Inverbrena 2005

Inverbrena 2005

Memories from the Strangford Area

A Note on “Inverbrena”

The name first appears in the Annals of the Four Masters as ‘Inver Brena’ – the mouth of the Bren river and identifies the narrow neck of water through which the tide rushes into Loch Cuan.

Chairman’s Note.

I welcome you all to the 2005 edition of our Annual Journal.

The Inverbrenna Local History Group is celebrating their 10th Anniversary and over the years a good collection of memories, stories, histories and photographs have been published.

This year we have included a photographic section as there is nothing better to recall memories, faces and places than old photographs so perhaps they may inspire thought in the population and to write an article for future years.

All are very welcome to our monthly meetings on the 3rd Friday of the month when we enjoy reminiscences of times past and try to record them before it is too late.

Bobby Magee

“For the olden memories fast are flying from us, Oh! That some kind hand would come And bind them in a garland e’re the present hardens And the past grows cold and dumb.”

Anon.

Cover: Sharvin family & Friends. 1936 Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

1

Contents Strangford Is Not The Same . ...............................P.J. Lennon

page 3

The Valley of Silence by Father Ryan ...................George McKibbin

page 5

Men, Women, Horses and Hounds .......................Willie Crea

page 6

Farewell to the Blacksmith ...................................George McKibbin

page 9

The Blacksmith....................................................George McKibbin

page 10

My Primary School Years and Teens on the Cruck (Ballynarry) . ..................Eleanor Fitzsimons

page 11

Michael Mclaverty - a writer of Lecale ................Sheila Campbell

page 12

A Week in Sharvin’s .............................................Maurice Denvir

page 14

One Day When We Were Young (Patsy Denvir) ........Mary W. Denvir

page 15

Photo Gallery.......................................................Down On The Farm

page 16

Photo Gallery.......................................................In Strangford

page 23

Strangford’s Buses - 1920s ....................................Eamon McMullan

page 30

Stella Maris Public Elementary School .................Michael McConville

page 32

Easter Morning, Ballyculter Mr. John Potter . .......Willie Crea

page 38

I Must Be Gettin’ Old .........................................Maurice Denvir

page 39

Memories . ..........................................................Mary W. Denvir

page 42

The Farmer On Holiday .....................................Rev. W.E. Kennedy

page 43

Snippets (heard at our meetings)

page 43

Extracts from ‘Home Words’ . ...............................Isobel Magee

page 44

Robert Kallaway, Missionary, Explorer and Coastguard Douglas Sloan, Portadown .................George McKibbin

page 48

Photo Gallery.......................................................Members in Session

page 50

Members Down The Years

page 52

Acknowledgments The editor wishes to thank: All members of our group who compiled or submitted the articles, those who trusted us with their pictures for this issue.

Damian & Colin McKee and staff at Flixx Graphics for their professional help and pleasant cooperation at all times.

Down County Council Community Relations Section for their financial conbribution.

P.D. 2

Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

Strangford Is Not The Same

by P.J. Lennon

As the bus rolled along the road towards Kilkenny to begin a short holiday last week I began to think about the village of Strangford I had left behind and how it has changed over the years.

It was a ver y pleasant morning and as I half-dozed I quietly enumerated the shifts and alterations. For instance, a visitor to the village will no longer find The Square in 1955 with The “Square Pump” still in situ the popular nine-hole golf course; nor is he likely to see a potato or coal boat load or discharge at the quayside.

The old open ferryboat is a thing of the past and of course the remarkable individuals who manned them have also passed on.

The ferrymen were wonderful characters and from my home in the village when I was a lad I could stand at a landing window and watch them as they navigated back and forth across the river.

There was something fascinating about them, particularly on a wild winter’s day.

From the stair-head I would watch them dressed in their oilskins, make for the slip in their ungainly gait, help aboard a lone traveller and conduct him or her across the raging tide safely to the other side.

With confidence and determination they would daily, down the years, pilot their sturdy open craft across to Portaferry and back against wind and wave and rarely have I ever heard of them refusing to facilitate a traveller, be they pilgrim, holidaymaker, commuter or peddler.

Today the public are well served by an up-to-date craft with a staff drawn from both sides of the lough. Those who remember the age of the little craft will no doubt also recall the names and the expertise of the ferrymen who were at their beck and call in those years.

Who could forget Tommy Hutton, Johnnie Blaney, Joe Trainor, Sam Orr, Billy McDowell, Tommy and Frank Quail, the McDonnell’s, George the senior and sons John and George.

Every so often I hear these names recalled in conversation and then I begin to wonder just how they ever managed to make a living; but somehow they did.

To the young of us travelling in one direction or the other they were goodness itself. As long as you didn’t interfere with the paying trade or get in the way of the navigator you were rarely refused a passage.

Potato, grain and coal businesses were then operated by local merchants Messrs. Elliott, McMullan and Sharvin and were the source of much local employment.

Colliers who were regularly loaded or unloaded at the quayside were the Wilson, Norman, Point of Ayr, Cumbria, Kelvinside, Wheatsheaf, Wheatfield and Portmeor.

Often I marvelled as the dockers, stripped to the waist began ‘digging down to the ceiling’, which to the untutored looked more like the floor.

Talking to them I was often given the same answer ‘ach its aisy enough once you hit the

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ceiling’.

There were other occasions too when I would stand open-mouthed watching a gang of men working on the quayside carrying sacks of potatoes up a plank, which at times was almost perpendicular.

At the top of the plank with a neat adjustment of the shoulder the ‘carrier’ would transfer the sack from his shoulder to the downward chute then step neatly to the plank running down to the quayside.

Such was their adroitness I never noticed a worker on the quay stumble and fall or keep a comrade too long standing with a bag on his back.

Their work was heavy, continuous and dirty and required a deal of experience and skill. I fear it was a job that few young men would stand in line for these days for the few extra shillings they earned as a result of this brute work.

In her poem ‘The Year Outgrows The Spring’, Ella Wheeler Wilcox observes: ‘Change is the watchword of progression. When we tire of well worn ways, we seek for new’.

These few words prompted me to wonder if change for change sake is really necessary.

It could only have been ‘change for change sake’ that instigated the removal of the old stone keep in the centre of the village we, as children, referred to as the ‘Square Pump’.

Truth to tell it was not a square pump, the stonework was the covering over an ancient wall the pump was nearby.

Strangford was recognised throughout the length and breadth of the country and much further afield by this castle-like edifice.

While it stood, generations of children played their games around it and it was also the meeting place for the local youth and the adults.

Around the pump they would perhaps sit for hours yarning, particularly in the early and mid thirties when work was anything but plentiful.

Originally the seats around the keep were large boulders; then some far-seeing people realising just how much this symbol of the village meant had the uncomfortable stones removed and a concrete base put in.

Well, the ‘square pump’ has long since disappeared yet many who remember it still make the enquiry ‘what has happened to it’.

All the improvers succeeded in doing was to take the heart out of the place; the old pump area was really part of the village’s individuality.

Chatting to a citizen recently he pointed out to me that Strangford today is in effect The Links.

No one can deny it is still an attractive village but the absence of some things has unquestionably altered its personality.

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Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

The Valley of Silence

by Father Ryan. (Collected by George McKibbin) I walk down the Valley of Silence Down the deep voiceless valley alone, And I hear not the fall of a footstep Around me save God’s and my own.

And the hush of my heart is as holy As houses where angels have flown.

Long ago I was weary of voices Where music my heart could not win; Long ago I was weary of noises That fretted my soul with their din; Long ago I was weary of places Where I met but the human and sin.

I walked in the world with the worldly, I craved what the world never gave, And I said – “In the world each ideal, That shines like a star on life’s wave, Is wrecked on the shore of the real, And sleeps like a dream in the grave”.

And still did I pine for the perfect, And still found the false with the true, I sought mid the human for Heaven, And caught a mere glimpse of its blue.

And I wept when the clouds of the mortal Veiled even that glimpse from my view.

And I toiled heart-tired of the human And I moaned mid the mazes of men ‘Till I knelt long ago at an Altar And I heard a voice call me – since then I walk down the Valley of Silence That lies far beyond mortal men.

But my tears are as sweet as the dew-drops That fall on the roses in May. And my prayer, like the perfume from censes, Ascendeth to God night and day.

In the hush of the Valley of Silence I dream all the songs that I sing And the music floats down the dim Valley Till each finds a word for a wing That to hearts, like the dove of the Deluge, Some message of hope they may bring.

But far on the deep there are billows That never shall break on the beach And I have heard songs in the Silence That never shall float into speech And I have had dreams in the Valley Too lofty for language to reach.

And I have seen thoughts in the Valley – Ah me; how my spirit was stirred!

They wear holy veils on their faces, Their footsteps can scarcely be heard.

They pass through the Valley like Virgins Too pure for the touch of a word.

Do you ask me the place of that Valley?

Ye hearts that are harrowed with care, It lieth afar between Mountains And God and His angels are there – And one is the dark Mount of Sorrow And one the bright Mountain of prayer.

Did you ask what I found in the Valley?

‘Tis my trysting place with the Divine, I knelt at the feet of the Holy And above me a voice said, “Be mine”.

And there rose from the depths of my spirit An echo – “My heart shall be thine”.

Do you ask how I live in the Valley?

I weep and I dream and I pray,

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Men, Women, Horses and Hounds.

by Willie Crea

We had all these in the halcyon days pre war when there was a hunt twice a week somewhere in East Down.

Favourite meets were at Bishopscourt four roads and Ringawoody three roads. These two venues were popular because they both opened unto the lands which are now the airfield. Here lay before them the rough grazing of the Bogs”, particularly parts of Lismore, then the quiet open fields of Ringawoody, Bishopscourt, Turkish, Big Ballywooden, Wee Ballywooden, Corbally and Taxi.

Originally East Down Harriers hunted stags, then the quarry became hounds, for hares were more plentiful and more convenient as stags had to be carted to and from each meet.

The hunters comprised of local farmers with their own horses and many visiting riders. There was always a large following of foot enthusiasts who could see all from the high ground at Ringawoody.

Local riders were: Frank Magee, Jim Sharvin, James Crangle, George Martin, Brian Denvir, Seamus Denvir, Fr. McAteer, Fr. McHendry, Fr. Bob Denvir, Hugh Gilchrist and many more.

The hunt was surely very fortunate to have so much spiritual advice available in every field, if needed and if, of course, requested!

James Crangle was a very successful Point to Point rider. He won many races, but his major success was in the Ulster Grand National in Downpatrick on his famous horse Johnny. He was much in demand for his opinion on horses and was unofficial “consultant” to the Castleward lady riders.

Brian Denvir’s horse won at Bright and so did Seamus’s horse Firefly which was sold later to a mainland buyer. Mary Ward won at Bright riding Nicolette and Senan Sharvin’s horse, Clare, had a successful outing ridden by Emmet Sharvin.

To qualify for Point to Point racing, each animal had to be ridden at six hunt meetings either by it’s owner or a deputy. Jim Sharvin was in much demand as a deputy for he was the right weight, the right size and he knew the country. He was a very skilled horseman, being particularly successful at gymkhanas and on Paddy Corrigan’s horse, Black Magic, was almost unbeaten in the county. After many successes Black Magic was sold for a very high figure.

Among our hunters, who were mainly good jumpers, we had our “houghlers”. This was not the name of a hunting family in East Down but it was the name given to the occasional adventurer, usually a newcomer, who, with his or her animal jumped through the fences rather than over them leaving a trail of destruction in his or her wake.

This wasn’t too popular with the landowners especially those with stone walls for it took a lot longer to build one than it took to knock it down. If, however, a farmer complained to the huntsman about repairs he would get some local person to carry them out but usually it was someone without any experience and his efforts usually branded him as another “houghler”.

To get back to the hunting. Ringawoody was a popular meet, for there we had a local scout under the “orders” of Dr Tate who had James Fee primed to reconnoitre the fields prior to the meet and on that day lead the huntsman and hounds to their lairs. Hunting now started immediately and for every successful rise James was awarded half a crown.

In charge of the hunt and hounds was an East Down landowner, Big Tom, who was a very thrustful and eager leader; maybe too thrustful, for one afternoon in Lismore he made a serious navigational error when he jumped into a farmhouse garden instead of into the Lismore “loney”.

The ladies of the house had a full line of washing out and there wasn’t room for everything in the garden, so inevitably Tom and his mare became entangled. Tom furtively looked round to 6

Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

see if anyone was watching as he grappled with the garments. His patience quickly ran out and still fearful of witnesses he galloped into the “loney” and off in pursuit of his hunt; very red in the face but still clawing a fine collection of underwear around his neck.

Little did Tom know that he had been seen and that’s why this little story appears here.

By now the hunt had crossed over the railway bridge into Wee Ballywooden. “Wait a minute Willie, wait a minute, sure you know very well there was no railway bridge within miles of Ballywooden; how could there be a bridge? I doubt you’re further down the road to dotage than I had first thought”.

Wait a minute, dear reader, wait a minute, you had better re-read what you have just read and you will see that I said railway bridge, not line.

Now I had better explain. In 1922 there were ladies riding in the hunt and the fashion was side saddle or saddlery side as the locals knew it. Side saddle was not as secure as astride a horse and Mrs Beamish, trying to jump the Turkish river, unseated herself into the water, and of course was soaked through. She was hurried off to a local huntsman’s house to be dried out. This Mrs Beamish was the mother of Wing Comm George Beamish, who, patrolling the English Channel in heavy mist in his Spitfire on Feb. 1942, was the first to see the German fleet, already through the Straits unseen on their dash back to Germany. He could not use his radio because of German escorting fighters so he quickly returned to base and verbally reported.

But the bridge again. The hunt members, after this incident, and with the consent and cooperation of the landowners built two railway lines over the river and covered them with sleepers. Ever since it has been known as the railway bridge. Tempory fences were erected at each end to keep animals in their own territories.

The hunt did have a variation in it’s activities when a stag took up residence in the “Bogs”.

The hounds in their next meet gave chase. I don’t know what James Fee got for this rise? But the wily old boy was too clever for them. He crossed the river which put them of his scent for a time into Wee Ballywooden, then into Turkish, crossed the river again into Ringawoody, then over the road into Ballyhornan and swam onto Gun’s Island. This was too much for them all and they gave up the chase.

He stayed on the Island about a week and then returned to the “Bogs”. A short time afterwards he disappeared. I suppose he returned to his herd.

Fr McAteer from Ballycruttle was a frequent hunter and inevitably his mare needed shod. After making many enquiries he was advised that Tom King was the best shoer in the district so he and his mare arrived at the shop one morning. Pat, a local farmer, was already there with his “cooter” which needed sharpened. This was an instrument on the body of the plough which cut the grass sod in front of the plough board to make a neat furrow.

Pat was in no hurry and he gave his reverence his “shall”. The mare was not too happy in her new surroundings and would not stand still. The curate did his best to quieten her with quiet words such as “that’s a good girl” and “you’re all right” and “che –che”, but to no avail. Tom had been “spraghling” round the smithy floor with her hind leg between his knees, but he had had enough. He flung the leg down and turned to the curate. “I’m afraid, your reverence, I’ll have to ask you to step outside, for I’ll have to address this animal my way”.

His reverence obeyed but didn’t go too far away for he wanted to hear Tom’s address. He knew nothing about Tom’s addresses to awkward animals but he did not have long to wait for Tom released his full invective on the unfortunate animal. “Pat, get that ‘Touch’ there and put it on pretty tight”. That touch was a wooden shaft with a loop of soft rope at one end; the loop was put over the soft part of the mare’s nose and twisted. This discomfort distracted the animal’s attention so much that Tom was able to continue his shooing with little interference

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from the mare.

The curate, wandering about outside, had been invited into a nearby house for the occupants were well aware of Tom’s addresses and when, eventually, things quietened in the smithy, they advised him that it would be ‘safe’ to return.

Back in the shop he found the mare fully shod, quite content, feet well oiled and no ‘touch’ to be seen.

On his way home he did notice that his mare did a lot of snorting and shaking her head.

Afterwards he confided to his friends that he had learned a lot at Tom Kings.

In 1940 war meant the end of hunting for in 1942 Hitler had conquered Europe and extreme danger loomed for the West. Air bases were urgently needed for defence and training against invasion and air operations against U boats. The flat clay based lands of Lismore, Ringawoody, the Ballywoodens and Turkish were levelled out, families evicted, concrete covered all and Turkish river disappeared underground.

Was hunting gone forever? No, not quite, for in 1944 a new Comm. Officer, Wing Comm.

Evans introduced a new hunt. He brought over from England a pack of beagles, something entirely new to this country; they came by air, and a kennel was made available for them near the control tower where he was in charge.

There were about ten of these lovely little dogs, much smaller than the E.D. hounds, slower but fast enough for Evans and his friends for they followed them on foot. He unleashed them onto the airfield whenever the planes had departed on their afternoon’s exercises. The airfield was excellent hunting ground for many hares resided there unmolested for years and they were friendly disposed to the roaring planes.

All winter men and dogs splashed their way across the airfield in enjoyment, even “trespassing” onto friendly adjoining fields. I don’t think they ever caught any hares but they enjoyed the sport. Evans was a horseman too and quickly made friends with his horsey neighbours.

He arranged for them to have gallops round the perimeter track every Saturday mornings when the planes had gone off on their flights. He got his reward too for a mount was always available for him also.

When the war ended in 1945 and before he departed back to England with his beagles he was given a ride in the novice race at the Farranfad Point to point meeting on a horse belonging to Frank Magee. The horse jumped the first fence well but Evans didn’t and he hit the grass.

The reason? Simple, very simple. His friends, wanting to show how much they had appreciated his company and to wish him well in his race had made him “full”.

“Houghler” awkward – making a mess. “loney”

landway – now avenue.

“Cooter”

invented by a man named Coulter but after time, use and mis-use it became

“cooter”

much easier to the tongue as well.

“Spraghel” to stagger about. Unable to keep one’s

feet due to rough terrain or

circumstances or both.

Shall

a place in a queue.

Full

full of drink or intoxicated.

This era is slowly drifting into oblivion.

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Jim Sharvin on Black Beauty in full flight, winning the cup at Dundrum gymkhana in 1946.The winning height was five feet ten inches.

Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

“Farewell to the Blacksmith”

by George McKibbin

The accompanying photograph which was taken about the 1920s shows Robert Breen standing outside his blacksmiths shop in the townland of “Glebe”, Kilclief. It was sited at what is now known as the junction of the Glebe and Bishopscourt roads where now stands the residence of the Maurice Denvir family.

According to information gleaned from a previous writer there had been a smithy there for upwards of two hundred years in the name of the Breen family; Robert Breen, his father and grandfather were all blacksmiths.

There are many people alive today who not only remember Robert Breen but also his successor the late Tom King.

On leaving school, Tom was apprenticed to Robert and before his apprenticeship of five years was complete Robert passed on from this life, and so Tom was left with the onerous task of carrying on Tom King the trade and so trying to satisfy his many customers in the farming community and beyond.

Tom told of the cost of shoeing a horse in Robert Breen’s time as being five shillings and six-pence (27 1/2 new pence) and when he took over as blacksmith the charge went up to six shillings.

Tom was able to buy one hundred feet of shoeing iron for twenty shillings = £1.00; a hundred weight of Swansea slack for the forge at one shilling and six-pence (7 1/2 new pence) and a ten pound box of horseshoe nails was three shillings and sixpence = 17 1/2 new pence.

To put a “new suit” on a plough; that was, sole, cheek-piece and sock, Tom charged one pound.

Putting a new hoop on a cart wheel was a pound also.

Tom was never idle as he related “if you weren’t shoeing horses or putting a “new suit” on a plough there were plenty of other jobs lying in the corner to be done.

It wasn’t a case of pay on delivery, for a farmer worked on a six month credit basis. Then when you presented the farmer with his account more than often you only got paid a percentage of the amount and you were likely to get the balance at a later date. The best paying customer was the very small farmer or the gypsy who could not afford to run an account.

About twenty years or so ago and a few years to go until he became of pension age, feeling “the pinch of the times” with dwindling custom brought about by this advancing age of the modern tractor and the modern day D.I.Y. enthusiast with his electric welder etc., etc., Tom decided to call it a day and bring to an end his life as a “blacksmith” what was for him a somewhat happy and memorable one, serving his neighbour, he turned the key in the old smithy door for the last time.

At one time there were five blacksmiths shops within a three mile radius of Kilclief. The ring of the smiths’ hammer striking the anvil and the glow of the forge filled one with a sense of nostalgia that will rarely be felt, if ever, in the countryside around here again.

The following poem written by the late Laurence Breen of Kilclief refers in it to Tom King as “I” when Tom took over after the demise of Robert Breen.

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The Blacksmith 1.

Bob Breen he was a man of note, of credit and renown, a blacksmith, he lived and farried, about two miles from Strangford town.

In the noted townland of Kilclief, In the Barony of Lecale, No better blacksmith could you find, Throughout old Innisfail.

2.

But now, alas, I’m sad to say, Bob Breen he is now dead, And I his young apprentice, Am blacksmith in his stead; And well I do remember, Those days now passed away, That I spent within that smithy With Bob so old and grey.

3.

When Bob he struck the iron, Sure I had to strike it too, One blow upon another fast, We fashioned out the shoe.

From break of day to fading eve, We did our daily toil, And fashioned out the old plough-share, To turn the virgin soil.

4.

But fast the hours wore on to days, The days wore on to years, My master Bob began to fail, And took the work in steers;

5.

And then at last there came the time, When Bob was wrapped in clay, Now in his ancient smithy, It is I who hold the sway.

Robert Breen, blacksmith, outside his smithy about 1920

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Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

My Primary School Years and Teens on the Cruck. (Ballynarry)

by Eleanor Fitzsimons

My sister Eithne and I were both born in Strangford. Later my father and mother moved to Ballynarry to a house of Denvirs, now Fr. Gilmore’s residence, when I was three years old.

When we reached school age we attended St. Malachy’s going by the ‘pads’, as we called them, straight across the fields to Kilclief Church. At that time there were quite a few families in Ballynarry.

I was quite soon introduced to camogie at school. Daddy made us sticks, then called ‘cleaks’, cut from a tree and the ball was more often a sock stuffed with rags (in wet weather a disaster).

Life in these days was simple fun, we would gather on the Cruck, (a grassy hillock), maybe a dozen or two, to play hide and seek. We also played camogie, boys and girls, in the wee field behind our house, next to the ‘well field’ where we all got our water. Skittles on the Cruck was also popular.

The best player then was an old man Charlie Cull, who lived beside us. He had only one eye due to an accident chopping sticks, we were told.

As I entered my teens our entire time was spent playing camogie but had to be sixteen years old before we could go to the ceilis, except when we were giving a display of Irish dancing. I remember well one night, after we had displayed our dancing, Fr. Crossan said to my father, “I think it is time these girls were at home and in their beds”. We were mad keen to stay on longer at the ceili but my father quickly escorted us home.

So, as I said earlier, camogie was our only pastime. To get to St. Malachy’s Park to play camogie, we shared the one bicycle between four of us. Rosaleen and Angela Denvir, Eithne and myself, each taking turns to ride or walk along the way. But before going to play a match, especially against Ballycruttle, we crossed the fields to Cargagh Church to light candles and pray to win.

Later on in my teens I played for the County Down team, generally on Sundays, in Monaghan, Belfast or wherever. Getting changed on the bus on the way home from these venues was a bit tricky for we headed straight to the Canon’s Hall (no showers or deodorants in those days).

At that time I was working in Ervines Drapery shop in Downpatrick, so on route to the Canon’s Hall I pushed my camogie stick through the letterbox of the shop, and brought it home the next day.

Having a sister and three brothers who all travelled to school and worked in Downpatrick, we eventually moved there in 1959 and now over forty years later I have returned to the Crew Road, which I still call Ballynarry.

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Michael McLaverty – a writer of Lecale

by Sheila Campbell

In September 2004, Seamus Heaney, once a student with Michael McLaverty, unveiled a plaque erected by the Ulster History Circle at the house in Killard where Michael lived and worked for a while.The occasion marked the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Here his daughter shares some memories of her father in Lecale.

When I think of my father I see him best in two places. On the long path up to Stormont Parliament buildings in East Belfast where he would take us 4 children with our bikes and trikes on a Sunday while my mother made the dinner.

There he taught us to recognise trees in their seasons, birdsong and together we would observe the minutiae of nature; a spider’s web on a misty day (“very cross spiders today” he’d say), a snail’s trail on Michael McLaverty a damp path, a wren’s nest in a hedge. I think now he must have absorbed as much from our child-chatter as we did from his knowledge, for he is recognised as a master of description from the eye of childhood.

The other place I see my father is here in this part of Lecale where he was at his most content.

My mother told us that when she brought him here first to the little house in Killard in the late 30’s, he thought the place was flat and tame compared to the Rathlin of his childhood with its wild seas and lonely cliffs. Once this area had absorbed him (you know how it does!) he returned to Rathlin only once or twice again.

Here he was known as the Master – as were all men teachers in those respectful days.

For a while during the war his young family, Colm was the baby then, were evacuated here and he would have been seen on a Monday morning riding his bike to Downpatrick to catch the bus to his teaching job in Belfast and then making the return journey on Friday.

Occasionally he would be lucky enough to meet somebody like John Joe Shiels delivering coal round the country who would stop, heave his bike up on to the lorry and give him a lift.

Happily he got a job teaching in Portaferry for a while at that time and he was a familiar figure again; the beret cocked on one side, his battered attaché case clipped to the carrier of his bicycle, heading for Johnny or George McDonald’s ferry boats.

The end of the war found us back in Belfast and he in his old job in St John’s Elementary School.

Although his passion in life was literature, his primary degree from Queen’s was physics and though not officially part of the curriculum he occasionally did simple science experiments to the great delight of his young pupils. ‘The Poteen Maker’ has this very setting. (From Collected Short Stories – Poolbeg New Edition 1997).

The long summer holidays from school began at the end of June and my father was even more impatient to get down here than we, the children were.

Willie Conway would be sent for. Willie ran a taxi service here in those days and was known as “Six & Six” for that was the price of his fare from Strangford to Downpatrick. Inflation hadn’t been invented.

Willie came to Belfast and transported us all, bags, bundles, baths, buckets and babies to the little bungalow in Killard.

On arrival, we four would tumble over the little brick garden wall and disappear in all directions.

Kevin – the future naval architect to James Murnin’s boat building workshop, Colm to Joe & 12

Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

Nellie Fitzsimons hoping for a ride on a tractor, us girls down to the beach. My father over the Banks of Killard with a book to Benderg – free at last! My mother, left with the unpacking made herself a cup of tea, I think.

Mrs O’Brien would spy from her house on the hill, smoke rising from our chimney and send Mary or Gerry round with a can of milk for our tea. Sometime in the late 50’s my father somehow managed to pass a driving test and bought himself a second-hand Lada. After his family had married and left home he pleaded with my mother to up stakes in Belfast and come to live here permanently. But she, mindful of wintry conditions during the war, with the east wind whistling under the doors and round the windows, Sam Swail delivering letters from under his sleet-covered bicycle cape, no car, no telephone (Joe Blayney the bread roundsman brought the paper twice a week), nothing but slackey coal dust to burn in a sulky old range – Aladdin lamps and candles – she refused to come.

He bought a gas cooker from Cecil Browne, electric radiators from Dickie Dougherty and promised her central heating. But she couldn’t think of the little house as anything other than a summer holiday house as she had known it in her childhood.

Michael had to content himself with introducing to his favourite place on earth, his lower 6th students from St Dominic’s where he taught creative writing and poetry during the 70’s. Once a week he would fill the car with a chosen few and head for Killard where he deposited them to explore around and make tea for themselves. Meanwhile he drove round to Mary O’Brien’s, (by then, Mary Cultra) for tea and apple tart, and to visit his old friends Jim & Annie McCann who looked after the little house in his absence and also kept a discreet and caring eye on “himself ” when later in failing health, he would come here alone at times.

Many places around here can be clearly identified in his writing:“Uprooted” is set in Bishopscourt Aerodrome. “Look at the Boats” in Jacques’ house in Millquarter. The novel “The Brightening Day” is set in Old Court with echoes of Castleward and the bungalow in Killard. “School for Hope” is set in the Quoile area.

To most of us Michael was first and last a teacher. His greatest achievement surely must have been getting me through a geometry exam. Neither of us ever forgot the experience and to this day I could make a fair shot at Pythagoras’ theorem.

In his last years, his son Kevin would come away from a visit to him complaining ruefully “He knows only one relationship – master/pupil.

He’s always the Master and I’m the wee boy in the front desk”.

Michael died in this his spiritual home and is buried in Kilclief among the people he loved, whose landscape and way of life were his inspiration and which he in turn has immortalised Seamus Heaney with Michael’s daughters and grandsons in his writing.

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A Week in Sharvin’s

by Maurice Denvir

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday the van was kitted out as a mobile grocer’s shop and each day had it’s run, but I cannot remember the runs now. The van, a Bedford with column gear change, came in at lunch-time on Wednesday and all the groceries were taken out and stored in boxes.

The shelves came out too. In the afternoon Denis delivered meal and flour to customers around the country. He went to Belfast to the wholesalers on Thursday and on Friday he went around the country collecting grocery orders from customers. We had to make up the orders, put them into boxes and load them into the van. Denis delivered them on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. When the van came back at lunch-time on Saturday we put the shelves back in and filled them up with groceries ready for Monday morning’s run. Peter Hynds (Lefty, or Birdie as we called him,) helped me with this and we used to practice our driving and reversing skills up the back yard. When we had nothing else to do we served the customers!

Willie John Sharvin was still alive at this time and he made the 10 o’clock tea for us. He came up the hall and called us for the tea and he opened one of the big biscuit tins for us to pick one biscuit to go with the tea. As you can imagine, Willie John was well on in years, he must have been at least 80, and he used to serve the petrol at the pumps. He got the customer to put the nozzle in the car and he turned the power on and off at the pump. Some of the local wits used to squeeze the nozzle nice and slow at the start but when it got close to the 10 bob’s worth they would squeeze hard and Willie John’s reactions were not quick enough to stop the supply so they got a few pence extra … this was the plan. There’s another story about Willie John and Ta Ha. Ta had a big car which was fond of petrol and he arrived at Sharvin’s to get some juice, so Willie John was serving him as usual, but Ta’s motor had a problem and he was afraid to stop the engine in case she wouldn’t start again. But Willie John thought she was using petrol quicker than he could put it into her so he said “Tommy, you may switch her off because I think she’s beating us.”

Later when I was at Queen’s University I always came home at the weekends and worked in Sharvin’s Bar for a few quid to see me through the next week. There was no point expecting “Jip” to throw me a quid or two as he just didn’t have it to spare. There was usually good craic in Sharvin’s at the weekend and especially in the “surgery” after hours. For those of you who don’t know, the surgery was the nickname for the after hours session in Sharvin’s kitchen, where Denis Ellis had a wee bar and Percy Artherton accompanied by Owen Kerr (R.I.P.) on the squeeze-box.

I remember Hugh Press, Brendan Sharvin, Andy Beattie (R.I.P.),Wille & Monty Murphy,Tommy Ryan & Rita Sumner (both R.I.P.) to name just a few. These sessions went on till 2 or 3 in the morning and I had to do chauffeur after that.

The regattas were far busier than nowadays, probably because the car-ferry hadn’t arrived and the sailing was close to the slip. On regatta nights you couldn’t move in Sharvin’s and Mary Hynds and myself never got a minute until we got the bar cleared, again in the wee small hours of the morning.

Well, I’ll leave you with these memories and if I remember in 30 years time I’ll write some more!

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One Day When We Were Young

(as told to Mary W. Denvir by her late uncle Patsy Denvir, Kilclief) We became excited as the time drew near A day in September was the highlight of our year.

Old Joe, the boatman chose the time and the day.

He knew the tides well, so mother had no choice but to obey.

We four children could hardly wait for mother to finish her chores Then it was time for all of us to rush to Kilclief shore.

At last we were all aboard Old Joe’s rowing boat It was a miracle with six of us in it that it stayed afloat.

Old Joe miraculously rowed us across perilous Strangford Lough to Portaferry Quay.

We children didn’t know how dangerous this stretch of water could be.

The main errand was our annual visit to the haberdashery store Where the assistants in charge had to kit out all four.

Three boys and a girl felt so important trying on our new rigs However Mother insisted they came two sizes too big.

This was to allow for growth during the year.

Mother paid the grand total of nine pounds and she complained that was dear.

We spent our pennies on sweets which we picked from glass jars.

Meanwhile Old Joe waited for us in a nearby bar Where he spent his two shillings fare on two bottles of stout.

Too soon our day out was over and we returned to the quay Where the boatman was waiting for Mother, my two brothers, my sister and me.

As we balanced precariously in that small rowing boat, We happily snuggled up to Mother who covered us with her great coat.

We were overcome not by fear But by sadness that we wouldn’t enjoy such an adventure for another year.

Bridie Denvir L-R:Willie, Patsy and James Denvir

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Down On The Farm

Brian Denvir

Founder members of The Inverbrena History Group

Mick Denvir, Ballynarry. Building stone wall.

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Willie Crea

Seamus Denvir with Kieran (standing on wall) at old well.

Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

Down On The Farm

Rosina Magee and Willie John Fitzimmons, Cairnashoke.

Ballyculter Tug-O-War Team Top Row: Peter McMullan,Tom Stockdale, Martin Fitzsimons, William Lowry, Lenord Fitzsimons.

Front Row: J. Lowry, Patsy Fitzsimons, Patrick McMullan, Ted Stockdale.

Master Patrick McMullan (Eamons’ father) holding the trophys.

Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

“Stacking the Sheaves” George Conway and his father John Patrick. Legnegoppack.

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Down On The Farm Wm and Dan Magee Snr. carting in the sheaves.

Caravanish

Willie Conways taxi on route to Armagh 1941.

Betty Conway, Margaret Bradley (nee Conway), Mary Williamson (nee Conway) and Kathleen Dollman.

Setting potatoes at Legnegoppack Betty Conway, George Conway, Kathleen Conway and John P. Conway (Background).

Tea - time in the Craigavores, Ballyorgan.

Hugh Curran, Kevin Cultra, Jamie Beattie, Malachy Magee, John McIlmurray, Joe Fitzsimmons, John Doyle, Pat Curran.

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Down On The Farm Peter and Alec McMullan 1956.

Building the stack.

Wm Magee and Dan Magee Snr. building stacks.

Dan Magee Jnr.,Wm Magee, Dan Magee Snr.

Bill Curran on his new Ford Tractor

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Down On The Farm Local farmers at the silage harvesting demonstration organised by James Elliott & Co. Ltd., Portaferry, on the land of Mr Seamus Denvir, Ballynarry, Downpatrick.

L-R: John McMullan, Sean Fay, Joe Magee, Elliots Rep, Kevin Cultra, Paddy Corrigan,Willie Magee, Francis Magee, Cuthie McMullan, Pasty McMullan, Children – twin Magees.

Harvesting Seed Hay L to R: John Rogan, Curthbert McMullan, Alex McMullan, Peter McMullan.

In the background stooks of corn.

To the left of photo reaping machine drawn by Ferguson Tractor.

Seamus and Brian on the binder on the Ballynarry Farm.

Threashing at Legnegoppack 1947

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Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

Down On The Farm Brian and Seamus Denvir on the binder

Ladies Resting Maise and Betty Magee (Drumroe) M. E. Magee (centre) Caravanish.

Boal’s Corner.

Pat Magee, John Fitzsimmons, Wee Ballywooden, Joe McGrath (owner of car).

Mrs. Edna Sharvin, Gertie Sharvin, Martha Mageean. in background.

Bill and Pat Curran , Ballywooden.

Home machanics

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Down On The Farm William Magee, Dan Magee Sr, Danny Magee Going up the lane at Carravanish, to cart in the sheaves of corn from road fields.

Barney Mulholland and Angela Denvir posing during tea - time.

Stack Building

Kathleen (McKeating) Curran.

Feeding the donkeys, in Ballyorgan

L - R: Colm Fay, Sean Fay,William Fay and Skippy the dog

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Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

In Strangford

The Quay, Strangford, from Swan Island 1938

The Schooner “Vision� berthed at the old quay in Strangford in the eighteen nineties. The man on the left is Captain William Polly who is an ancestor of the present day residents of Strangford namely Polly, Magee, McConville Breen, Shields, Rafferty, Black and Fitzsimons families and have continuous association with Strangford since there are at present seven great, great, great grandchildren of this seafaring gentleman attending St Josephs School in Strangford.

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In Strangford

The Brake Transport for important visitors to Strangford.

Quarry Hill, Strangford in 1930.The girls in the picture are Mary McConville (Curran) and Mary Curran (McNulty)

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Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

In Strangford

Strangford Lough. Regetta

The Old Barracks in the 1920’s.The officer holding the little girl’s hand is Sergent Coulter, grandfather of songwriter Phil Coulter.

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In Strangford Joseph Corrigan, W. Murphy (Jeweller) in basket.

In 1927 Petrol could be brought in Strangford.William Conway takes a delivery from a Shell tanker.

Joseph Polly Driver for Conway and Sharvin

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In Strangford

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In Strangford The Square in 1955 with The Square Pump still in situ.

Eamon McMullan 1933 “The Wee Crud”

William McClean waiting for passengers from the ferry for the onward journey to Downpatrick.

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In Strangford The building of Star of The Sea Church in 1931 included in the workforce are James McConville (Clerk of Works), Robert Polly, Paddy McQuoid, William Polly, Peter Hinds, Patrick Hanna, Nicholas Fitzsimons, Jack Mackell (foreman for Flynn & McNeill the contractors).

Joe, Maureen, Ely and Desmond McMullan

McMullan family.

Picknicking in the garden. 1934

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Strangford’s Buses – 1920s

by Eamon McMullan

Ireland in general had been served by a bus service of sorts since the time of Bianconi and his long cars. Horse-drawn and slow, these were always on a slippery slope as new inventions came along and with the introduction of the internal combustion engine, things gradually eased into motor transportation.

After the world had settled down at the end of the 1914/18 war, many entrepreneurial men, unafraid of taking a chance with a somewhat unreliable ‘horseless carriage’, introduced this modern mechanical means of travel to many of the towns throughout the country. The North was not behind in this brand new venture and buses and charabancs were soon to be seen traversing the narrow roads and city streets from Armagh to Limavady and Strabane to Strangford. A vast improvement to the wagons of former years or even the steam buses introduced in 1902.

A group of companies amalgamated and formed the Belfast Omnibus Company (the B.O.C.) and became the largest local consortium. It remained so until the passing of the Northern Ireland Road & Rail Act in 1935 when all public operators were incorporated into the N.I.R.T.B. Cross border transport, like the G.N.R. and the Lough Swilly Railway were exempt and continued as usual.

Downpatrick was the hub for a circle of smaller towns like Killyleagh, Killough, Ardglass and Strangford and was already served by the B.C.D. Railway. The B.O.C. (Belfast Omnibus Company) bought into this district in 1933 by purchasing the vehicles owned by Sharvin Brothers of Strangford.

Sharvins had been running a motor bus service between Downpatrick and Strangford since 1920 and had owned a posting business in the village for over 20 years before that. During the 1920s there was stiff competition on the route; Hedley Quayle, for a short time, ran a service from about 1919 but it only lasted for a couple of years. William Conway and his brother who also ran a posting business, started a bus run in 1923 called The Strangford Motor Service. Competition became cutthroat. Sharvins ran an eight-timesa-day ser vice, Conways a fourtimes-a-day and the eight mile journey took 40 minutes.

Eventually in 1929 Sharvins took over C o n way s t wo vehicles but sold one on and kept a Ford 11 seater ending up with their two Vulcans a n d C o n w a y ’s Ford.

R.Vulcan Bus

They then came to an arrangement with the B.C.D.R. to issue combined tickets from Strangford to Belfast. In 1933, as I said, the Strangford run was taken over by the B.O.C., the three buses being bought for the princely sum of £1,400.

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Johnny Curran was a local character who was the conductor on Sharvin’s bus and made a little money on the side by doing messages for the locals in the big county town. He would also place bets for the chosen few in the bookies in Downpatrick. Wee Siney Sharvin, the son of Thomas Henry, one of the Sharvin brothers, was the driver. His was not the easiest job in the world for the old Vulcans were not at their youngest or best and became slightly unstable with age. The story is told that the differential gear in the back axel had a removable wooden bung that could be accessed by the removal of floor boards in the bus’s back regions.

This differential gear was so worn and chipped that it made an unbearable noise when the vehicle was underway and required very thick oil to make it run quietly. But thick viscous oil was expensive and so, to lighten the expense and thicken the oil, it was Johnny Curran’s job to pour waste oil, liberally mixed with sawdust, into the differential to keep it quiet. Sometimes, with a heavy load, the bus would climb the Meetinghouse Brae on its entrance into Strangford village amid clouds of wood smoke pervading the whole bus and issuing forth from the doors and windows and every possible orifice as well as the nether regions of the bus.

Wee Siney, in his heyday, was a bit of a ladies man and unattached. He would often have a young lady sitting beside him on the driver’s seat which was surrounded by a cloth curtain. The cloth curtain was meant to diminish distraction but Siney also used it for privacy. On one occasion when Siney junior was ill Siney senior did the driving, not knowing of the change of personnel, the current girlfriend snuggled in beside the driver and did not discover her error in the dark until she reached the Scaddan, the halfway point on the journey. One of the scenic high spots on the route was at the top of The Buck’s Hill where you could see the islands in the Quoile estuary, green hillocks and a blue sea, a really beautiful view. Here Johnny Curran would announce in his town crier’s voice, especially if there were strangers aboard, ‘There yez are now, more beautiful than the Lakes of Killarney’.

Two other local men were bus drivers, Joe Polly and Sam McClean. Sam lived at No. 19 Castle Street when I knew him. No 19 was part of what had been the Assembly Rooms, the centre of village social life before Sharvins built the Cuan Hall.

It was the common practice for the ferrymen of the village to tout for trade by walking out the Downpatrick road to meet the buses and try to get the customers to use their boat if they were travelling on to Portaferry. It is told that on one occasion, Frank Quail and George McDonald walked as far as the Quoile, a distance of about six miles, to meet the bus, so anxious were they for trade. On another occasion the son of one of the ferrymen whose father was known as the ‘dummy McDowell’ because of his inability to speak, asked a disembarking bus passenger to use his boat and the man said ‘Oh I always go with the Dummy’ and the young lad said ‘But I am the Dummy’!

As a last memory of those times when Sharvins got their first taxi, a badly penned verse by a local wit went thus to the tune of the Irish Jaunting Car. ‘Oh it was up the front street and way down the Quay Lane and around by Harry Swails.

You could see Swan Island plainly from Sharvin’s oul Ford car.’

Sharvin’s bus outside Sharvin’s Shop,The Square, Strangford, Co. Down.

Driver/Conductor Johnny Curran posed beside vechicle. Date, 1920’s

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Stella Maris Public Elementary School

by Michael McConville

If you should ask the primary school children of Strangford about the schools in the village, they will tell you about Saint Joseph’s Primary School and some might even mention the old National School on the Downpatrick Road. There will however be very few who will know about Stella Maris School that was situated on the site where now stands the Inverbrenna Centre.

The National School was opened in 1823 and was attended by all the children of the village.

This school served the educational needs of the community until the introduction of Lord Londonderry’s “Northern Ireland Education Bill” in 1923. This Bill proposed that all National Schools should be under the control of the “Northern Ireland Education Committee” and that “Religious instruction, in a denominational sense, during the hours of compulsory attendance, there will not be”.

Lord Londonderry’s Bill faced intense hostility from both the Roman Catholic and the Protestant clergy. The Catholic clergy who were the managers of Catholic schools stated “the only satisfactory system of education for Catholics, is one wherein Catholic children are taught in Catholic schools,

by Catholic teachers, under Catholic auspices.” “Protestant teachers to teach Protestant children” was the watchword of the Protestant clergy who resented their loss of control over teaching appointments and they campaigned for compulsory Bible instruction in State schools. The United Education Committee of the Protestant Church, founded in 1924, distributed a handbill that denounced the Londonderry Bill and argued among other things, that,“The door is thrown open for a Bolshevist or an atheist or a Roman Catholic, to become a teacher in a Protestant school”.

When the Education Bill eventually went through it allowed for two school systems to operate.

First there were the partly funded schools. These were mostly attended by Catholics and received only 50% grant from local and government sources. Secondly there were the fully funded state schools. These were attended in the main by Protestant children and simple Bible instruction was mandatory. Such religious education without denominational comment was unacceptable to the Catholic authorities and Dr Mageean, who was Bishop of Down and Connor at the time explained, “We cannot transfer our schools. We cannot accept simple Bible teaching. I wish to emphasise this point. Simple Bible teaching is based on the fundamental principle of Protestantism, the interpretation of Sacred Scripture by private judgement”.

It was in this political climate that Father Magowan, the Parish Priest of Strangford and Kilclief, entered into discussion with Lady De Ros and her advisors and their agenda was the future of Strangford National School. As 87% of the children attending the school were Catholic, Father Magowan proposed that the parish should undertake the management of the school. Lady De Ros did not agree and indicated that the school would be handed over to the Northern Ireland Education Committee. This left Father Magowan with a problem. As Parish Priest he had the responsibility of providing proper religious education for the Catholic children of Strangford. He could not afford to build a new school in the village. The parish was still paying for the new school in Kilclief, for which no grant was received, and was paying for the new church in Strangford, opened a year earlier.

As a solution to the problem he faced, Father Magowan decided to convert Stella Maris Social Club, built in 1926, into a school. The billiard room would be converted into two classrooms and on October 9th 1933 an advertisement appeared in the Irish News for the post of Principal Teacher in the new elementary school in Strangford. Mr Medal to celebrate the new school 1933 32

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W. Begley B.A. a native of Queen’s County, was duly appointed.

His assistants were Miss Catherine Savage and Miss Eleanor Doran. On August 31st 1933 Stella Maris Public Elementary School was opened.

Religious medals were struck to celebrate the occasion but not all the Catholic children transferred to the new school. Some parents Stella Maris Hall as opened in 1926 were annoyed that Miss O’Driscoll, the Catholic Vice Principal of the National School did not get the position of Principal in the new school and so their children stayed at the National School until 1934 when Miss O’Driscoll took up a teaching post at Raglan Street School in Belfast. A short time later the National School was handed over to the Education Authority and was closed. Mr Nunan who had been Principal of the National school for forty years retired at that time.

Stella Maris School 1933/1934 L to R: Kathleen Beattie, Nora Fitzsimons (Reid), Minnie McQuoid (McCluskey), Johny Polly, Gerry Curran, Peggie Currigan, Mary Lyons, Peggy Holland, Annie Beattie.

Josie Currigan, Pauline McQuoid, Mary Hanna, Patsy Lyons, Seamus Quail, Gertie Curran, Mary McConville, Nan Whirsky, Anges McQuoid, Dasey Curran.

Maureen Carson (Laverty), Edith Lennon (Hynds), Bridie Beattie, Joe Polly, Jim Sharvin.

Dick Quail, Mary Curran (McNulty), Maureen McGreevy (Breen), Kitty Carson

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Stella Maris (Star of the Sea) School consisted of three classrooms; two made out of the billiard room and the third was the club kitchen. This name stayed with this classroom throughout the life of the school. There was a stage and hall which were used for Physical Education and for school assemblies. Toilets for the pupils were located outside the school; the girls’ toilets to the rear of the school and the boys’ toilets to the side. The teachers’ cloakroom was inside the building behind the stage. The classrooms were each heated by a coal burning stove situated behind or to the side of the teacher’s desk. The building was lit by gas made in the gas house situated in the yard of the parochial house. Mr Begley, the Principal, died suddenly from pneumonia in 1936. he was aged 32. A new Principal, Mr JJ Nihill was appointed. He resigned in 1940 and returned to Queen’s University in Belfast. Mr Hugh Murphy George was then appointed. Master George, as he became known, had begun his teaching career in Newtownards Model School. From there he had gone to Belfast Lower, Derry, Katesbridge and Clough before taking up the post of Principal in Strangford. He was Principal in Stella Maris until the school closed and he became the first Principal of the present Saint Joseph’s Primary school when it opened in 1964.

In 1941, after the Belfast Blitz, evacuees arrived into the Strangford area. There were fifty eight evacuated children on the roll of Stella Maris. These children found accommodation throughout the village at Old Court, Ferry Quarter, Castle Street and the Quarry Hill. Two teachers, Miss Mary Crossin and Miss Mary Hynds were appointed by The Ministry of Education to teach these children. To cater for all, the school day was restructured. The local children attended in the morning and the evacuees in the afternoon. I have been informed that these arrangements went down well with the village children. The evacuee children were on the school rolls from April until June 1941.

Stella Maris Pupils 1947/1948

Stella Maris was categorised by the Ministry of Education as aVoluntary School and so the teachers were paid by the state but the school only received a percentage grant to meet its running costs such as heating, cleaning and repairs. The balance had to be met by the parish. To help pay these costs the parish, every year, held the “Big Whist and Draw”. This event was held in early December but 34

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the preparations for the draw began in September, soon after the start of the new school year. The senior classes would go back to the school in the evenings to send out the tickets. This involved stamping and addressing envelopes, recording the numbers that were on the tickets that had been placed in each envelope, sending out reminders and when the ticket stubs were returned, sending out acknowledgements. The tickets on the stubs were then separated (or as we called it ‘Flitted”) and the individual tickets were placed in the “Big Drum” in readiness for the draw on the night of the Whist. Some of us were allowed to be on the stage when the draw was made and that was a time of real excitement because Santa Claus himself would arrive to make the draw.

Due to the shortage of money we students seldom received new text books. At the end of the year the classes handed back their reading books and these were re-allocated the following year to the new class. The first thing you had to do was to cover the books with brown paper or old unused wall paper. This would protect it and keep it in good condition for handing on to the next class in twelve months time. I still have one of the old reading books “The Land of Romance and Adventure” and it has on it the names of previous owners; Maureen Fitzsimons, Sally McAfee, Joan Laverty and Anne Sharvin.

When I started Stella Maris school the teachers were Master George, Miss Coulton and Miss McFarlane. Miss Coulton was my first teacher and she taught the infants in the middle room.

She and I must have got along alright although I do remember running home on my first day. I stayed until break time and I suppose I thought I had learned enough. My mother did not agree and so I was sent back after dinner. After that I seemed to have settled in or at least resigned myself to having to be there. I was quite fond of Miss Coulton but not everyone was, especially the pupil she slapped on Christmas Eve. That’s right, we were actually in school for a half day on Christmas Eve. After three years in Miss Coulton’s room I moved to the “Kitchen” where Miss McFarlane was the teacher. I seem to remember that this room was not as big as the one I had left. In this room there was a sink for washing dishes, two large cupboards which contained the crockery for use in the hall and the utensils needed for the cookery class. There were four doors leading out of this room. The back door that led to the girls’ toilets, a double door that opened out onto a balcony that ran the length of the hall, a door connecting the Kitchen to the infants’ room and a small door that gave access to a store at the side of the stage. I can remember a lot more about the two years I spent in this room. One thing in particular that stands out in my mind is the weekly test that Miss McFarlane set for us. These were held every Friday and I honestly believe that they turned me against exams for good. Apart from the tests I enjoyed my time in Miss McFarlane’s class because she was a good teacher and she spoke with a Scottish accent which I found pleasing.

After two years in the Kitchen I moved to the “Master’s Room” to finish my education at Stella Maris. To me, Master George was a big man both in stature and voice. I must say I felt a bit afraid of him. Looking back at it all now I cannot see why I should have been. When I was in the Master’s Room another teacher came to the school and left a very positive impression upon me. Miss Ursula McGrady came to teach the infants. She took our class for Geography and History and I can honestly say her teaching captured my attention and imagination. The lessons she taught were lively and interesting and made me want to learn more.

The Master’s Room was the centre point of all school activity. Anyone visiting the school would call there before gaining access to any other room. From time to time Father Crossin, the Parish Priest, would visit the school. He would call to speak with the Master and also to talk to the class about religious and other matters. If a visiting missionary was in the parish Father Crossin would bring him or her down to speak to the pupils in the school. We also had visits from the Curate, Father Campbell. Talking about missionaries reminds me of our collections for the “Black Babies”. Every week we had to bring some money that was collected in class and during Lent we had auctions and raffles to raise money for the foreign missions.

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Another regular visitor was Mr Savage the School Attendance Inspector. He would carefully examine the roll book and if anyone was absent for an unacceptable length of time Mr Savage would call them up to the front of the class to explain to him why they had been off school.

It would be fair to say that our health was well looked after. There were regular visits to the school by the “Nit Nurse” who called to examine everyone’s hair for lice. The doctor also visited the school and he examined our chest, eyes, ears and throat. The most dreaded visitor however was the school dentist. His mobile surgery would be parked in the school yard for a couple of weeks although to us it seemed like a couple of months. We would all try to make ourselves invisible around the school when the dentist was there and we waited in dread until it was our turn. I suppose it did not help matters when senior pupils would tell the juniors horrific stories about what went on in the mobile surgery, especially when they told of monster drills and pliers.

In addition to religious and public holidays the school was closed for about eight weeks in the summer, two weeks in the autumn when everyone tried to get a job gathering potatoes for the local farmers, a week at Christmas and a week at Easter.

The Master’s Room was a great place to be in the run up to the summer holidays. The school tests would be over and Father McNamara would have called and completed his Religious Instruction Examination. Most of the text books would have been handed in and in the last week the Master himself was in a relaxed frame of mind. I can remember spending that week painting outside and in the classroom. I preferred to paint outside and my favourite scene was Swan Island with Portaferry in the background. It was during this last week that we had our school sports. This meant even more work for my father as he had to use a scythe to cut the grass in the school field so that we budding athletes could show off our talents in events such as the sack race or the egg and spoon race.

Before the school broke up for Christmas holidays we had our Annual Concert and Nativity Play. Every child in the school appeared on the stage at some time during the event and we all received a small present at the end. The concert always concluded with a Nativity Scene and carol singing.

We had at least two religious processions in the school year. There was one held in May to honour Our Lady and one in June at the Feast of Corpus Christie. The girls and boys would all wear their Communion and Confirmation outfits. First Holy Communion was an annual event but Confirmation was administered every three years by The Most Reverend Dr Mageean, the Bishop of Down and Connor.

Stella Maris Pupils 1952/1953

In 1955 Father Crossin tried to get permission from the Ministry of Education to build a new school on the Castleward Road. The Ministry rejected the site and said it was too far out of the village. Father McClean who succeeded Father Crossin obtained land on the Quarry Hill, now 36

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Downpatrick Road, and Saint Joseph’s Primary School was dedicated on 11th June 1964 by the Most Reverend Dr Philbin, Bishop of Down and Connor. The school was designed by McClean and Forte Architects and built by the firm of HJ O’Boyle. The furniture and books were removed from Stella Maris to the new school during the summer of 1964 and Master George, Mrs Sharvin and Mr Magennis started to teach in the new school in September 1964. Stella Maris continued to be used as a parochial hall until it was demolished in 1990 and replaced with the Inverbrenna Centre.

I am including here a list of teachers who, to the best of my knowledge, taught at one time or other in Stella Maris. My apologies if I have left anyone out.

Mr W Begley. Mr JJ Nihill. Miss Catherine Savage. Miss Eleanor Doran.

Miss Maureen Coulton. Miss Nan McFarlane. Miss Catherine McHugh.

Miss Francis McHugh. Miss Ursula McGrady. Miss Margaret Rafferty.

Miss Mary (Maisie) Leadbetter. Mrs Anne Sharvin. Mr Magennis.

Miss Noreen McNerney. Miss Christina Cunningham. Miss Dympna Connolly.

Mrs Anne Ellis. Mr James Moore. Miss Mary McCormick. Mr George Magee.

Mr PJ McMullan (Sub Principal 1938 – 1939).

Bibliography/References A History of Ulster - Jonathan Bardon Ulster an Illustrated History - Edited by C Brady Diary of Rev Fr Magowan P.P. Kilclief 1925 – 1940 Diary of Rev Fr Crossin P.P. Kilclief 1940 – 1958 Stella Maris School Records 1933 – 1964

Cutting the school field. Raymond, Dad and myself taken by Joe Hopkins

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Easter Morning, Ballyculter

by Mr. John Potter. (Collected by Willie Crea) From cottage plot and sheltered hedge To altar cloth and window ledge The primrose and the daffodil In earthen pot and milk jug fill The shadowed nave with golden light All dewdrop fresh and Easter Bright.

The village folk and farmers sing, The Easter alleluia’s ring Across the churchyard daffodils.

Cupped in the hollow of the hills, This church stands, country deep, serene, Amongst the shades of gold and green.

Like blessings on the world below, The daffodil and primrose grow Outside the darkened screen of yew, Hiding from vulgar public view The family gravestones of the Wards, The Bangor ladies and their lords.

Ballyculter Parish Church

As is his won’t on Easter morn The Rector is a voice forlorn With solemn face and watery eye Reminds us all that we must die, And yet, whatever he may say, New life, not death, redeems this day.

High in the roof, a nesting dove Croons in a sensuous voice of love.

A dusty sunbeam filtering through Illuminates an empty pew.

(The congregation much prefer to choose the pews towards the rear).

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The Stockdales, Presses, Mrs Lunn File past the Rector, one by one; Jacksons, Johnstons, Quails and Creas, McKibbin kids with winsome ways, Round brown eyes and dimpled smiles Tip-topping down empty aisles Then down the lane on dancing legs To Sunday lunch and Easter eggs.

Beyond the sea, the hills of Man The distant blue horizon span.

With bitter winds of winter passed, Spring’s blessing on the land at last.

The newborn lambs, the calves at play And I rejoice this Easter day.

Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

I Must Be Gettin’ Old

by Maurice Denvir

I must be gettin’ old … When you start remembering things from over 30 years ago, it’s a sure sign. Another sure sign is that you forget things easily, and I started to write this article a couple of years ago and forgot to finish it.

I was at Mrs Colhoun’s funeral Mass in May that year and Canon Conway was recalling her life, starting in Derry and then coming to Ballycottin in Kilclief and finally to The Links, Strangford.

He mentioned that her husband, Harry was dead 33 years and as usual I just couldn’t believe it … 33 years! Where did those years go to? I can see very vividly John Hanna, our Desi, Pat Sharvin and myself playing Cowboys and Indians in that wee long field where Ballycottin now stands. In fact it wasn’t even a field, more like a piece of waste ground with a few whin bushes and rocks where we could take cover when the Indians attacked. Then the builders moved in, cleared the ground and built the houses. The water pump outside John Sharvin’s became a common attraction later, especially when the thirst got the better of you. (There was no running water in the new houses, nor inside loos.) But sometimes there was the odd water fight and Madge Sharvin chased us for making a mucky mess outside her door.

Our Ambrose used to buy all sorts of vehicles when he was about 17 or 18, just after he got his licence and one that I remember well was a green Ford 100E. He was always getting into trouble with Dad about these vehicles but that didn’t stop him. Anyhow, this 100E had a broken spring on one side at the back and the result was that the car looked as if the rear wanted to overtake the front because the rear wheels were not directly behind the front ones. As a result we gave the car a nickname, something which is, or at least was, compulsory around Kilclief. We called it Cliff because Colhoun’s dog, Cliff, had a poor back end and he ran out of line also.

Mrs Colhoun’s was also one of the few houses that had television at that time and Billy and Anthony Sloan used to go there on a regular basis and sit until the white dot disappeared from the screen. On the way they stopped off in our shop to fill up on sweets, lemonade and ice lollies to see them through the evening’s viewing. Our shop was the hub of Kilclief at one time and I remember Dad’s workmen coming in on a Sunday after Mass and filling in their timesheets and getting paid. We also had a phone when the only other phone was in the phone-box at Kerr’s corner and Bill King was a regular user of the phone, mostly to make arrangements for football with Barney Magee, and we couldn’t help overhearing the conversation (we felt that Barney could probably hear Bill without the phone anyway) and it usually started off with something like “Hello, Is that you? This is me.” The other occasion that Bill used the phone was to phone the Artificial Insemination Office and it often happened that the answering machine was on when Bill needed to talk to someone and poor Bill couldn’t understand that it was a machine and not a girl so he would ask some of us to talk to her, claiming that she wouldn’t listen to him.

One thing I hated about our shop was that we sold paraffin oil. I’m sure you know what the smell of paraffin is like and you can imagine the shop bell ringing when you would be in the middle of your dinner and we would all shout “It’s your turn, I went the last time.” Anyhow, you would run up the hall to the shop and what would the customer want? Yes, half a gallon of paraffin and you never could quite get the smell off your hands no matter what you used to wash them in. Somehow the dinner didn’t quite taste the same with the flavour of paraffin mixed in. The shop closed half day on Wednesday at 1.00 pm and you could bet that at 1.10 pm you would get a knock on the back door from someone looking for something in the shop, and nine times out of ten it was Paul King. Still on the paraffin oil theme, I remember

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Tommy Hanna (Ta Ha) had a Land Rover, which, for some reason unknown to me at the time, ran on paraffin oil and he used to get her filled up at the shop. We would be running out with half gallon measuring jugs for what seemed like half an hour.

Peter King bought a brand new Honda 50 and he was so proud of it but one day Willie John came down to the shop on it for something and he was demonstrating the automatic gears to Desi and myself, something which was rather novel to us, but he just hadn’t managed the smoothness required to squeeze the throttle gently for take-off, and he nearly did take off when he turned the throttle too fast and the bike wheelied with Willie John hanging on to the handlebars. He managed to shut off the throttle and bring the bike to a halt but the back mudguard was a bit damaged so we got pliers and twisted the guard back as best we could. I don’t know what happened when he got home and faced Peter!

John Hanna (later known as John F) lived just across the road from Ballycottin, where Carriff Court stands today, in a cottage, and the two of us were big mates. I had a bike but John didn’t, so I used to give him a lift on the bar to school and back. One day after school we came round the corner at the bridge and Hanna said “Let me off. There’s Reid. I’m gonna do him”. It transpired that Derek Reid and John had a bit of a disagreement at school that day and John saw the opportunity for revenge, so I let him off and the two of them went at it like two banty roosters. Hanna hung a right hook on Reid’s chin and down he went, out for the count. Some of the girls, I think it was Briege Dolan and Phyllis Sharvin (Lord have mercy on her), ran to Bridie’s of the Gap and got some water to throw over Reid but Hanna and I didn’t wait to see if he was dead or alive.

We jumped on the bike and made our getaway before any questions were asked. We never heard another word about it.

Another favourite prank coming home from school was jumping on the back of the Oilman’s trailer, to get a “backie”, a lift down the road, but Jack Smyth, the Oilman wasn’t too keen on this trick so he used to sway the tractor from side to side to try and shake us off, which he did manage to do occasionally and we would end up in the ditch or on the road. But it was good fun! You don’t see the kids walking to or from school any more and it’s not just that they are lazy but more than that it’s just not safe to let them walk on their own, a sign of the times!

When we left Kilclief School to go to the Red High, there was no bus through Kilclief and we had to cycle to Strangford every morning for the 8.30 am bus, rain, hail or snow. We never got left to the bus like the young ones today who get left to the bus-stop at Denvir’s corner, and I have to admit that I was as guilty as anyone because I did it for our own ones as well. In my first two years at the Red High there was Danny Sharvin, Pat Sharvin, Our Desi, John Hanna, Phyllis Sharvin, a few others that I can’t remember, and myself, all on bikes, which we parked behind the priest’s garage at the chapel. Of course there was the odd occasion when we didn’t quite reach Strangford because the tide often came over the Battery Wall at Murnins and we got soaked so we had to go back home. You wouldn’t expect us to go on to school and sit all day in wet clothes, would you? Between you and me we did stand a while at the Battery Wall waiting for the waves to come over and get us, but not all the time, only when you had a genuine reason like no Latin homework done, for example. And, horror of horrors, we had to go to school on Saturdays up till 11.45 am, and get the 12.15 pm bus back to Strangford. Thank God that changed after second year and then we got the bus to come up through Kilclief. I remember it well. The first bus conductor, if I remember correctly, was Tony McCormick, and we also had Oliver Laverty,Walter Quayle and Tommy McCartan. Our favourite driver was Tom Fitzsimons because he was the fastest and you got home quicker.

With all these recollections going around in my head (not all during Canon Conway’s homily at Mrs Colhoun’s Mass, by the way) I continued thinking about progress around Kilclief, or should I say lack of progress, and I noticed that while out for a walk most days I had to stop and stay in tight to the hedge if a vehicle came along because if I kept on walking the thorns and briers 40

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would be cutting the face off me. Years ago, the hedges and verges were cut and trimmed by the “roadmen”, Pat Hynds of The Row,Wille Rooney, Jimmy Reilly, to name a few, and they worked with highly sophisticated tools like billhooks, grass hooks, spades and the most impressive … a Ystick. Nowadays we are lucky if a mechanical hedge-cutter comes once a year and it only makes one pass at a certain height and the hedge above the cut continues to grow out over the road and eventually starts to hang down and this is what cuts the face off you.

So much for progress! And what about the service we got from the “breadmen”? There was Joe Blaney who drove for J.B. Kennedy, Harry Flynn who drove for Barney Hughes and Melvin Calvert in The Inglis van, succeeded by Willie Fitzsimons. I nearly forgot Willie Murray in the Ormo van.

(How could you forget Murray)? Nowadays there isn’t a bread van to be seen, you have to go and get your own. Even the milkman is in danger of becoming an endangered species, since Dick Cull retired, as well as the travelling salesmen like Gerry Mulhall, Sean King and Joe Dorrian to mention a few. We used to love to see these cars pulling up at the door to see if Mum was going to buy us something new. More often than not she didn’t, because money was scarce.

Being an altar-boy was something that we always looked on as our duty and we didn’t think of shirking that duty, even on dark, wet and windy winter evenings for ‘devotions” when we had to walk in the dark to the chapel and then up through the graveyard to the priest’s house to get the keys to open the chapel. All the stories of ghosts jumping out of the graves as you went past went through your head but you kept your eyes fixed on the priest’s house and you ran like hell there and back and once inside the chapel it was easier to walk up the aisle to the sacristy and find the switch for the lights. A wee sip of the altar wine, usually the dregs of a bottle, helped to calm the nerves.

Talking of lights, I remember at the Easter ceremonies one Holy Saturday night (midnight Mass in those days) it was my task to switch on the lights one by one as the priest came up the aisle chanting “Lumen Christi’ but the lateness of the hour got the better of me and my lights went out, so for a while the “Lumen Christi” failed to appear until the priest, Father Donnelly, sent one of the other altar-boys to give me a shake. I never lived it down.

I went to work in Sharvin’s of Strangford as a shop boy when I was just fourteen. Denis Ellis (R.I.P.) gave me the job for the summer holidays and then he asked me to work on Saturdays as well. I got £2 a day and I thought it a fortune. Kathleen Fitzsimons of the Brow and Bernadette Hynds worked full-time there and we had great craic. I never forget the day that Emmet Sharvin caught a mouse in a trap at lunch-time and he put it in Kathleen’s shop-coat pocket when she was at lunch. Kathleen came back from lunch, put on her shop coat which hung in the hall of Sharvin’s house, and went back to work unaware of the dead mouse. Later she put her hand in her pocket to get her pen and felt the mouse. Well, she ripped off the coat and ran out into the square squeeling like a pig and Emmet standing at the front door laughing his head off.

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Memories

by Mary W. Denvir The Ceili House Imagine rural life in N. Ireland in the 1930’s. Most families worked on the land, using horses and ploughs. There was barely enough money for the basic necessities like food and clothing. It was quite a humdrum existence, especially for the young people. During the day they worked very hard, rising early each morning and toiling in every kind of weather.

However, these young people looked forward to the evenings. As soon as the meal was finished, they would tidy themselves up and hurry to the local ceili house. Their entertainment was simple … story-telling by the firelight. The elders delighted their captive audience with their reminiscing of bygone days and deeds. Sometimes a visiting story-teller would scare the wits out of them with tales of banshees. After such a session they were afraid to go home, especially in winter.

Anyone who misbehaved in the ceili house was barred. Of course such people displayed their displeasure by taking revenge. In one instance, a thin cord was tied low between two bushes at the front of the ceili house. The villain knocked at the door and shouted that the man of the house was wanted outside. When the poor man came to investigate, he tripped, much to the delight of the two rascals hiding behind the bushes. On another occasion, the trouble-makers tied a thick rope from the front door to the back door of the small house. They then climbed onto the roof and put a heavy paper bag over the chimney. This caused the people in the room below to choke and splutter when smoke billowed down the chimney. The exits were blocked until the doors were broken down. This tom-foolery could have easily ended in tragedy, but thankfully no-one was seriously injured. There was no evidence found, but everyone knew who the culprits were.

Everyone really enjoyed the craic in the ceili house and the stories would gather in momentum as they were retold in the days to come. There was also a rule that the ceili house closed down at 9.30 pm. This ensured that all the visitors could have a good night’s rest, ready and fit for their work the following day.

There may have been no electricity and very little money, but all the locals thoroughly enjoyed themselves in such a simple way. Everyone aged between 14 years and 80 years was welcome in the ceili house in the 1930’s.

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The Farmer On Holiday

by Rev.W.E. Kennedy

I’m sittin’ here in Bangor town, The missus by my side, We’re watchin’ all the crowds pass by, The goin’ an’ comin’ tide.

I long to talk of fields an’ crops, An’ prices guaranteed, To find out here the price of lan’, What kind of stock they breed.

“It’s nice to do the gentleman, If only for a while, “Forget the farm,” the missus said, “Do nothin’, only smile.”

I miss the yard, the cattle too, The callers an’ the crack, An’ I hope to God it won’t be long Afore I’m safely back.

So here I sit an’ nod an’ smile Dressed in my Sunday suit, If this be the life of the gentleman, I’d sooner go bare-foot.

I’ve had my fill of Bangor town, Its golden sand an’ sea, An’ I’m goin’ back when to-morrow dawns To where I’ll happy be.

This life of ease is not for me, For I’m no man for rest, I’d die than sit here all my life, Dressed in my Sunday best.

The wife, I know, will not be pleased, But I’m the boss she’ll see, An’ I’ll spend my time as a farmer should On my Ian’ in Ballyvee.

The people here are nice enough, An’ chat away at tea, They talk of plays an’ trips abroad, But these don’t interest me.

Snippets

(heard at our meetings) Two Saul farmers were discussing their crops. The weather had been very dry and growing was poor. “What are your turnips like this year Paddy?” “Agh! Very bad Johnny, we have only one here and there”. “You’re lucky, Paddy. We have one here and none there!”

A Raholp sailor was going off on another voyage. His wife gave him a prayer book and asked him to promise her he’d read it every day. On his return she asked him “Did you read the prayer book?” “I read it from cover to cover Ma!. She flicked through the pages and about a quarter way through she found the five pound note she had put there. “If I had known that was there I’d have ate the bloomin’ prayer book!” he said.

The man in Ballynahinch tripped and fell breaking his leg. The surgeon said he would probably have a slightly shorter leg and would he think of making a claim. “Do you think doctor I would get much money”. “Oh, about five thousand” he replied. “Well then doctor in that case cut away, it won’t matter for an inch or two”.

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Extracts from ‘Home Words’

by Isobel Magee

Strangford Lough (a) Introduction

September 1877

As the united parishes of Ballyculter and Kilclief are bounded on the east by the shore of this estuary, including bays and creeks, for about five miles from its entrance at Killard Point, we think that a brief account of it and of the adjoining locality may interest some of our readers. In order to accomplish our object, it will be found necessary to quote occasionally from the writings of ancient and modern authorities, and it is hoped that what is related will prove both acceptable and instructive.

It is probable that many who peruse our magazine are not aware of the various points of historical interest connected with this neighbourhood, nor sufficiently consider the importance that ought to be attached to the several vestiges of antiquity which are within our reach. Much benefit and pleasure can be derived from the association of the past with the present, and from looking upon things in a different light from that to which we often accustom ourselves in the every day routine of life.

When we take into consideration that the castles and forts which around our lough are here and there scattered, were formerly used for self-defence, for places of refuge and protection from the enemy; that the islands which in it abound, each bore a significant name and some an equally significant character; that even the ground we daily tread upon was in many spots once a battlefield, surely it is worth our while to give a little attention to that part of the country in which we live.

We may carry our thoughts to days gone by and be thankful that our lot was not cast in the times of the early and middle ages – times of warfare and strife, when feudal broils disturbed the peace of the European nations creating dissension between lord and vassal, and throwing misery and desolation into the homes of the people.

We may yet again reflect upon the advance of civilization when we know the rough mode of living our ancestors were used to, the few comforts they indulged in, the improvements (great and many) which of course were unknown to them; and we may then learn a lesson of gratitude, and eagerly endeavour to profit by the blessings which surround us, instead of thoughtlessly casting such aside. We should ever bear in mind that it is our duty to work on manfully with rapid strides, not only for our own advantage, but also for the good of our fellow creatures. No step in advance, however short, ought to be considered beneath our notice, for by a series of successive ones great objects may be gained, and everything must needs have a beginning. The present age is decidedly one of progress, as may be observed by that which each year, each month, one dare almost say each day, produces. Man has not merely an opportunity for enlarging and enabling his mental powers by the means afforded to him through that wonderful “invention of printing” (introduced into this country by Caxton exactly 400 years ago); his physical wants, also, are more readily and more effectually supplied by the way many agricultural facilities which the inventive genius of his fellow-man presents to him.

It may appear as if we were forgetting the subject indicated at the head of this page, but such is not our intention. The few remarks now made are introductory, and we hope may serve our purpose in kindling a little enthusiasm for ancient days and not a little for those yet to come.

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Home Words October 1877 Chapter I Strangford Lough In commencing our sketch of the above, and places in connection worthy of notice, we should like to attract attention to the peculiarity of shape which it possesses, as will be perceived by the way in which it diverges to the right and left at a considerable distance from the mouth – viz, on one side towards Downpatrick, on the other in the direction of Newtownards. So varied and intricate are the windings of this lough, that strangers have repeatedly been baffled in their endeavours to obtain a correct geographical view of its position, and have indeed, only realised such by examining its circuit from the neighbouring heights. It has been said that it bears a slight resemblance to Italy – the part extending westward from Audley Road to the Quoile Bridge being like the foot of the boot, and the entrance, from Angus or Anguish Rocks to Audley Road, like the heel, near Quoile Bridge it grows narrow for a short space, but spreads into an irregularly triangular branch towards the main body of water, which extends north-ward, and thus has a similarity to Sicily, as it stands with regard to Italy.

Before entering into particulars as to the dimensions, surroundings, etc., of Strangford Lough, a few facts recorded in the annals of our country, concerning it will be now given. The original Irish name was Lough Cuan, or Lough Coyne; and even at so remote a date as A.D. 874, we read of a battle being fought on Lough Cuan between the Finngheinte (white Gentiles) and the Durbhgheinte (black Gentiles), in which Alband, chief of the latter, was slain. In A.D. 876 Maeleobha, son of Crunnmhael, Abbot of Ard-Macha (Armagh), was taken prisoner by the foreigners of Lough Cuan. In A.D. 992, foreigners (the Danes) came upon Loch Cuan; and Maelduin, son of Aedh, heir apparent of the province fell by them. In A.D. 1149, a party of the people of the north of Ireland, led by the son of Niall-ua-Lochlainne, went upon the island’s of Lough Cuan, and pillaged InisCumbseraigh (now Inch or Inish-eourcey, near Downpatrick) and all the other churches of this county, except Dunleath – ghlais (Downpatrick) and Sabhall (Saul). They also invaded the district between Carlingford Lough and the Bridge of the Ford, near Newcastle. But not only a thousand years ago was our lough mentioned in history; we can travel still further back, to a much more distant period, and learn that it traces its origin to an inundation of the sea, which overwhelmed the then flat tract of land, B.C. 1995. This was the seventh lake-eruption that occurred in the era of Parthalon. About 300 years after the universal deluge, according to the Hebrew calculation, Parthalon took possession of Ireland; and the Annals of Clonmoenoise reckon his arrival there as having taken place in the twenty-first year of the age of the patriarch Abraham, and the twelfth year of the reign of Semiramis, Empress of Assyria.

The modern name, implying Strong Ford, was given in the time of John de Courcey, in the twelfth century, from the rapidity of the tide which runs between the town of Strangford, on one side, and Portaferry, on the other. This is supposed to be one of the strongest currents in Europe. It is also stated that in the ninth and tenth centuries there was a Danish station here and the term Strangford applied as signifying a strong inlet of the sea.

Chapter II Strangford Lough

November 1877

The extent of this lake, from the embankment near Newtownards to the town of Strangford, is about fifteen miles and to Rock Angus about a league more. The Lough has been accurately charted by Nimmo, and subsequently by Captain Hoskyns of the Royal Navy; and it appears that few boys afford much safety to wind – bound vessels, as there is abundance of water over the bar at all times. Captain Hoskyns, who had charge of an Admiralty survey, stated that “if it were

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lighted, there would not be a better harbour of refuge in the United Kingdom for all classes of vessels, including men of war. We believe that there is firstrate anchorage and accommodation for the latter at a little distance beyond the Audley Roadsteads, in the direction of Killyleagh. Great inconvenience and loss of life and property have been occasioned in consequence of the want of a proper light at the entrance. It has been stated by a shipowner in Strangford, that between 1833 and 1867 seventy vessels were wrecked or seriously injured, and forty-three lives lost, and it is attributed chiefly to this cause. The pecuniary loss was estimated at about £49 thousand £100 hundred and £25 pounds of lighthouse was petitioned for 1846, and built on Rock Angus, being completed in 1853; but unfortunately it has never yet been lighted, notwithstanding its fitness for the reception of the very necessary apparatus. It now simply stands on a rock at the entrance of Lough Strangford as a beacon, between Killard Point, in Lower Lecale and Ballyquintin in the Barony of Upper Ards, and is forty feet in height. We hope, as was mentioned by us before, that the appeals will not be made in vain, and that in time the all important light may be supplied, to guide vessels in and out of the harbour, and enable them to obtain the proper and needful shelter which the roadsteads in our lough afford.

Strangford Lough is the only salt water lake lying entirely within the bounds of the county Down.

Harris supposes that this is the lake mentioned under the name of Darneart in John de Courcey’s foundation charter of the “Black Priory of St. Andrew” in the Ards; for by the said charter he endows that house with ten plowlands in the territory of “Art” (i.e. the Ards), in the lands of MaeCol-Coqua (the ancient proprietor of them), and with all the tithes of his demesne from the water of Dar-na-art to the water of Carlingford, now, as Dar-na-art literally signifies “by” or “through” the Ards and as Lough Coyne is the boundary of most part of the Ards to the westward so it is not improbable that this lake was the same which bears the name of “Darneart” in the abovenamed charter. The lake is in some places, three, and in others, upwards of four miles broad. The tide flows towards Newtownards at the remotest end of it, and is reckoned to rise at spring tides about four feet at a medium, through at other times the swell is very inconsiderable. If formerly reached the walls of this place, yet was fordable at low water for a considerable distance down.

Spring tides rise above fourteen feet at Killard Point, and about ten feet at the quay of Strangford; and reap tides from six to eight feet.

It is necessary to remark that the above statistics, and many we may give in future, are quoted from Harris’s and other histories of County Down.

Chapter III

December 1877

In passing gradually, from month to month, along the shores of this fine lough, it would be gratifying to feel that the allusions made by us proved a means of directing the notice of nature’s admirers more closely to the favoured spots which in no small number are presented to their view. The extreme beauty of this locality cannot be denied, and one can scarcely imagine a spectator not being struck by the ever-changing scenes. Ever-changing they are for not only does the landscape appear in varied forms, and offer new attractions from the positions selected to obtain such; but the variety of the colouring produced by the lights and shades which pass with wonderful rapidity, causes the same scene, even in one hour, to appear to the eye in a different aspect. Those well acquainted with our home surroundings find it thus; and, whilst gazing on their loveliness, it is not too much to say that fresh ideas may be gained and instruction derived from standing still and considering the wondrous works of Him which is perfect in knowledge “and who has made everything beautiful in His time”.

We would ask our friends to study for themselves these works of creation, and endeavour to 46

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appreciate their great value; many practical lessons may be learnt if the words of Job are taken for a precept, “Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee”.

In resuming the thread of our last chapter we find attention drawn towards the entrance of Strangford Lough, and may pause there a moment to observe the vast expanse of water outside the bar, where often a heavy breaking sea sweeps across, to the dismay of vessels seeking refuge within the boundary. Again, a little farther round to the southward, we come upon a board inlet, called Ballyhornan Bay, worthy of remark on account of its smooth sandy beach, and the grandeur of the waves rolling in on a stormy winter’s day.

A stone beacon has been recently erected on Pladdy Lug which had formerly only an iron perch, and was a most serious obstacle to ships attempting to make their way over the bar. A “Pladdy” signifies a flat sunken rock, whereas a rock always above water is termed a “Skerry” and if connected with the land so as to form a reef, a share or sker. The flood runs in for about two hours after it is high water on the shore at Killard Point, and the ebb runs out for the same length of time after low water.

Near this Point in Rock Patrick, marked by an iron perch, there is a coastguard station at Killard, those employed in that capacity living in a neat row of houses facing the sea. This place is situated in the extreme east of Lecale, and was formerly called Killernede or Kenlis; it possessed a chapel on the site now called Cargy, which was appropriated to the Abbey at Saul. It is in the parish of Kilclief, the ancient church of which stood on the same ground now occupied by the present one. The latter was supposed by Colgan (an historian) to have been founded by St Patrick and Eugenuis and Niellus are represented as its first ministers.

This church of Kirkeleth, also called Cilleliath, was in A.D. 1034, annexed to the See lands of Down.

About the year 1178, John de Courcy confirmed the possession of “Kilcleth” to the Bishop. About the year 1183 Bishop Malachi granted the church of “Killeclethe” to the Abbey of St Patrick.

In the fifteenth century this parish was the corps of the Archdeaconry of Down, and when the chapter was remodelled in 1609 it continued in connection with the same dignity.

To be continued next issue.

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Robert Kallaway, Missionary, Explorer and Coastguard

by Douglas Sloan, Portadown (contributed by his cousin George McKibbin)

Thousands of miles lie between Devon and the vast continent of Africa, and hundreds of miles between Africa and Strangford.

One man who made both journeys was Robert Kallaway, who was a member of a small group who set out in 1841 to explore some of the great rivers in that vast country.

Their principal purpose was to seek the whereabouts of Dr David Livingstone (1812 – 1873).

Born at Blantyre in Scotland’s Lanarkshire, he was attracted to Africa by the celebrated Dr James Moffatt, a minister of the United Free Church of Scotland, who himself became widely recognised as the translator of the Bible into modern English.

Livingstone had been ordained under the London Missionary Society.

The leader of the expedition into darkest Africa was Henry Morton Stanley, who later received a Knighthood for his outstanding Robert Kalloway, Strangford (Photo: Rev.W. E. Kennedy) services as an explorer.

Born at Denbigh, Wales in 1841, he was joined by Robert Kallaway to undertake the hazardous trek.

At that time Stanley was a correspondent of the New York Herald, and it was this newspaper which paid the cost of the enterprise.

A biographical account states that the explorers were “kitted out” by the Herald and the Daily Telegraph in order to “complete Livingstone’s work as an explorer”.

On arrival in Africa these intrepid pioneers began their venture into the unknown and uncharted country that was to lead to the jungle.

At last to their astonishment they succeeded in their quest, finding Livingstone seated with some native people to whom he had become their teacher.

When Stanley went forward to meet the great man, he said, “Dr Livingstone, I presume”. This form of greeting is used to this day in a rather jocular manner when some people meet.

One can visualise the scene when Livingstone welcomed his unexpected visitors . . . . . a Scotsman, a Welshman and an Englishman.

But back to Robert Kallaway. He was born in Devon, England, and just recently the writer was given to understand that this family name is still to be found there.

He became what was described as a divisional carpenter of coastguards, and in due course took up duty in Strangford. Here he settled down with his wife Grace, who was to predecease him.

Later he remarried, this time to Miss Harriett Polly from Cloughey.

Having made his home in the village he reached the time when he decided that his working days were over and finally retired.

It was the writer’s happy experience to have met this remarkable man in his home overlooking 48

Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

Strangford and the sea.

In the early 1930’s I was on holiday with my uncle and aunt, Mr and Mrs James McKibbin of Ballyculter.

One afternoon they suggested that I might like to meet old Mr Kallaway, and so, taking the opportunity, I cycled down to Strangford and called at his home at ‘Rosebank’ on the Quarry Hill. There I received a very warm welcome from his daughter, Miss Ethel Kallaway.

Seated beside the fireplace Mr Kallaway related to me some recollections of his safari into the jungle, and their success in finding the renowned Doctor Livingstone. As a 20-year old trainee journalist I was enthralled to listen to this historic event in the annals of exploration and missionary outreach.

By now, far from his native Devon and Africa, Robert, and members of his family of Strangford, sleep their last sleep in a quiet resting place in the heart of this Calvary Cross, made by Robert Kalloway picturesque County Down countryside (Photo: Rev.W. E. Kennedy) and in God’s acre at Ballyculter Parish Church.

Dr Livingstone remained in Africa until he fell into woeful health and on the morning of 1st May, 1873 he was found dead. His embalmed body was carried by faithful friends to the coast and thence to London. His earthly remains were given a burial worthy of the man in Westminister Abbey.

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Inverbrena Members in Session

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Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

Inverbrena Members in Session

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas

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Members Down The Years Brian Denvir Willie Crea George Conway Peig Denvir Bobby Magee Leslie McKibbin Prof. Ronnie Buchanan Eamon McMullan Desmond McMullan Eleanor McGurraghan Isobel Magee Mena McKeating Edith Hynds Ann Ellis Brian Fitzsimmons Sheila Campbell Eamon Seed Seamus Savage Maureen Savage James Curran Imelda Fitzsimmons

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Inverbrena Local History Group Magazine 2005

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