Author: stanmcw

This is a story based on a fictional character Steve Wallace who in the late 1970s works in the Solomon Islands, providing engineering support to two local councils, on Guadalcanal and Santa Isabel. The Solomon Islands are on the verge of independence from the UK and are at that time called British Solomon Islands Protectorate or BSIP. Steve is from Ballymoney in County Antrim. The character and his further adventurers may appear again. This initial story is in three parts.

Even in this tropical paradise the nightmares rarely stay away for long. It’s pitch black and Steve is sitting up on his mat in a thatched leaf hut on Tanabuli island, having woken up sweating from another unsummoned dream; the images have already faded, nothing remains but the residual adrenaline of the escaped, the hunted, a sense of some deathly dread avoided yet again. Do they follow me, or do I carry them with me? he muses. He had hoped his antipodes would have given him a fresh start, a clean slate, but now he doubts it. By torchlight, his watch reads 3 am; he sweeps the beam around the thatch walls, pulls a sheet over himself hoping to sleep again.

Through the dawn’s stillness a cock crows and there is a baby’s faint cry. The first villagers move slowly through the rising light, walking around the leaf houses to the nearby shore. Fires lit in small rough kitchens leak smoke through the door and roof as children wake with hunger and a spark for the new day. Older ones will have breakfast and paddle their small canoes to the school at Tatamba on the mainland of Santa Isabel, a short distance across the sheltered bay.

Steve gets up pulls on his shorts and stretches, his dreams forgotten. Behind the Rest House, he washes from a bucket, soaping his face and beard. The water is refreshing as he spills it over his head and rubs himself down.

On the sandy soil between the houses a few papaya, betelnut and banana trees grow.  Away from the water behind the houses is a dense wall of greenery; large leaf shrubs and tangled vines which if left to nature would quickly envelop the houses, and further back tall palms. A gentle lapping of waves on the white sand beach is never far from earshot.

As Steve comes round the corner of his hut some children scream, running away, playing an ongoing game of peek-a-boo with the white stranger. The morning sun slips under the overhang as Steve listens to Solomon Islands radio hoping to hear news of a passing boat that could get him back to Buala, when Moses arrives, wearing a colourful patterned lap-lap against chocolate skin, his body compact with powerful shoulders typical of costal islanders.

“Eh Manevaka! What’s up?” he says in jest, having taught Steve their word for white men – “men who came on ships”.

“Do Bongi!” Steve returns in local language.

“You speak my language well.”

“Do Bongi – that’s all I know. You’ve got a different language in each village I go to.” Steve jokes, returning to pidgin. There at least five distinct languages on Santa Isabel alone, but his pidgin is good.

They walk along the shoreline, coconut palms sweeping up to the blue sky, the salt water’s tang fresh against the wafts of humid night air drifting from the bush, to where three men stand laughing.  They wait in turn to walk along a felled coconut trunk to a small thatched leaf toilet on stilts over the blue water. As Steve approaches they fall silent, diffidently moving aside for him, but he waves them back.

“Do Bongi!” he calls.

“Morning Masta, you go back to Buala today?” asks an older man.

“I’m no Masta of yours!” Steve replies forgetting his usual touch of humour. He tries persistently to counter this deference, have them treat him as an equal. Sometimes making a better job of it than others, he reflects. He understands its roots, knows no harm is meant.  He’s probably first white man to have stayed in the village, but he detests being called “Masta”.

“Suppose canoe come, I’ll go.” He adds with a broad smile.

Back as his hut Moses brings him tea and some of last night’s cooked sweet potato, and suggests they go fishing in the afternoon.  Steve takes hard tack biscuits from his rucksack hung from the rafters away from climbing rodents and eats alone.

The village is bustling now that breakfast is over.  Children leave for school, families, mostly women and young children, prepare to go off to their gardens by canoe, while men go fishing or harvesting copra. Only Steve and a few others, old and very young, remain behind.

Continues next blog.

Photo credit http://www.joannamaclean.com/revisiting-solomon-islands-50-years-3/

As an end piece to the Ulster Revival stories here is short story on the imagined journey of my father, Tommy McWilliams, to a mission tent at Ballachulish in Scotland.

Tommy hauled his case off the Glasgow train just before noon. The branch line from Oban to Ballachulish would leave in an hour. There was enough time for a cup of tea and a sandwich in the simple station cafe before he boarded the narrow-gauge steam train and settled into an empty carriage, the case taking up a good deal of space. A couple joined him, holiday makers by the cut of their summer clothes. They would get out a few stops along the line.

The prospect of a trip to the remote Highlands near Glencoe had filled him with excitement, but now on the last leg of the journey this was tempered by concerns of leading the mission services for the next fortnight. He had been well prepared and coached, done it all before, but this was far from home on his first trip to Scotland.

The train chugged and swayed its way northwards on the 27-mile journey, the line often hugging the coast, a road squeezed close by. The carriage window framed islands and lochs he didn’t know the names of; water that changed colour in the summer light and passing showers; steep rock cuttings, and the endless trees. The stations and villages were small, a few scattered homesteads in between, with names that were vaguely familiar, Benderloch, Creagan, Duror, Ballachulish; names he repeated in his head in what he took to be a Scottish accent.

When the couple got off, he opened the case and thumbed through his notes, closed it again and looked back to the window.

The landscape became more barren and rugged, the mountains rising to the sky. After the station at Ballachulish Ferry the train swept into Loch Leven and towards the mouth of Glencoe.

Three sharp blasts from the train’s whistle broke through his daydream and there, as the train slowed, was the pegged mission tent in a field between the track and the loch, with its signs “Faith Mission”, “Prayer meetings 7pm”.

Lugging his case down the platform he stopped and through the smoke took in the mountain peaks that dwarfed the large slab faces of the old slate quarry beyond the station. He was thinking of his Glasgow friend and his story of this once thriving quarry village now dwindled to quarter of its size, less than five hundred souls, when he was grabbed by the arm, the suitcase taken from him, and his hand vigorously shaken.

“Guid efternuin. You must be Tommy? A can tell be that case.”

Ends

My family’s connection to the Ulster Revival continued down another generation as I recall my father, Tommy McWilliams and his travels with an old brown suitcase.  

A large brown battered suitcase appeared to follow us each time we moved house in Ballymena. It was too large and heavy to be of any use to us and lay under a spare bed, rummaged during spells of boredom. The solid clunk of the rusting clasps released the lid with its musty smell, inside there were never any surprises. Over the years the books, tracts and handwritten notes became jumbled, aging in the darkness. Some forty years after its first outing, my father’s case was dumped, a few mementos saved.

As a young man of about thirty Tommy carried the heavy case to villages in Scotland and Ireland. His mission was simple “by all means to reach the lost for Christ”, and he had been taught to “live by faith” and put his “trust in God to provide the necessary resources”.

Since its formation after the Christian Revivals of the mid-1800s The Faith Mission had organised summertime tent missions. Tommy led some of these services, took bible study and welcomed those willing to commit to their lives to God. His rich tenor voice leading the hymn singing perhaps turned as many heads as his preaching.

Opposition came as a surprise to him, something he had not experienced in his native mid-Antrim and the hostility eventually wore him down. He had a change of heart, or at least a softening of his spiritual mission, and returned home.

Back in Ballymena he began an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic at Moore’s Garage, but left shortly afterwards; the experience put him off tinkering with cars for the rest of his life. He found a vocation as a bread man with Morton and Simpson’s Bakery where fresh bread and his warm personality found a welcome among communities on either side of the River Bann, in Antrim and Derry.

His Wellington Street Church elected him as an Elder, a Christian counsellor to the congregation, in 1951, a role he retained until he retired to Co Leitrim in the late seventies.

One summer Sunday evening I am in church with him, the warm sun slanting through the church’s large plain windows and across the half empty pews. We stood to sing, his mellow tenor voice soaring above the worshippers, through the melancholy of the evening; he too was soaring, fulfilled, without doubt.

Unlike him I would not continue the legacy of the Ulster Revival. Not then, beside him in the church that evening, but after a few years as a leader in various church groups when increasing doubt would set me on the path of the unbeliever.

If Tommy the missionary, the church elder, portrayed his serious side, Tommy the joker was never too far away. Even as a child he would regularly fool his sisters into mischief, while entertaining with pranks and impressions. The photograph of his mimic from a scene in a Laurel and Hardy film, at his Princess Street home is typical, funny and a little scary. While it was likely he used these skills at his mission meetings, the big brown case divulged no such secrets.

Ends

The next blog is a short story based on my father’s travels to Ballachulish, in Scottish Gaelic,  Baile a’ Chaolais or “Village of the narrows”. It is pronounced Ba-la-hoolish.

The second and concluding half of the story of the repentant Robert set during The Ulster Revival.

“By harvest time a had seen many fall down, the preacher takin them up as new men and wemen, born again in Jesus. But some had tay be carried away we little sense about them. A saw a few baduns amongst them too a must say, as well as a papist or two. A was holdin back then, not takin ma final step, a suppose the Devil was still whisperin that a was alright, tay thole it a while longer.

One stormy night after the harvest was in, an like ma first prayer meetin, I felt the Preacher lookin straight at me. I started to sweat, ma clothes itchin on me.  A heard him say loudly and slowly

“The Holy Spirit’s talkin to you and you alone! Jesus or the fires of Hell? You must decide! There’s no other way. This could be your last chance. You might never hear these words again.”

His hand came down on the big Bible way a slap.

“The Holy Spirit’s chosen you! Now’s your time!” and bowing his head he finally says.

“Let us pray together, for the lost souls, that they come to Jesus tonight.”

A chatter a voices filled in the room.

“A’m a poor sinner. Save me. Save me” a hear maself say. A feel a light above me, the heat is awful.

“A’m a poor sinner! Save me Jesus! Save me!” a called out.

Around me amid the babble I hear shouts of “Praise the Lord” “The Lord’s working.” and other voices a canay fathom.

A’m on ma knees afore the preacher ma forehead and arms on the cold earth floor, his arms out above me like the Archangel Gabriel. Tears are flowin freely as I feel the light of Holy Spirit and see the waitin arms of Jesus.

Someone helps me tay ma feet. The Preacher wipes ma tears away with the flats of his hands.

‘Do you repent your worldly sins brother?’

‘A do. A do.’ A say, catchin ma breath.

‘Will you follow Jesus tay the ends of the earth?’

‘A will, a belong tay Jesus.’

‘Your every sin is washed away by Jesus’ blood. Robert, join us, the Saved, Happy in Jesus. By the grace of God you’ve been touched by the work o the Holy Spirit.’ He said and moved on to others and a didnay hear him anymore.

A think am sobbin like a baby as hands touched ma shoulder and ma head, then it’s James way his arms around me.

‘Welcome Robert, into the fold where you belong.’

About twenty of us were saved that night, and many more after. We were full o our new lives, excited an joyful, ready tay praise God.  Some took the prayer meetins but a wasnay cut out for it. A helped out and witnessed ma life’s story and conversion as often as a could.

 A heard that not all the clergy were for The Revival, but none preached agin it, in the Presbyterian churches anyway. They didnay like the strange happenings, the fainting and the like, but that was God and the Holy Spirit workin among us. I heard too that some of them spoke out agin the few women preachers we had and some even suggestin to raise the black man to a higher station than God intended.

A was a Christian man after that, nere backsliding. An a joined with ma family again. When the Revival spread to Ballymena there was a great excitement, folks meetin everywhere, even in the streets we many youngsters among them. Thousands more were born again in the Lord Jesus. The old churches couldnay hold them all, an in 59 a helped build Ballymena’s new West Church. And a was witnessin whenever a could at some of the hundreds of meetins goin on at the time.

The Lord was good to me and a was never short of a day’s work again. A met a young Christian woman, Eliza from ma homeplace, and we were married in 1867. Although a was getting on in years by then we had four fine children. God blessed our union. They were raised in the strict Christian faith.  Way us, they kept the Sabbath day and went tay Sabbath school, and way all had regular Bible study and prayed together often. Every one of them grew up to have a trade, so they wouldnay end up a day labourer the likes a me. This town values their trades, with honest work and effort, for it is the will of God too.

A hope you hear, and heed this story of an old man, a lost sinner who repented and earned the rewards of a life with Jesus.”

End

Notes

1.  Robert McWilliams was born in 1822 died about 1906. He was a widower of about 45 years when he married Eliza Bamber, aged 25. Both were from Kildowney, Glarryford, 5 ½ miles north west of Ballymena. In 1901 the family were living at 8 Alexander Street in Ballymena.

2. The Ulster Awakening, John Weir, published 1860. A contemporary and sympathetic view of The Revival, with many eyewitness reports.

3. A pictorial History of 1859 Revival, Stanley Barnes, Ambassador Publications, 2008.

4. The 1859 revival and its enemies: opposition to religious revivalism within Ulster Presbyterianism, Daniel Richie, 2016 https://www.academia.edu/26768268/The_1859_revival_and_its_enemies_opposition_to_religious_revivalism_within_Ulster_Presbyterianism

5.  Medicine and religion: on the physical and mental disorders that accompanied the Ulster Revival of 1859, James G. Donat, published in The Anatomy of Madness, Essays in the History of Psychiatry, ed. Bynum, Porter and Sepherd, Vol III, first published 1988. Donat refers to The Lancet’s response to the Revival: “The Lancet saw no redeeming features in the movement, viewing it instead as an exercise in ‘fanaticism’ and the direct cause of an epidemical outbreak of disease.” Concluding, Donat says that “For the former (the critics, smcw) all cases of ‘religious excitement’ were indicative of faulty religion. And the latter (the apologists, smcw) were obliged to accept the fact that the Ulster Revival did have a few serious mental casualties.”

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IHl0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT160&lpg=PT160&dq=ulster+revival+lancet&source=bl&ots=-zhQT_bClO&sig=ACfU3U2pxAm8-BKo3qER7JWcSlJ2pHivog&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjmaL6Q1r3oAhXOVhUIHTPlDrAQ6AEwA3oECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=ulster%20revival%20lancet&f=false

The Ulster Revival began near Ballymena in 1857 and over the following two years reported one hundred thousand conversions, not ten thousand as I incorrectly noted in the previous blog. The more I read into this religious and social upheaval, the more I realised I had underestimated its influence on lives of my father and his family, and indeed on my own. One hundred and fifty years later an upbringing in the Presbyterian church still resonates with this revival. This story, in two parts, could be that of Robert McWilliams, my Great Grandfather born in 1822 and who died around 1906.

“In the year of 1858, all that time ago, at a prayer meeting in Connor of a Saturday evening, a saw the Light, was saved by the Grace of God. A changed man a was, many didnay believe it. At the start of that year the Master a was workin tay said he’d give me one more chance, told me if a went to those meetings in Connor maybe they would turn me around, cause he coundnay.  A took his word and a wheen of us went down tay Connor one fine Saturday afternoon in December. A year later a was born again in Jesus, ma terrible sins all washed away.

On a wee farm a land near Glarryford there were nine of us born and reared, more an two hours walk from the town. A wet patch of ground where the flood would oft come up tay the house. We were workin as soon as we able, some going tay the weavin, an always plenty a food on the table for young an old. A good Christian family we were. But a got one scutch on the ear too many from Daddy and cut out for the town on me own, way nothing but the clothes a was standin in. A had a fierce temper then, an no respect. But a felt a was well able tay look after maself, went tay Ballymena an took the first job a was offered. A was big and strong, any work was easy and a always had pennies in ma pocket.

A had no interest in God or any church an was soon dallyin way Kathleen, a wee catholic girl, she worked in the kitchen up in the Castle. We were well got up tagether, livin as man an wife, in the wee room we had in Bridge Street.  When I think on it now, the Devil blindin me tay ma sins.

When she left tay go home tay Moneyglass a sore missed ma family.  Afore long a started runnin after the wee still, anywhere a could find it. Of a fair day there be nay work atall and likely none the next either.  Daddy sent ones after me, but they had no say over me. A was committin sins then a donay want tay think about in this life, or the next. An then the Master put it up to me and by the Grace of God a found salvation in that house in Connor.

In the Connor School House a met the Reverend Moore and first converts who were taking Bible study and prayin, about thirty of us all tagether. They told us tay read the Bible, see the truth of it ourselves, an pray that Jesus would save sinners like us from Hell’s eternal fires. It was like they were talkin just tay me that day, a felt ma heart swell, beatin in ma chest, and a knew a had come tay the right place. James, one of the converts, said he would teach me how to read.  He showed me the words and gave me the understandin of it. A held the Holy Book in ma rough hands that night, a grown man tryin hard tay stop frae shakin.

A was soon able to read a few words, an in no time a could read the first verses from John Chapter 3. James stood me up at one of the prayer meetings, a read a few verses, everyone listenin, tay me – a drunkard, a fornicator, a terrible sinner.

‘Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, Verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’

Ma head was spinnin when a sat down, the crowd murmurin “Praise the Lord”, a’ll never forget it tay ma dyin day.

When the Spring came prayer meetings and bible studies were goin on all day and night. In the school house, in the church, in folks houses, and sometimes in barns or outside. Those uns already saved were takin the meetins.  They hadnay much learnin themselves but they all knew their Bible. The ones with big strong voices did the best preachin, a think. Boys a dear, what nights there were, sometimes a didnay get home tay near dawn.”

Concludes next blog.

Hugh and Lizzie Mc Williams were my paternal grandparents. They were born in Ballymena about 1879. I recall little of them or their lives; they are in shadow, I am unable to see them. Working on this series of stories has thrown up regular surprises and no less so here where I discovered another family that faced financial ruin in times of change.

My grandfather and namesake Hugh McWilliams died when I was a toddler. With his wife Lizzie they lived in a 2-up-2-down terrace house on the hill on Princess Street in Ballymena. The house, near the train station, became my second home where my Aunts, Lily and Martha doted on us children. To my mother, a stranger to the town, this came as welcome family support. These regular visits to 45 Princess Street established an order that would run into my teenage years.

Although my grandmother Lizzie died when I was ten, I have little sense of her, my memory unyielding. If pressed, she is a ghost-like figure, standing at the return on the stairs, dark in her long blue pinafore over a woollen skirt, her grey hair tied back in a bun, an aged face masked behind large round glasses. She looks at me without expression, yet stern, comes down towards me, heavy black shoes ring hollow on the lino-covered treads. At the bottom of the stairs she turns and goes into the back room and scullery. I’m on my own in the dark hallway.

Hugh was born in 8 Alexander Street one of 5 children. When I was running about the town the street was ready for demolition to make way for a new road, a few occupants left. We thought it a slum, called it Clabber Street.

All his siblings had a trade; he was a coachbuilder, James a shoemaker, Elizabeth a spinner, Catherine a dress maker, James a cabinet maker, while his father Robert was a labourer.

Hugh and Lizzie Logan and were married in Kells Presbyterian Church in 1908, five miles from their home church on Wellington Street in Ballymena. They were strongly religious, enforcing regular bible study, believing in strict Sunday observance and regular church attendance. Hugh was an active Orangeman in the Galgorm Parks Lodge; its Lambeg drums often beating their practice rhythms across the green countryside on a warm June evening.

This Kells Church had been at the epicentre of the Ulster Revival with the first convert in late 1857. The following two years it spread to Ahoghill, Ballymena and beyond claiming over 10,000 converts; those who with deep personal conviction, repented their former sins, claimed Jesus as their Lord and Saviour and were “born again”.

At the Revival’s height prayer meetings and bible studies, taken mostly by lay preachers were running from morning to night. The conversions were marked by prostrations, visions, and speaking in tongues – scenes not typical of the dour Ulster stereotype – and resulted in disruptions to ordinary work and business, frowned upon by some traditional Calvinists. Hugh’s parents, certainly influenced by the Ulster Revival, were likely converts at one of these meetings. The influence of the Revival was felt for decades to come and is still viewed as a highwater mark of Christian renewal; in Ulster most converts swelled the Presbyterian congregations.

By the age of thirty Hugh had a successful business and the couple had their first two children, Mary called May and Lizzie called Lily. He had an established coach building enterprise with several employees, operating out of a workshop behind his home in Albert Place.

Misfortune befell him with the introduction of the motor car. Challenged by a reduced demand for coaches and carts his business collapsed. With his employees gone he took whatever work he could get, maintaining a small workshop until he retired. By 1915 the family had moved to a rented house in Princess Street where my father was born. These events may have affected Hugh’s health; in his later life he was a very shy man, uncomfortable in company, particularly female company.

Hugh and Lizzie were at my parents’ wedding in Manorhamilton Parish Church and after in Sligo Town in 1950. In an informal wedding picture outside the church they look frail and slightly out of place.  Hugh died a few years later in 1954. His coffin was appropriately placed in a carriage drawn by two black horses. In his honour the Galgorm Parks Orange Lodge with its Lambeg drums and band would, for some years, stop in respect outside his Princess Street home, on their way to the annual 12^th of July celebrations.  My Grandmother, Lizzie died in February 1961 and they are buried together in Ballymena Cemetery.

Ends.

The years 2016 to 2022 are the 100-year anniversaries of a period of revolutionary change in Ireland covering the Easter Rising to Irish Independence and partition, the establishment of Northern Ireland. In these stories I have tried to imagine how this often-violent time influenced the lives of my grandparent’s generation, the Davis and Gillmor families in north Co Leitrim; firstly, to look back a few generations.

In 1782 and 1798 John Davis from Glenboy and Robert Davis from Lurganboy were signatories on two letters to Lord Clements, the local landlord.  The first requested help to alleviate the declining fortunes of Manorhamilton including the rights to re-establish distilleries, the need for an annual and quarterly court sittings and support for the linen and yarn trade.

The second letter asked Lord Clements to influence the government to build a proper barracks for troops in Manorhamilton citing “the frequent robberies and murders committed in these and adjoining parts by people called Defenders and other daring violators of law and peace”.  It was in this year that the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland was launched to govern the growing numbers of Loyal Orange Institutions set up to counter the perceived threat from the Defenders and others.

As tenant farmers the Davis’s sympathies lay with the Protestant Ascendancy and a continuing link with England, not surprising given they were part of a minority Protestant community, close to Ulster, with roots in the 17-century plantation.

At the height of the Famine, Thomas Davis, born in Glenboy in 1827 joined the Dublin Metropolitan Police leaving the farm he shared with his brother. Thomas was a member of a Cavan Orange Lodge LOL 177, previously the Cavan Militia. In 1861 he emigrated to Canada leaving his pregnant wife Frances and their three young children at Boggaun, circumstances which suggest some haste. Frances and her children made the arduous journey on their own the following year.

In Canada, Thomas claimed a settler’s plot north of Toronto. He Joined the local Orange Order and his obituary tells that “Bro Davis … was connected with the 36^th Battalion and served his country during the Fenian raid in 1866.” This is likely to have been at the Battle of Ridgeway, a skirmish in Southern Ontario.

The Famine fuelled the drive for land reform and a vigorous political campaign for Home Rule begun late 1800’s. This was met with general hostility from the Protestant community, opposition focused by Unionist and Orange groups. Significant Protestant emigration out of Leitrim and Ireland began during this time.

In North Leitrim there were 6 orange lodges: Glenboy, Manorhamilton, Bohey, Kinlough, Gortinar, Tullyskearney, Bohey being the largest, reflecting a concentration of Protestant small farmers. Protest meetings against Home Rule were organised throughout the country. In June 1912 a large meeting of farmers in Manorhamilton, which was addressed by the Unionist, Major Crofton, spilled out of the market-house onto the street.  It is most likely that the Davis and Gillmor families were represented.

At the height of opposition in 1914 there were four Ulster Volunteer branches in Co Leitrim, the only ones outside Ulster. The Volunteers were a unionist militia founded to block Home Rule.  The strength of Protestant dissent varied from area to area depending on the makeup of the community and the presence of radical leaders or firebrands.

Alick (Alexander) Davis farmed at Glenboy and in 1890 he was Worshipful Master (Chairman) of the local Glenboy Orange branch.  His wife, Sarah’s family, the Mealys (O’Malley) were similarly active in the nearby Tullyskearney lodge. In 1894 the annual Soiree of the Glenboy Lodge was held in Alick’s house and a report of the meeting outlines the tea and cakes, recitations, and opposition to Home Rule. The Parish clergyman Rev Isaac Coulter present at Alick’s house that evening counselled restraint saying that they disapproved to a break with England and not with our Catholic neighbours or their religion, a message he repeated elsewhere.

With the outbreak of WWI in July 1914 all Protestant opposition to Home Rule in the North West ended. Despite many local Unionists travelling by train to Edward Carson’s Ulster Day rally in Enniskillen, few Leitrim Protestants heeded his subsequent call to join Kitchener’s WW1 Army. Meanwhile, Protestant emigration continued but had not yet peaked.

During the War of Independence (1919 – 21) there was sporadic low-level intimidation of Protestants in Leitrim. While the IRA’s target was the British Army and RIC there was no systematic campaign against Protestants. Those with ardent Unionist views or who were suspected as being British spies or informers, drew attention to themselves, and some were shot. In May 1922 seven Protestant farmers at Carrigeencor, near Bohey were put out of their homes to accommodate refugees from Belfast, where open warfare during March, April and May that year had claimed 170 lives, with many more casualties and displaced families. The Carrigeencor families were back in their homes a few days later following political representations, some getting compensation. (One of these farms, at Rockmount was purchased by my brother Nigel in the late 1970s.)

As Independence and partition became a reality in 1921 there was no visible Protestant resistance. A local Methodist minister Revd Walmsley remembered, perhaps with some exaggeration, that ‘Round Manorhamilton there was a regular stampede of Protestants’ – leaving. By then, perhaps there was a sense of the inevitable, that all had been lost; those who felt most aggrieved sold up and left, while those who remained kept their heads down and got on with their lives.

My Grandfather Richard’s older siblings had grown up in pre-revolutionary Ireland. His brother James joined the Army and died in Ireland aged twenty-seven, possibly having seen action in an African Colonial war; Robert, at eighteen, joined the Royal Artillery at Ebrington Barracks in Derry in 1886, and on completing his twelve years’ service he joined the RIC, retiring to live with his wife in Co Sligo. William emigrated about 1900 to South Africa to join the South African Constabulary, policing captured Boer republics.

Of the two eldest brothers, Thomas had emigrated to Canada in 1886 while John settled in Co Meath in 1912. Alex was at this time in Co Meath. (see earlier story Alex Davis) Richard as the youngest was eventually the only brother left on the farm. One month before Armistice Day in 1918 he married Annie Gillmor. Richard’s only sister Mary Jane continued to live at Boggaun. (See pervious blog Mary Jane Davis.)

Most of my Grandmother Annie’s siblings were young teenagers during this tumultuous period, 1916-1922. Her eldest brother Herbert, however joined the Irish Guards in 1916 at twenty-three and was discharged as “medically unfit” after two years, having suffered nerve gas injuries in the WW1 trenches. A couple of years later emigrated to Alberta in Canada. (See earlier story “Finding Bertie Gillmor”.) Annie’s two sisters married and remained in Ireland; by 1945 all her six brothers had emigrated or moved to Northern Ireland.

In a young Ireland asserting its independence most remaining Protestant families felt it wise to keep quiet, mourning the loss and separation of partition; Orange sashes were hidden or destroyed, family histories censored and suppressed, under a blanket of silence.

Ends

Notes

Letter 1782 signed by John and Robert Davis is found in the Clements Estate records, Killadoon Papers, National Library of Ireland.

Letter 1798 quoted in A Flame Now Quenched, Rebels and Frenchmen in Leitrim 1793-1798, Liam Kelly, original source National Library of Ireland.

For more details of the Battle of Ridgeway and the Canadian Fenian Wars see https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/battle-of-ridgeway-1866

The Protestant experience of revolution in County Leitrim, 1911-1928, Miriam Moffitt, a detailed account of this period. https://www.academia.edu/39614775/The_Protestant_experience_of_revolution_in_County_Leitrim_1911-1928

Thanks to Quincey Dougan for the paper cutting on the Glenboy Orange Lodge Soiree 1890.

Alexander (Alick) Davis, Glenboy 1830-1906, was my Great Granduncle.

“You’re suggesting we break into the school – when we’re about to break out!”

We are in the small front room of Joan’s house in Ballymena on a late April evening as the days lengthen. There’s a piano against the wall, we are sitting on the floor around a low table, a record player in the corner plays The Beatles “Let It Be”. The 1971 A-level exams are two months away, the end of classes some weeks before that.  We are planning a stunt at the school, a farewell gesture, but not everyone is sure about it.

A week later and back in Joan’s house, all six of us are now on board with a plan to stage a short performance at morning assembly; the piano is central. We rehearse the piece many times until we are confident we can pull it off. It involves basic physics and electricity. Joan’s mother is never fazed when we regularly take her piano apart.

There is indeed a childish element to the prank, wanting to get our own back in some way. The headmaster of The Academy, Willie Moll, is an uncompromising disciplinarian. He has left a mark on all of us. If we get this right, maybe we can bring a smile to his face.

To set the piece up we must break into the school.  There is a rumour that security dogs patrol nightly after other end-of-school pranks, but a teacher tells us otherwise.

At 2 am one cloudy night in May, with an occasional crescent moon breaking through, five of us gathered in a lane way on the edge of town. We carried the few items we needed over the cross-country track at the boundary, across the pitches and running track, up to the rear of blocky school building, hoping we haven’t been seen.  The night is quiet except for the occasional bark of a distant dog. Climbing in through a changing room window left open earlier, we stepped into the empty school.

Quiet as mice we walked through the dark corridors, familiar yet errie. In the assembly hall we closed the blackout curtains and put on a few lights. We were nervous and a short break for tea and coffee from a vending machine helped settle us to the task.  One of us kept a constant watch on the caretaker’s house some 200 yards away.

Forty-five minutes later we have modified the piano, set up the other equipment and putting everything back in place. We left no trace, no empty coffee cups, no signs of ever being there. Then we went out of the school and across the pitches by the same route, and home.

The Academy had a morning routine of assembly like many schools; a hymn, a prayer and announcements. The teaching staff in their black robes sit in rows behind the headmaster. He stands behind a small lectern out front. To the right of the stage as you looked on is the piano and the pianist. Heavy black curtains frame the stage left and right and students sit facing it.

Assembly should have livened up when the pianist, accompanying the hymn struck Middle C for the first time, but when she did nothing happened. After the hymn she is observed gently nudging the key, aware that something is not right on the piano.

The headmaster finished his announcements, glanced over his shoulder as the staff rise to leave, scanned the assembled pupils, raised himself on his toes and leaned forward to clearly announce “Cla.a..” as the pianist finally liberated Middle C and John Lennon’s guitar intro to “I feel fine” cut through the assembly hall from somewhere above the piano. Teachers still on the stage turned sharply, the pupils about to rise stopped, the headmaster froze.

“Baby’s good to me, you know
She’s happy as can be, you know
She said so
I’m in love with her and I feel fine”

A few seconds after the Beatles launched into “I Feel Fine”, up in the lighting rigging, two small boxes are pulled over by a thread wound around the record player’s spindle. Confetti spilled out in a colourful cloud, falling over the headmaster, over the stage and out onto the students on the floor.

The song played just over 2 minutes by which time the last pieces of confetti have fluttered to the floor. What took place during this time, we can only imagine.

Those of us, including Joan, that planned it and carried it out – and we were never caught – have had to satisfy ourselves with second-hand accounts, and in the story’s regular retelling. What we do know is that assembly that day broke up in a buzz of excitement and noise, never witnessed before.

Ends

Ena McWilliams, nee Davis (1923-2013), my mother, worked in SJ Gillmor’s shop in Dromahair during The Big Snow of 1947, when she was twenty-four. The Gillmor’s were cousins on her mother’s side. Her memories of that time form the basis of this story.

“Cassie! Cassie! Come into my bed I’m freezing I can’t sleep. Bring your blankets!” Ena called across the dark room.

It wasn’t the first time I slept in Ena’s bed that winter. Our attic room above the shop, under the slates, the water jug frozen in the basin, the little roof window covered by Jack Frost, and outside the moon lit village deep under snow. And the next day we were going to Ena’s place, if we could make it through.

Ena and I worked in Gillmor’s in Dromahair, in the shop and yard.  Sometimes she looks after the Gillmor childer, she’s well used to it with plenty at home. I come from Fermanagh and had been there for about a year.

Last December, before Christmas the wind came hard from the East and soon everything was frozen and white, day and night.  I thought the turn of the year might bring a change but devil the bit of it! We wore our heavy coats all the time, often two pairs of stockings, warm tea in the kitchen was always bliss.

Then in the middle of February the snow came. There was a blizzard for a full two days. Everything stopped. The shop stayed closed. The roads and railway were blocked. No one ventured out at all, you couldn’t. The day after it stopped a few hungry souls started to move about, dug their way out probably, came in for what supplies we had. It was another 2 weeks before we got deliveries again, the train was the first to bring bread from Coyle’s bakery in Manorhamilton a few miles away.

I went out after the blizzard, but I couldn’t get far.  There was a wind that would cut you to the bone and I didn’t recognise the village in the dazzling light, deep snow everywhere. Drifts were 10 foot high, up to the eaves of the bigger houses.  Some cottages were completely smothered, a chimney’s wispy smoke rising above the snow.

Mr. Gillmor kept us busy clearing snow to keep the front and back doors open, in case anyone came, each night a good deal of it would be blown back again. In the yard, the snow was up to our waists, that took a couple of days to clear but the work kept us warm, and we had fun in it when the old man was out of the way. We were lucky having the electric light, it came from Jeiter’s mill on the river, it rarely went out. In the evening we stayed in the kitchen listening to the radio for as long as we could, and then went off to our cold beds.

After a good breakfast eaten in the warm kitchen, we put on plenty of clothes and set out to Ena’s on the snowy roads.  Ena filled her pockets with sweets for children and neighbours met along the way, a regular Wednesday routine when she would cycle home on the shop’s half day. I had met some of her brothers in Dromahair, big handsome fellas they were. We sent a message on the bus that we would be there for the 1 O’Clock dinner on Saturday and we’d stay the night. I was excited but fretting about the six mile walk through the snow. Ena told me not to worry, she’d cycled home many’s a time in the pitch dark. Still, it wasn’t like this, I thought at the time.

The day was bright, no snow had fallen for a few days, the sharp wind had dropped. We left the village, passed the castle and crossed the bridge over the Bonet River, thrilled to be away from the shop and the village where we’d been cooped up for so long. A few wee boys threw snowballs at us from behind the walls of the bridge, but we ran past them not wanting to delay.

Two long weeks it had been, waiting for the roads to open, with the men’s constant work clearing the drifts, many to appear again by the next morning. We met few cars that day, those we did zig zagging around the drifts trying to keep on the hard road. Near the railway station we helped push out of a drift. Warm work it was but some sweets helped us recover.

We thought about going a longer way past Carrigeencor lake. It had long frozen over and there were usually a crowd of young people playing there. Some of the boys were now walking all the way across it. But we decided to stick to the main road.

Along Sox Line the drifts were deeper, and we pushed each other down into the soft snow, shouting and laughing. The few houses along the road heard us coming and came out to greet us and exchange news, Ena knew them all. The offers of hot tea were sadly refused, we were taking longer than we’d expected. Our supply of sweets running low, the first signs of tiredness set in as our feet dragged in the deeper snow.

“The Bonet runs deep and dangerous just over the hedge there.” Ena said as we walked on. 

“A few have drowned in there.”

“I can see nothing, hear nothing. Don’t be scaring me.” I replied, the silence now eerie, on such a beautiful day.

Another mile or so on we stopped to rest at Ena’s old school at Mullaghduff and sucked the last of the sweets. The black summit of O’Donnell’s Rock stood stark against the white landscape, the snow blown to drift on the lower slopes.

“Only another mile now.” Said Ena as we saw a group of five children playing on the road ahead.

“It’ll be the Giblins and Kellys – trouble.”

“Here comes Ena with the sweets!” they shouted when they saw us.

“No! No! I have none today!” she called as we got closer.

“Ye are not getting through if we don’t get sweets!” they chanted over and over.

We stopped a short distance off. Snowballs are thrown at us. Half-heartedly we threw a few back, but we’re very tired now, so in the end we made a dash through them, taking a good few hits as we did.

They heard the ructions up at the Larkfield farmhouse, they told us later.

“Ye better have sweets on the way back or yo’ll get the same!”  They shouted after us.

“We’ll be waiting!”

“Póg mo Thóin!” Ena shouted back at them.

We stopped briefly, taking off our coats to shake out the snow, then trudged on, the house now in sight.

Turning off the road onto the lane, it comes to us, stopped us in our snowy tracks, a waft of wonderful cooking smells drifting over the snowy field, from the house above on the hill.

We are laughing, giggling, with relief mostly, two silly girls, when Ena pushed me over in the into the deep snow at the side of the lane. I gasped as snow’s rubbed in my face and I hear her laughing.

“Come on! The dinners ready! Don’t forget to wash your face first.”

And she is running up the lane towards the house, towards the best dinner of my life.

Ends

Notes

The first picture is taken from the Donegal Weather Channel facebook site. For more see   https://www.facebook.com/DonegalWeatherC/posts/the-big-snow-of-1947-ireland-in-pictures/763021333807618/

Reco Davis (1921-2011) is my mother’s eldest brother, my uncle. In 1957 he married Dorothy McElroy (1925-1993) and they lived at Woodhill, Bunnanadden, Co Sligo, Dorothy’s home, where they had a mixed farm. We are on Christmas holidays at my Grandparent’s farm at Boggaun in Co Leitrim and make a yearly visit to Woodhill.

On a Christmas visit to Bunnanadden in Co Sligo I first hear of the Black and Tans.

The days are short and the 25-mile journey from Boggaun in Co Leitrim is not one my father likes. We are visiting my Uncle Reco and Aunt Dorothy at Woodhill in Co Sligo. It’s always a journey with some winter hazard. The roads are often icy.  There’s fog or sometimes floods. By the time we return to our Grandparent’s farm that night we are fast asleep in the darkness of back seat, some of us lying across my mother’s lap.

Dorothy puts on a tremendous spread in the dining room, another Christmas dinner complete with a roast goose, ham, cold meats and all the trimmings, Christmas pudding and custard, mince pies and offerings of juice, sherry and wine.  She has lots of nervous energy and can’t do enough to make us welcome; when he’s not working Reco is easy going and draws on a regular Sweet Afton. Dorothy is very affectionate towards us; they have no children. Ned, hired by the previous generation as a farm labourer, is now part of the family but is away for the evening.

When we can eat no more, we go down to the lower room where a log is thrown on the fire to raise a flame. The room is warm and a single shaded-bulb casts a low soft light. Occasionally the wind moans in the chimney. I know a 2-fingered version of Chopsticks and I tentatively play it on the old piano.

Dorothy comes into the room and quietly says

“I haven’t heard that tune for so long.”

Standing with her back to the piano and with a serious look on her face Dorothy tells her mother’s story of a Black and Tan search of the farmhouse, on a night just like this, a couple of years before she was born. This is Dorothy’s mother’s story.

**

I was the first to hear the motor coming up the lane and ran to look out.

“It’s the police. It’s the police!” I shouted.

My father opened the door to be told that they were searching for guns. They ignored his mild protest that we have no guns and anyway why would they be looking here. The house and sheds would be searched.

The rest of us were huddled in the kitchen, not knowing what was happening.  I heard the heavy boots clumping up the stairs, going from room to room, opening and closing doors, knocking on the walls. We were shocked and scared.

It was a few days after Christmas Day and my sister and her family were coming over that night, the lamps and fires were lit in the good rooms.

After they gave up searching, the six of them gathered in lower room, where the piano is, warming themselves around the fire. We were all more relaxed by then. Really, they hadn’t given us too much trouble and had stacked their rifles up against the end of the piano, hanging their caps on the muzzles.

“You play the piano luv?” one of them asked me in a strong London accent, but I just looked shy and when I didn’t answer he said.

“No? Well, some hot tea would be nice then.”

Daddy nodded at me and I went to make them tea. From the kitchen I heard them laughing, then somebody started to play a rough version of Chopsticks.

“Common Joey boy give us something to dance to!”

He just played it faster.

As I came in with the tea they pretended to dance, the floor and room swaying.

“Georgie! stop dancin your too fat, you’ll bring down the floor!” The loud one, Sam, says.

“Sorry luv, we don’t often get a chance to have some fun.”

“Cept when we’re shooting chickens, Sam, eh?” One of them says, raising a laugh.

Before taking up their mugs of tea I see some of them put their cigarettes down on the piano keys.

“Ahh, nice tea luv. U married yet?”

“In a few months.” I said, and with my heart beating fast I turned stiffly and left them to my father and brothers.

When I came in with fresh tea the cigarette butts had burned out on the ivory keys. I wanted to cry seeing the piano I played on, practiced my church music on, desecrated.

**

“There now!” says Dorothy in conclusion, pointing to the heavy brown stains on the keys.

“That’s what they left behind. Weren’t they the terrible blackguards?”

My eyes are fixed on the cigarette burns. A log crackles in the hearth. The wind rises suddenly, growling in the chimney as a gust passes, and then settles.

Ends

Note

For an informative article on the Black and Tans and historical the context see Diarmaid Ferriter’s Irish Times, 7^th Jan 2020, Black and Tans: “Half-drunk, whole-mad and” and one-fifth Irish. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/black-and-tans-half-drunk-whole-mad-and-one-fifth-irish-1.4113220