Normal
weekday weather service.
Back to
the usual April weather. I think, well I know if it was dry and sunny every day
in Donegal the land would be parched, probably a desert no less. So after sunny
Saturday normal service returns for the weekdays, sunshine and showers on a
stiff north westerly breeze. The blackthorn blossom in the garden is swinging
with the wind, waving like so many arms at a cheesy boy band concert. There's
green tinge on the silver birches on the edge of the fields, the shiny holly
leaves hold on, but not for dear life, the tree itself would go over before
they let loose. The big old ash sprouts some small buds, it's biding its time,
the wise old thing it is. A song thrush roots among the grounded ivy, stands
tall now and again a quick scan then back to business. Earlier when we were out
with Poppy the Jack Russell, there was a pheasant croaking in the undergrowth,
the undergrowth reclaiming a cleared site (with planning for 3 houses!)
although with the recession in Ireland ending I hope the reclaimed site is not
re-reclaimed, there are so many empty houses, half finished houses, empty sites
and derelict properties surely the house cropping won't start again will it?
Unfortunately there's no money in providing homes for dunnocks. Spring time,
the swallows are reappearing. Lambs leap, feed and run, a tiny calf it's
stringy umbilicus not fallen yet, shelters from the breezy showers, it leans
into the remains of the old stone wall, stone probably from Cnoc Colbha, or
maybe from the stone circles that used to sit here.
Looking out over Mulroy Bay or Cuan na Maoil Ruaidh, the
various sea foods are being farmed, bringing much needed employment and feeding
the local restaurant goers. Many years ago steamers would have been chugging
over the sea farm spots, heading up to Milford - Baile na
nGallóglach (town of an elite
section of medieval Scottish fighters), the ships would bring tourists heading
for Rosapenna to the golf links designed by 'Old Tom Morris', my mum won a cup
there when she was young. The tourists were taken up by carriage for their golf,
it seems in the mid 20th century you might have seen John Wayne or Errol Flynn
there. Back to Cuan na Maoil Ruaidh, there's a crumbling jetty at now empty
Milford bakery up at the southern head of the winding sea inlet. Milford bakery
ruinous, sitting like an easten european relic not thawed from the cold war, if
it sounds bleak it would have square, sharp beauty in another place. The bakery
would have played a large part in my grandad's life, Pat Kelly was a bread
agent, his vehicles would have traversed the area, as well as running his shop
in Kerrykeel, I often sat on the open boot lid of his Mini jumping off to delivery
milk to the people in their caravans at Rockhill where Mr McElhinny held sway,
cold happen now, but was Ok on the sixties.
We went out for a drive, up past the bakery and
skirted Milford, out to Bunlin bridge, I'm fairly sure Colmcille put a curse on
some fishermen here, you wouldn't want to cross a saint, that can be a tale for
another time, better to cross a bridge. We were heading for Downings - Na Dúnaibh, more of which below. From Bunlin bridge
we passed the Mass Rock, hidden
away in the udergrowth, far from prying eyes wary of the Papish threat which
scared all the 'brave' invaders from Cromwell on, word of mouth would get the
mass times out, the the back roads, paths and lanes would fill. Next to wood
quarter, Cratlagh wood where a Leitrim met an end, that's worth reading, so
I've tacked a bit on at the end of the road trip. Cranford- Creamhghort, Logues
here, a large inn often hosting country and western music, so beloved of the
people of Donegal highlands, I struggle with it though, more Pink Floyd for me.
Anyway the Logues here must be related to 'my' Logues, settled at least from
the late 18th century on this side of Maoil Ruaidh in Dunmore. Carrigart -
Carraig Airt, is next on our trip to Na
Dúnaibh, worth a blog entry to itself so I will later. Na Dúnaibh then is the
next place, when the sea level rises as it surely will given the propensity for
humanity to kick itself up the bum, Na Dúnaibh will be an island, it just looks like Cuan na Maoil Ruaidh cant wait to re-join
with it's long lost Atlantic cousin Cuan na gCaorach (Sheephaven bay, that's
for another blog too).
Na Dúnaibh, Downings is on a sweeping beach
from the pier to the afoer mentioed Rosapenna. The pier hosts a gun rescued gun
from HMS Laurentic (see below), there's also an anchor from a Greek ship the
Caliope, also torpedoed in the second world war. These two black painted
memories of violent deaths, I can't imagine it.
There is also a poignant memorial to the locals who died at sea. The
pier used to hold a huge Herring fleet, now there a sea fishing charters,
surely all the Herring aren't gone? There's a café where you cn get a cup of
tea, some cake, sandwiches and other vittals. McNutts there weave and sell
their wares. Then the Harbour Bar is surely worth a pint.
Ba mhaith liom pionta, le do thoil, tog go bog e.
Leitrim.
William
Sydney Clements succeeded his father the second earl Leitrim in 1854, he set
about a regime which even his contemporaries thought disastrous (albeit because
of it's likely outcome of fomenting uprising).
Clements had his agent James Wray embark on a system of eviction and
rent bullying.
"Tenants who
incurred Leitrim’s displeasure were evicted, as were those who sheltered or
supported the evicted; to smooth the legal process of eviction, all his tenants
were served notices-to-quit every April (in some instances printed on the back
of rent receipts), enabling Leitrim to evict them if he so chose when the
notices expired six months later. 66 This approach to estate management
perturbed even conservative opinion; as early as 1857, the Londonderry
Sentinel, the north-west’s main Tory newspaper, was warning that Leitrim’s
‘bearing towards his tenants’ would inflame ‘evil passions’ and reduce many
families to destitution. 67 These passions were already evident: that March,
three men disguised as sailors stopped Wray’s car on the road between Fortstewart
and Rathmelton, but finding that he was not travelling in it they let the
driver proceed; the resident magistrate warned Wray that he knew ‘beyond doubt’
that his life was in danger. The late 1850s and early 1860s witnessed violent
confrontations over the right to gather seaweed and wreck timber, and bitter
controversy about the allocation of new holdings. Protracted litigation followed in the late
1860s and 1870s when occupiers began to go to court as ‘tenants’ to compel
Leitrim to fulfil his legal responsibilities; the insistence on ‘legal rights’,
which owners had used to obliterate the sub-tenant strata, was becoming the
whip that would scourge them. Fánaid finally
dealt with Leitrim the old way. On the morning of Tuesday 2 April 1878, Michael
Heraghty of Tullyconnell, Neil Shiels of Doaghmore and Michael McIlwee of
Ballyhoorisky ambushed and assassinated him at Cratlagh Wood, as he travelled
from his residence at Manorvaughan towards Milford. Charles Buchanan, his
driver, and John Makim, his clerk, also died in the attack. Heraghty and Shiels
were Fenians; McIlwee was a Ribbonman. None of them was ever convicted of
murder. Heraghty, the only one of the three arrested and charged, died of
typhus while awaiting trial in Lifford Gaol. Although Heraghty was a journeyman
tailor, one of the most lowly occupations in rural society, some 3,000 mourners
wearing green rosettes, led by 20 cars and followed by 200 horsemen, met his
cortège as it entered Fánaid. McIlwee apparently died of fever a few years
later, but Shiels, another journeyman tailor, lived out his life in the
peninsula, dying in 1924; he rarely spoke about the assassination." from
"The Outer Edge of Ulster: A Memoir of Social Life in Nineteenth-Century
Donegal" by Hugh Dorian, Breandán Mac Suibhne, Hugh Dorain
