Captain Cook on route for New Zealand 1957.
In 1957, along with a group of London friends, he bought a passage on the MV Captain Cook, a New Zealand government-owned emigrant ship bound on a 33-day voyage from Glasgow to Wellington. He was excited, saw adventure ahead of him, his appetite whetted by the hubbub of the 1000 passengers or so, most emigrants like himself. A brief stop in tropical Panama before crossing the equator, and he was on his way to a new life far from County Leitrim.
Palmerstown was his final destination on the north island where the New Zealand embassy had given him contacts for work and accommodation. He worked on a variety of construction projects including extensions to the hospitals in Rorotua and Wiaroa in Hawke’s Bay. He enjoyed the outdoor lifestyle, the warm seas and temperate climate, and with his outgoing nature made many friends.
There were whispers at home that he left in a hurry. Whether pursued by the taxman or string of broken hearts was never made clear, but Jack left Auckland for Southampton in April 1963. This time the ship, the MV Fairsea, navigated in the opposite direction calling into Singapore, Colombo, Aden, Suez, Port Said and Naples, an exotic trip in itself.
“Jack, Francis and Maori friends Wairoa” as scribed on the back of this photograph by Jack, circa 1960.
I first set eyes on Jack, my youngest uncle when he returned from New Zealand. He was tanned and healthy, travelled and modern, and carried himself with a certain swagger, perhaps feeling he had outgrown Boggaun and Leitrim. He kept himself tidy, his hair groomed to a natural wave.
Jack returned to his old bedroom, the one used by Cecil, and myself and my brother on holidays; its two iron-framed small double beds with sagging springs and mattresses. His heavy-duty suitcase sat on the floor for a year or more, eventually rummaged, it was half full of exotic gifts, Maori trinkets and discarded personal effects.
Jack brought back a small reel tape recorder and a portable radio. It was on this I discovered Radio Luxembourg and its Sunday night Top 20 Hits and with Jack’s help I was soon recording some of my favourites on the tape recorder.
He returned from New Zealand bubbling with antipodean experiences and a head full of ideas. It appeared to him that his brothers were farming the same land, growing the same crops, and burdened by the same damp concerns. But just as a friend’s holidays snaps that can quickly glaze the eyes, Jack’s stories and notions soon fell on deaf ears.
That same summer he organised a trip to the Galway races; he enjoyed a flutter on the horses, and on stocks and shares. We were there at Larkfield on our holidays and, unusually, my father was there too. After a long drive in two cars, the last section between miles of grey stone walls, we spilled out into the sunny grass car park at the racecourse. Horse racing and gambling were considered a great sin by my father’s family; however, this was easily forgotten on this memorable day at the races. The biggest winnings that day was my find of a £20 pound note, tumbling in the breeze near the bookie’s stalls, lonely and looking for a dark pocket.
John and Carmel returning from their honeymoon 1976.
Initially Jack helped around the Boggaun farm, which by then had passed to his mother and would later pass to Cecil, who had managed it since their father’s death. Jack had known for some time there was no future for him here, nor, I think did he want it. Taking up work at Collooney’s Gowna Wooden Industries making windows and doors, he soon felt over used and undervalued. After a year he made a move to Dublin via a short spell in Limerick. In and around Dublin he worked for The Georgian Society and its founder Desmond Guinness whom he got to know well. He found this restoration work most satisfying, exercising his considerable skills and experience. On the outskirts of Celbridge he built his home, “The Bungalow”, with a large vegetable garden, fruit trees and beehives and in 1976 he married Carmel Wylie.
Jack, as Phyllis did, would often offer his advice and wisdom, particularly after he returned from New Zealand. Like his philosophy of a fairer share for the common man, much was unfortunately lost by his brash manner.
“I’m not listening to Jack anymore!” my exasperated mother once said.
On visits back to his Leitrim home Jack’s farming and financial advice also tended to be unwelcomed and unheeded; Cecil, nonplussed, would often fall silent.
His father was swindled, by a Protestant business partner, out of a significant sum of money some ten years before he was born and when the family were still straining from the near bankruptcy. Whether referring to this or his own similar experience, he carried a bitterness against his own kind for displaying such opportunism and deceit. He often warned us with words to the effect that you “trust them at your peril”.
In Celbridge, where he had a wide circle of friends, he was exclusively known as John. Outside of his work he took great pleasure in tending his garden and beehives. When I started to travel around Ireland, mostly hitching a ride, Jack and Carmel were always generous in putting me up for the night and collecting me from whatever godforsaken spot I had landed.
Phyllis was the first of her family to go to secondary school and the only one to take up a professional vocation. She left home at nineteen to study nursing in County Antrim. Fifteen years later a personal tragedy changed the course of her life and she emigrated to Canada.
Phyllis with author right and brother Ivor at Sligo Showgrounds circa 1957.
Phyllis started school at six years of age walking the mile or so with her brothers, sister and neighbours to their nearest school, Mullaghduff National School. The arrival of a donkey and cart in 1934 provided regular school transport allowing her parents to move their children to Masterson National School beside the Parish Church in Marorhamilton, making the longer journey each day.
She was a keen pupil eager to learn, exemplified by her significant contributions to The Schools Collection, a compilation of folklore and stories which became a National Archive, that includes her original copy books. Gathered from family and neighbours the contribution reveals over ten individuals that Phyllis badgered to collect the impressive range of stories, lore and riddles.
The Technical School opened in Manorhamilton, in 1936. Referred to as The Tech, Phyllis moved there a few years after it opened its doors. Like her older sister Ena, she liked Irish and was awarded a Silver Fainne Medal despite her parent’s misgivings about time spent learning Irish. The medal was a circular silver collar pin showing a proficiency and love for the language.
Her teachers encouraged her to consider a career. Phyllis had known of the early death of her older sister Maureen at a few months old, and experienced the family’s anguish during the illness and lingering death of her brother Herbie. Phyllis never forgot a throwaway remark made during her brother’s illness that she brought his diphtheria into the house, the infection that eventually killed Herbie. Given this, nursing was not a surprising choice.
Her grades at The Tech were good and she easily achieved the entrance standards for nursing. In 1945 she started as a trainee Mental Health Nurse at Purdysburn Mental Hospital on the outskirts of Belfast.
Phyllis at Larkfield sitting on a horse drawn grass mower circa 1951.
Of all our Davis aunts and uncles only Phyllis and Jack – the two who went to secondary school – would regularly dispense their knowledge and advice with great vim. Perhaps the experience of secondary school gave them a confidence, or it was the impact of what they learned there. Phyllis would frequently remind us, her young nephews and nieces, how to brush our teeth, of the best foods to eat, to take time and chew you foods properly, and the benefits of learning and doing your lessons well. I recall a long lecture from her while brushing my teeth, endlessly it seemed, at the bathroom sink, probably at the time my teeth were damaged from too many sweets.
Phyllis had an independent streak influenced, undoubtedly by the strong will of her mother in steering the family through very challenging times, and by the opportunities opening up for women. When Phyllis was established in her nursing career, she bought her first car. On weekend visits home to Boggaun she was in great demand by her brothers and sister whose weekend exploits were usually limited by their bicycle or “shanks’ mare”.
One Sunday they planned a trip to the Park Cinema in Manorhamilton. Annie, her mother was against it believing such entertainment was not only morally dubious but certainly inappropriate for a Sunday evening. However, Richard, her father saw little harm in it saying that they should go and take Padraig Fitzpatrick who was in the house at the time. Padraig is a regularly informant for these stories. So, Wallace, his leg in a cast after a recent car accident, Ena, Cecil and Padraig piled into the Morris Minor with Phyllis and they drove off down the lane for an evening’s entertainment.
Perhaps they saw Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster in full technicolour, in the war drama “From Here to Eternity” or Jane Russell and Marilyn Munroe in the lighter musical comedy “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”, both box office hits at the time. Unusually, Padraig does not recall the film, but does remember the evening and driving home to Boggaun, leaving the limping Wallace behind as he had other interests in town.
During these years whether in Ballymena or Larkfield, Phyllis took us on day trips and when she worked at Magheramorne Hospital in the late 1950s we took Sunday drives from Ballymena to see her there, Phyllis cutting an impressive figure in her Matron’s uniform.
In 1951 Phyllis was a Registered Medical and Surgical Nurse in Belfast City Hospital Belfast, and by the end of the 1950s she was the Matron of the small Magheramorne Hospital, near Larne. In 1959 she was engaged to be married to Tommy when he tragically drowned in an accident. Phyllis was distraught with the loss, her world and plans turned upside down and she began to look in different directions. Having seen the adverts for nurses in Canada she decided on a fresh start there.
In 1960 she followed Alf, her brother to Toronto albeit by the easier air route – much had changed in the 12 years since Alf emigrated. There she took up a nursing post and was soon a fully Registered Nurse working in Toronto General Hospital. She missed her parents and wrote that she would “Love to get dad to go Canada, if I can only convince him that Ireland won’t move when he is away.” Unfortunately, he fell ill in 1961 when she came home to nurse him in his final weeks, stirring memories of Herbie’s death almost thirty years earlier. Her mother Annie would visit her in Toronto a few years later.
Frank and Phyllis with son Graham taken by author north of Toronto 1963.
Not long after arriving she met Frank McBride and they were married in September 1961. Frank was a Scot via Merseyside and, like Phyllis was a recent arrival.
Two years later she encouraged my parents to send me to Toronto for the summer where I spent the time between Aunt Phyllis’ and Uncle Alf’s family. When Phyllis was not working she took me and her young son Graham on many trips around the city, memorably to see a live stadium-show of The Three Stooges and my first cinema experience seeing Danny Kaye in the comedy “The Man from the Diner’s Club”. At weekends we all travelled out of the city, to Niagara Falls, Muskoka Lakes, and up to the annual Davis reunion near Orangeville, among other destinations.
Cecil (brother), Phyllis, Graham (son), Ivor, author with Phyllis’s son Ian on shoulders, Ena (sister), Nigel (front, Annie (mother) and Elaire 1962 at Larkfield farm.
Using her first Brownie box camera Phyllis left a great store of photographs. Many of the ones used in this series of stories dating from the 1950s are most likely hers, and with others they provide a great family record of that time. Over the many visits she made back to Ireland we are grateful to Phyllis for corralling us into family photographs which would otherwise not have been taken. The one above is typical and was taken on the family’s visit to Larkfield about 1972, behind is the hay shed and almost hidden is Cecil’s Skoda car.
During 1947 and 1948 three Davis siblings left the Boggaun farm, Ena, Phyllis and Alf. Alf was nineteen when he departed and was to make the longest journey to what became his new home. I knew my aunts and uncles to varying degrees. Those who settled in Ireland I knew best and the others less so, only meeting them occasionally over the years. Alf left Ireland before I was born and my first memories of him were on his visits home.
Alf with his mother Annie, from a family photograph circa 1935, taken outside the Larkfield farmhouse at Boggaun., Co Leitrim.
Born in 1929 Alf grew up on the farm and worked hard in those lean years when the family finances were severely stretched. He left Masterson National School at about thirteen to spend a few years on the farm before going out to work in T.R. Armstrong’s hardware shop on Main Street in Manorhamilton. Four years later he was making plans for the long emigrant’s journey to Canada. Unfortunately, he just missed the excitement of the town’s first cinema. It was opened by the same T.R. Armstrong bringing novel picture house entertainment which my mother and her contemporaries regularly enjoyed.
In 1948 Alf, full of trepidation and excitement, was photographed with several Manorhamilton friends onboard a ship leaving Liverpool for Canada. His parents aware of the harsh reality of Ireland at that time encouraged him to go despite reluctant parental bonds. When he landed on America’s shore Alf made his way to Toronto.
Toronto had been the destination of Alf’s Great-uncle Thomas, the first Davis born at Boggaun to emigrate there 1861. He claimed a pioneer’s plot at Amaranth, north of Toronto, clearing forest for farming land; Thomas’ brother John, a Methodist preacher left for the same region two years later, although he finally settled in Iowa. A generation later Alf’s Uncle Thomas emigrated to Toronto in 1886 where the family prospered in the newspaper and real estate business. They all remained in contact with their Boggaun roots. Other families from the Manorhamilton area had also settled there making it an attractive destination for the new arrival.
Advert fot TR Amstrong’s hardware shop, Alf’s first employer.
Alf first worked in a menswear shop but within a few years, through hard work and ambition, he had set up Alf’s Menswear store on The Queensway.
Libby Smyth, originally from Derry, married Alf in 1952. As their family grew and the business thrived, they bought a farm near Shelburne, north of Toronto, with friends Elward and Jean Burnside – the Burnside and Davis families in Canada are related. Alf and his family spent working weekends at the farm, an echo of his upbringing, although not all looked forward to the end of the week.
While Alf returned home many times, at first on his own and then with his family, he probably felt at more and more at a remove from his early years at Boggaun. He carried a quiet generous way about him. When Alf first visited us in our Ballymena home, the tall stranger with a deep voice and strange accent, brought a suitcase of clothes for us; two little bomber jackets for my brother and I kept us stylish for months.
In the summer of 1963, I arrived at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport in sweltering heat wearing my heavy black school blazer and grey trousers. At the age of twelve I had travelled across the Atlantic on a Boeing 707, a substitute for my mother and father, unable to take time off for a summer visit. I was collected at the airport by Uncle Alf and my cousins. In the spacious back seat of the big car, with the warm air blowing through the windows, I was stripped of the heavy layer and then a stop at Alf’s Menswear store turned me into more suitable shorts and T shirt, followed by my first taste of ice-cold coke.
Alf, back left, with friends from Manorhamilton on route from Loverpool to Canada in 1948.
Ten years later as working students, three friends and myself, spent a summer picking tobacco on a southern Ontario farm. Flying into New York, we had arranged to drive to Toronto on a return-delivery before starting work – this was a cheap way to get around North America at the time. We were welcomed by Alf and his family and spent a few days around the city.
Alf generously offered to take us on the two hour drive to the tobacco farm. Leaving the city on the 12-lane Gardiner Expressway we sped west for miles along the populated north shore of Lake Ontario. With the city of Hamilton and Lake Ontario behind us we drove south through rich summer farmland. An hour later we headed out of Tillsonburg on dusty flatland dirt roads towards the shore of Lake Erie, finally arriving at the red clapperboard homestead of Marty Weiss, its high wooden drying kilns and large barns set in a wooded landscape.
Many Canadians visited their ancestral home at Boggaun over these years, but returning children got special treatment. When Alf and his family were due Granny led great efforts to make ready the house and farm in welcome; road and garden gates were painted, as were window frames and doors, yards were tidied and cleaned, the garden weeded.
But sometimes events would thwart her enthusiasm. On one such occasion when the street around the back door had been cleaned and scrubbed, a large creamery can of fresh milk was accidentally spilt by the farm help who was hung over from the previous night’s revelries. Seeing her clean yard white with milk, Granny lashed him with her tongue and the unfortunate man fled the street threatening to do away with himself. He was found lying up on a dry ditch in the Well Meadow by my mother, Ena, who took the good part of an hour to talk him back to the yard. And tensions went higher when a beautiful salmon tickled out of the Bonet River, plated on the deep sill of the slightly-opened parlour window, was found with the upper side missing after a cat squeezed in to devour it.
Alf Davis and his brother Wallace were the only ones in their Boggaun family to carry the name forward, and after three generations of emigration to Canada most descendants carrying this Davis name are now Canadians.
The Curlew's Call 