Tag Archives: Ireland

1916

Fermanagh Herald February 5th 1916.  THRESHING IN COUNTY LEITRIM.  During the week Messrs. W. E. Pye and William Johnston, Kinlough, attended at Messrs.  T. J. Rooney’s, Foxfield, E Thompson, Cherrybrook, with a steam thresher, for the purpose of giving demonstrations on the threshing of oats etc..  The thresher is one of powerful capabilities, having thrashed, cleaned and gathered 120 stone of oats per hour.  The ease and comfort with which work can now be done by the use of up-to-date machinery should be a great encouragement to the farmers of the county to increase the cultivation of crops during the coming season.

Fermanagh Herald February 5th 1916.  WOULD NOT LEAVE THE WORKHOUSE.  An interesting discussion arose over an inmate from Killybuggy.  It would appear that this woman was in the habit of living with her married daughter and was in receipt of the old age pension.  She went away from her daughter’s house and sought refuge in the Manorhamilton Union.  Her daughter appeared before their Guardians asking that our mother be requested to leave the workhouse and go back to live with her as heretofore.  The Guardians could not persuade the woman to leave the house so they allowed her to stay for the present.

February 10th 1916.  THE FAITHFUL HORSE.  A remarkable story of a horse’s faithfulness is related in the monthly magazine of the Claremont Mission Pentonville N.,  by one of the Coldstream Guards Regiment.  After the fierce fighting at Loos he writes it was noticed that there was a horse standing between the firing lines.  For two days he remained there.  Then some of our men crawled out and found that he was standing by the dead body of his rider and would not leave the spot.  Later on some of our men bravely arranged to get out to the horse again, blindfolded him and brought them back to our lines.  By no other means could the faithful beast be persuaded to leave its dead master.  F.T.

February 10th 1916.  NOTES.  Certain areas in the United Kingdom have now been forbidden to aliens.  In Ireland these included the counties of Dublin, Cork and Kerry.

The Compulsory Service Order of England comes into force today.  Unmarried men from 19 years to 30 are being called up, the last of them to report by March 3.

An old Crimean veteran named Matthew Johnston, has died as a pay patient in Enniskillen Workhouse hospital on Tuesday.  He had served under the late Col. Johnston of Snowhill and told how he used to carry biscuits from Balaclava to Sebastopol sometimes in his bare feet in the snow.  He received a special service pension about 15 years ago.  He will be buried today. I.R.

February 10th 1916.  SERGEANT J.  FYFFE 18TH ROYAL IRISH, rushed home from his regiment in France to see his father in Eden Street, Enniskillen, but before he could reach home his father had passed away.  Sergeant Fyffe is a smart young soldier and instructor of athletics in his battalion.  He met James and Willie Quinn of the Diamond, Enniskillen of the 5th Royal Irish Rifles near his own battalion in France and says that the Ulster division with the local battalion lay not far off from where his own battalion was located.  The Ulster division and other Divisions are on the best of terms.  All are comrades out there, no matter from the south or north and all are much superior in physique and in condition to the German soldiers.  The German soldiers would desert in numbers but that their own officers tell them that they would be shot at once if taken by the British.  One of the prisoners taken by the 18th on Christmas night was so frightened and he begged his captors to leave him his German head: he was led to believe that his head would be cut off.  The well-known action at the Brickfields reduced the 18th from 1,100 to about 43 men, they were so decimated.  The Germans, Sergeant Fyffe says, no longer advance in solid masses as they used to do, but in open formation.  They had suffered so much by the former that they were taught a lesson. I.R.

February 10th 1916.  THE 12TH INNISKILLINGS.  A draft of the 12th Inniskillings stationed at Enniskillen, has gone to the front and received a hearty send off, the whole of the battalion lining up and heartily cheering their departing comrades.  The officers of the battalion bade the men farewell at the Railway Station.  With the drafts leaving were the following officers – Second Lieutenants Allen, McKinley, Baker, Shannon and Reid.  The fine corps of drums played the men off to the tunes of “The girl I left behind me”, and to “Keep the home fires burning”, while at intervals “Auld Lang Syne” was played.  Among the men of the draft are some old soldiers who saw service in South Africa.  The order for departure was received only one hour before train time and so the townspeople had not an opportunity of knowing of the departure of the men, and of giving them a fitting send off. I.R.

Fermanagh Herald February 12th 1916.  OBITER DICTA.  THE CONVENT BELL.  There is apparently no limit to the appalling pomposity of a certain set of Protestants, who are unfortunately in Enniskillen.  But happily their influence is nil.  Nevertheless that little bird  known as rumour has just hopped on my table and told me a surprising story concerning the Convent bell.  The hint is quite sufficient for this sect.  I write the above just to let them know that I am fully conversant with all of the leading facts, and I’m seriously thinking of pulling back the veil in a short time and exposing the bigoted scheme.

Fermanagh Herald February 12th 1916.  DROMORE BISHOPRIC.  APPOINTMENT OF THE VERY REV. EDWARD CANON MULHERN, D. D., P.  P., INISHMACSAINT.  A Reuter’s cable from Rome of Monday’s date intimates that, on the recommendation of the Consistorial Congregation, his Holiness the Pope has appointed the very Rev. Edward Canon Mulhern of Inishmacsaint to be Lord Bishop of Dromore in succession to the late most Rev. Dr. O’Neill.  The new Bishop-elect is a native of Ederney, County Fermanagh and received his early education at St. Macartan’s seminary Monaghan where he ranked among the most successful students of his time.

Fermanagh Herald February 12th 1916.  IT WILL BE LEARNED WITH REGRET that Private S.  H.  Young, of the 8th Highland Light Infantry, and brother of Mr. D.  Young, Omagh, was killed by shrapnel in France on the 21st of January.  Private Young was a native of Belleek, County Fermanagh and was employed for some time in Messrs.  White Bros.’ hardware establishment in Omagh.  After the outbreak of the war he joined the colours and went on active service about October last.  The news of his death was conveyed in a letter from the chaplain of the regiment, who states that he was buried with his Scottish comrades.

Fermanagh Herald February 12th 1916.  CAPTAIN D’ARCY IRVINE KILLED.  Captain Charles William D’Arcy Irvine 6th Service Battalion, Leinster Regiment, who is reported in Monday’s casualty list to have been killed in action at the Dardanelles, was reported wounded and missing, believed killed, in September last.  He was the eldest son of Major Charles Cockburn D’Arcy Irvine, J.P. of Castle Irvine, Irvinestown, and of Fannie Kathleen, daughter of the late Lt. Colonel Jesse Lloyd, of Ballyleck, County Monaghan.  He was a grandson of the late Captain W. D’Arcy Irvine, D. L. of the 67th Regiment now the 2nd Battalion Hampshire Regiment, and his great grandfather, the late Mr. W. D’Arcy Irvine of Castle Irvine served at Waterloo with the 1st Dragoon Guards.  Captain C. W. D’Arcy Irvine who was 31 years of age, served for a time in the 3rd Battalion Royal Irish Rifles.  He afterwards transferred to the Leinster Regiment, and accompanied the 6th Battalion to the Dardanelles last year, taking part in the Suvla Bay operations.  His services were mentioned in dispatches by General Sir Ian Hamilton.

Fermanagh Herald February 12th 1916.  AGAINST FEMALE LABOUR AT PIT HEAD.  The Executive, Committee of the Northumberland Miners have resolved to oppose the introduction of female labour at the pit head, and recommended instead a rearrangement of male labour.  Their contention is there are many strong men at the bank who might be better employed underground, and many discarded old men who could be re-employed.  There are no pit head woman workers in Northumberland.

Oscar Wilde’sEnniskillen.

wilde_plaque.jpg

The second Oscar Wild Festival in the current season will be held in Enniskillen this year following a successful debut last year.

Oscar’s Wilde’s Enniskillen. Fermanagh in mid Victorian Times 1864-71 is a book published in 2002 as part of a former Wilde Festival in Enniskillen held in that year is intended to convey some idea of what Enniskillen was like in mid-Victorian times – the county town of Fermanagh that Oscar Wilde would have walked through.  Perhaps on his way to and from the railway station while boarding at the prestigious, Enniskillen Royal Free School; locally known as Portora, or on excursions from the school to Sunday Church or to Enniskillen Fair Days. It intends to evoke the sights, smells, sounds of a small Irish Victorian town in the middle of Queen Victoria’s long reign. This town and county and its people provided the backdrop to Oscar Wilde’s growing up. John B. Cunningham Esq.

One of the most important voices in Oscar Wilde’s Fermanagh, at this time, was William Trimble editor of the Impartial Reporter newspaper. The paper had been first printed in 1825, and the paper is still published in the 21st century making it the third-oldest newspaper in Ireland after two other Ulster publications, the Belfast News Letter (which is the oldest daily newspaper in the world) and the Derry Journal. This book was researched from the issues of the Impartial Reporter 1864-1871. It originally began life written in the modern idiom with relatively few quotations from the pen of William Copeland Trimble but through time his voice took over. Oscar Wilde grew up reading and listening to the cadences of writers and speakers of the time. Victorian thoughts and descriptions seemed eventually to be better expressed in the words of the time and William Trimble was the master voice of Enniskillen and County Fermanagh and all matters pertaining in Oscar’s formative years. The words are largely those of William Trimble; the choice is mine.

Oscar Wilde attended Enniskillen Royal School from 1864 to 1871. This was a prestigious educational institution to which boys came from all over Ireland, the sons of gentry, military, religious and judicial figures. These boys were destined to follow in their fathers’ footsteps. Because of the distance from their homes the boys resided in the school as boarders. Local boys, chiefly from Enniskillen, made up the rest of the school. In all there were 175 boys in the school when Oscar Wilde attended there. With the arrival of the railway to Enniskillen in 1859 local boys could come from a wider area of Fermanagh. They came and went by train in the morning and afternoon. These were chiefly the sons of the merchant class of local shopkeepers, doctors, officers of the local military garrison etc. and they came and went each day. Some of them, like the boarders paid for their education but a certain number were educated free. There was certainly an amount of class distinction between the locals and the boarders and between those who paid and those who did not. Sometimes this manifested itself in fights between individual boys or in mass snowballing contests as one old boy describes in his memoirs. Oscar and his brother came to this educational establishment at the beginning of the school year of 1864/5, sons of the famous Sir William Wilde. They were Dublin boys, rusticated to a country school – boys used to the big city, now meeting a school full of strangers in a small Irish town.

What Enniskillen made of these city boys with a famous father we do not know but Oscar claims that he did not like his time there very much. However, whether or not he did, everyone’s schooldays have an influence on their later life, for good or ill, for better or for worse. We are influenced by our teachers, the ambience and ethos of the school, the happenings of the world around us as we grow up and the conversations and opinions of the boys and girls of our own age. Like successive layers of varnish, later memories become overlaid with subsequent events, but never entirely obliterate those underneath. We remember some teachers with affection and others with loathing and similarly our classmates. We remember the school bullies, the boyfriends and girlfriends of our teenage years, the escapades we got away with and the disasters when our wrong doings were discovered and the punishments which followed.

In compiling the Enniskillen of Oscar Wilde’s time the local newspaper the Impartial Reporter has been an invaluable source of reference which chronicled the events of the time in Enniskillen and County Fermanagh but also news from all around the world, the royal courts of Europe, happenings in Africa and America etc. The local newspaper, as we know it today, is a very insular, inward looking newspaper compared to those of the past. Television, radio and the national papers have taken over the task of telling us of the doings of the wider world but local, national and international items jostled together on the pages of the Impartial with local news often coming out worst in the struggle for space. Regular local items included in the paper were the meetings of Enniskillen Town Commissioners, the Poor Law Guardians of Enniskillen Workhouse, the Enniskillen Petty Sessions Courts, and the Fermanagh Quarter Sessions Courts. The weather, the fairs of Enniskillen and the coming and going of the local gentry also feature prominently. Schools and Church news were also covered but overall local items, other than advertisements, seldom represented more than ten to twenty per cent of the total amount in the paper. Items copied from the columns of other Irish papers were frequently covered, with acknowledgement, especially if it were sensational material such as a murder, discovery of weapons, descriptions of hangings or sensational trials involving people in high places.

So would boys at school in Portora read the local newspaper? Perhaps yes, and perhaps no, but regardless of individual boys reading the paper themselves, the conversation of the masters and the gossip and talk of the other boys would have supplied the deficiency. Boys were present from all over Ireland and indeed further afield, and interested in stories from their own area. These boys, especially the boarders, were being educated for places in the military, judicial and religious establishment, not alone in Ireland but throughout the British Empire and all knowledge of the society in which they were destined to make a living was almost as equally important as what they were imbibing from their masters at Portora.

The period represented by Oscar Wilde’s attendance at Portora lies about halfway through the long reign of Queen Victoria. What would Oscar Wilde and his brother have seen, smelt, heard, and experienced as they walked through its streets on their way from the railway station on the east end of the town to their school on the west end of Enniskillen – on the days they walked to church – on the days they were let out to experience the fair of Enniskillen? Did any of this influence his life or works? It is hard to answer that but “perhaps” is probably the best we can get. Boys arriving by train from Dublin or other parts of Ireland invariably had large trunks of clothing etc. and these were left at the station to be collected later by someone from the school and the boys then walked to the school. New boys were invariably accompanied by someone older who was already attending the school. Belmore Street and the eastern approach to Enniskillen from the railway station was not the town’s most inviting aspect. The street was smelly, unpaved and dirty. Until the level of the street was raised it was a swampy area which frequently flooded. Old people recalled catching fish where Dunne’s Stores and the Railway Hotel are currently situated. There was no pavement and horse and cow dung lay where it fell until one of the town scavengers swept it up. These scavengers, (their official title) were employed at an annual fee to keep the streets tidy but rubbish etc often piled up when they took a few days off on hire to a local merchant to move goods or furniture with their horse and cart. Many in town kept a few cows to provide milk for their family and work people. In the warmer weather they were driven too and fro morning and evening to be milked, and to grazing off the island of Enniskillen. They deposited their manure on the streets adding to that of the numerous horses and donkeys. In busy cities, street sweepers would sweep a path across the street for gentlemen and their ladies; in return for a fee of course. In dry weather this was tolerable to a degree but in wet weather the mud and manure could be many inches deep. Broken and unmade sewers produced a heavy stench especially in warm weather and the tannery in Belmore Street with its supply of high smelling animal hides added to the miasma. Fermanagh County Jail was one of the first grim sights of Enniskillen as one came from the train. The gallows over the main door was a grim reminder in an age when hundreds were hung each year in the British Isles. The tumult of a fair day can only be imagined today. Street singers, impromptu auctions, lowing cattle, bleating sheep and squealing pigs, horse and donkey carts trundling along interspersed with the carriages of the better off all added to the exciting, noisy atmosphere. Most houses were thatched, other than the houses of the wealthy, and the merchant’s premises and turf smoke filled the air. Boat loads of turf constantly arrived at Enniskillen as this was the principal fuel of the time.

Crossing the East Bridge where the bulk of the flow of the River Erne was then directed, provided views of boats going to and fro and bulky Erne cots (large flat bottomed boats) unloaded their cargoes of sand, turf, brick, timber etc at various quays and small beaches around the island. Sewage discharged directly into the river, and dead animals, and unused animal parts from the butchers all ended in the Erne. So too, unfortunately did the corpses of numerous unwanted little children. These sad little deaths were so commonplace as to be little noticed and an aspect of mid Victorian society seldom mentioned. Enniskillen had been a garrison town for centuries with around 50 resident prostitutes practicing what is reputedly the World’s oldest profession. Someone once added that lawyers were the second oldest profession but not nearly as honourable as the first.

At the Diamond in Enniskillen, and indeed at other places, street sellers called out their wares, such as apples and sweets, and auctions frequently gathered a crowd. Off duty soldiers and their lady friends thronged the streets especially towards the West end of the town and quarrels and drunken rows were extremely common. The Wilde boys would have passed Cassidy’s Tobacco factory along Church Street and the town brewery as they crossed the West Bridge. By now they could see Portora on the hill and depending on the time of day a stream of local Enniskillen boys on their way to or from the school many of them furthest away on ponies. Looking over the bridge boys would see boats and cots from Lower Lough Erne and sometimes the steamer “Devenish” on her way to or from a pleasant trip to Belleek or Castle Caldwell, a round trip of about 50 miles.

 

Fermanagh Times December 2nd 1915.  PEACE.  ENNISKILLEN PRESBYTERIAN DIFFERENCES SETTLED.  HAPPY ENDING TO THEIR QUARREL.  We are extremely pleased to be able to announce that the differences which arose in the Enniskillen Presbyterian Church over the appointment of a successor to the late Rev. S. C. Mitchell have been amicably settled and the congregation will consequently now revert to its former strength, which was seriously depleted by the abstention from attendance of the dissenting members, who numbered one third of the whole.

Throughout the entire controversy, which has now existed for some months, the Fermanagh Times was the only newspaper in the County which give a true or correct report of the state of things actually existing and was the only newspaper to urge on every possible occasion a reconciliation between the opposing factions.  Happily this has now come about, and the final proceedings at which this happy ending of the trouble was reached justified in every detail the attitude adopted by us from the beginning.  The matter came before a meeting of the Clogher Presbytery in Maguiresbridge last week as result of a memorial received from the minority, and certain members of the Presbytery were then appointed to meet representatives of the minority in Enniskillen on Monday last, and discuss the whole situation.  This meeting duly took place and after a lengthy sitting, lasting nearly three hours, a document was drawn up and signed by the representatives of both parties expressing regret for any heat which had been displayed in the past, and a mutual wish for the future welfare and progress of the congregation.  The minority made it quite clear that it had not been to Rev. A. J. Jenkins, personally, they had objected, but to what they termed the questionable and objectionable methods adopted by one or two of his more prominent supporters during the progress of the election.

 

Fermanagh Times December 2nd 1915.  RECRUITING AND THE POPULATION. FACTS ABOUT FERMANAGH.  In a letter from Pro Patria dated from County Fermanagh in the Irish Times it states: –  In the first place, I may state that the farmers sons show no willingness to join the Army.  Their father say that they are needed at home, but I fear that this is due not only to the natural affection they have for them, but also – and, perhaps, principally – to the money the farmers have been making since the war began, very little of which has found its way into the War Loan.  With their sons help, they hope further to fatten on the needs of others.  The utter selfishness of this class of the community constitutes one of the chief obstacles to recruiting from this source, and has a reflex action upon other sources – namely the labouring class.  The labourers say:  “While should we go when men like the farmers who have their farms to fight for, won’t go?”  Though they say this yet probably as a class they have done better for the King and country than any others – with the possible exception of the county families.

In the next place –and here politics and religion, which, like the poor, are ever with us, come in – the Unionist young men say that they are quite willing to enlist if the Nationalist also enlist; for it is a notorious fact that very few of the latter have done so from here since the present crisis arose.  The proportion of recruits from a population almost equally divided religiously and politically is heavily in favour of the Unionist side – in the ratio of 30 to 1 or even higher.

 

Impartial Reporter.  December 2nd 1915.  A FERMANAGH SENSATION AS THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNTY COUNCIL IS SUSPENDED FROM THE MAGISTRACY.  The announcement of the suspension from the Magistry of Mr. John McHugh, Pettigo will cause a profound sensation in County Fermanagh.  Mr. McHugh is the Chairman of the Fermanagh County Council.  He has been for a number of year’s Justice of the Peace for County Fermanagh and sat on the bench for the Lack and Kesh districts.  As chairman of the County Council Mr. McHugh has influence on other county committees of which he was ex-officio a member.  He is also the Chairman of the County Fermanagh Old Age Pensions Committee.  On the bench Mr. McHugh was a good Magistrate –very much better than, and indeed an example to, a large number of the present magistrates in the county.  His removal from the Bench was nothing to do with his conduct as a magistrate, but as a public man holding public office on behalf of the ratepayers.

THE CAUSE OF HIS SUSPENSION.  Mr. McHugh is an auctioneer in business and so keen was the competition in his part of the county that he wrote letters to farmers canvassing for the sale of their farms.  It was in this that he proved most improper.  In one letter that he wrote –and it is alleged that several were written in a similar strain –Mr. McHugh promised a farmer, in return for giving him the sale to procure for him the old age pension as he had great influence with the Old Age Pension Committee.  The letter was handed over to the Crown authorities.  The incriminating document in due course was brought before the Lord Chancellor, Right Hon.  Ignatius O’Brien, who wrote to Mr. McHugh for any explanation he had to make.  That explanation evidently was not satisfactory and accordingly a writ of supersedeas was issued on the 23rd.  As to the public positions Mr. McHugh holds the Local Government Board control them and it remains to be seen if that Board will take any action.

 

Impartial Reporter.  December 2nd 1915.  VARIOUS.  500 recruits per day is the very loyal response of South Africa to the appealed for more men.  Australia is sending 50,000 more soldiers.

A parade of a rebel Sinn Feiners was held in Cork on Sunday when Anti –British speeches were made and congratulations offered to the R. C.  Bishop of Limerick on his extraordinary letter.

The Orange and Protestant Friendly Society Pettigo branch will hold a general meeting in Dernasesk Orange Hall on Saturday evening December 4 at 7.00 to elect officers and Committee for 1916.  J.  Johnston, Sec.

 

Fermanagh Times December 9th 1915.  The announcement made by Mr. Asquith that the British casualties have passed the half a million mark comes home to us all.  In the wars of the past there is nothing to compare with this, for hitherto we had always been accustomed to fight battles with small forces of professionals, and, since the idea of a nation in arms became a reality, our insular position has saved us from being entangled in European conflicts.  At any other period in English history no Government would have admitted such losses without the risk of an upheaval that would have endanger the whole fabric of the state.

Fermanagh Times December 9th 1915.  There is one other way in which the Irish Nationalists might do an immense service to recruiting in Ireland – by appealing to the Roman Catholic Church to alter its attitude.  It is the universal testimony of all recruiting officers that one of the greatest obstacles is for them conviction that the Church is against it.  Every Irishman knows the power of the Church over her people, how they are in absolute subjection to her commands, how they cannot for the most part even form an opinion, or still act, without the  Church’s knowledge and consent.  When, therefore, the members of the Church form, as he certainly has done, a firm opinion that the Church does not look favourably upon enlisting, what a poor chance and there must be for the recruiting sergeant.

 

Fermanagh Times December 9th 1915.  THE 11TH BATTALION.  MUD 3 FEET DEEP.  PROSPEROUS ORANGE LODGE IN THE REGIMENT.  HUNDREDS OF PLUM PUDDINGS DISPATCHED.  Rain and cold and mud everywhere, is the story told by practically all the boys in the 11th Battalion, who have written during the past week.  One correspondent, as will be seen below, speaks of mud in the trenches 3 feet deep, and what this means to the unfortunate young lads compelled to remain there for days at a time we, at home, cannot however adequately realise.  The boys, however, continue in excellent spirits and enjoy good health, and that is after all the main thing.

 

Fermanagh Times December 9th 1915.  MARRIAGE OF CAPTAIN PORTER, BELLEISLE.  The marriage of Captain John Grey Porter, D. S. O., (Queen’s Royal) Lancers, eldest son of Mr. John Porter–Porter, D. L., Belleisle, County Fermanagh, who is home from the front on leave, and Miss Enid Mary Duff–Assheton–Smith, only daughter of the late Mr. George William Duff–Assheton-Smith, of Vaynol, Carnarvon, and Mrs. Holdsworth, wife of Colonel George Holdsworth, 7th Hussars, took place on Monday at Saint George’s, Hanover Square, very quietly owing to the war.  The function which was distinctly a war wedding, came as a surprise to all but intimate friends, for news of the short engagement had been imparted only to the family circle.

 

Fermanagh Times December 9th 1915.  LOCAL MILITARY NEWS.  OLD FERMANAGH FAMILY BEREAVED.  CAPTAIN.  V. L. Y. DANE KILLED .  The death has been officially reported of Captain             Victor Dane 22nd Punjabia, Indian Army.  Captain Dane was one of a considerable number of Anglo-Indian officers who fell in the fighting near Baghdad prior to the British retirement on Kulel-Mara.  He was the second son of the late Colonel Arthur Henry Cole Dane, M. D. Indian Medical Service, grandson of the late Richard Dane M. D., C. B., Inspector–General of Hospitals, who died in 1901, and great grandson of the late Mr. Richard Martin Dane, D. L., Killyhevlin, Fermanagh, the former High Sheriff of that county.  Captain Dane was educated at Sandhurst and joined the Scottish Rifles in 1905, transferring to the Indian Army in 1906, and received his captaincy last year.  His father spent most of his life in India, where two of his brothers have served the State in High offices, one, Sir Louis W.  Dane, K. C. I. E., C. S. I., having been Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab from 1908 to 1913 and the other, Sir Richard Maurice Dane, K. C. I.E., having been Inspector–General of Excise and Salt in India 1907 to 1909 in addition having held other important offices in the Indian Civil Service. The late County Court Judge Dane, who was M.P. for North Fermanagh 1892 to 1898, was a nephew of Richard Martin Dane, M. D., C. B., already referred to and the present head of the family is Mr. James Whiteside Dane, Bonniebrooke, Co., Fermanagh, and Castle Warden, Co., Kildare, of which county he is Clerk of the Crown and Peace.  The Danes have been connected with Fermanagh since 1667, when John Dane settled at Enniskillen.  His eldest son, Paul Dane, of Killyhevlin was Provost of Enniskillen 1687 to 1689, and was present at the battle of the Boyne.  The only brother of the deceased is in the navy.  Every member of the Dane family is either in the Army or the Navy, except one engaged in munition work.

 

Fermanagh Herald December 11 1915.  The Post Office issues the following: – No postage stamps issued during Queen Victorious reign are now valid.  All the adhesive and impressed stamps of those issues which had up to that time remained valid were, in accordance with the announcement made in May last, invalidated after the end of June.  The public are reminded that no application to exchange any of the invalidated stamps for current stamps of equivalent value can be entertained unless made on or before the 31st of this month, at the Inland Revenue Offices, in London, Dublin, for Edinburgh.

 

Fermanagh Herald December 11 1915.  THE FIRST WIRELESS MESSAGE.  Maestro Rudolfe Ferrari, who in his picturesque fashion is now conducting the Chicago Opera orchestra and in his time has directed performances at Milan, Rome, Vienna, Madrid, Berlin, New York and Buenos Aires and singers such as Caruso, Tamagno, Calve, Chaliapin, and Titta Ruffo, likes to remember that Marconi when 11 years old was a pupil of his.

Marconi never took kindly to the piano.  He was a boy in Bologna, and one day he arrived for his lessons with grimy hands and a couple of boxes about a foot square.  “I was ordered,” says Ferrari, “to take one of them to a high hill while the lad went to the roof of my house with the other.  He gave me a pistol and told me if I heard a suspicious clicking to fire it.  I had half an idea that the box was an infernal machine, but I out his instructions – the boy’s enthusiasm was so beautiful –and toiled up that hill.  I sat down and opened the box.

“By and by I heard a click, and then a series of clicks.  I let off the pistol, and presently up ran Marconi, hatless and coatless, wildly excited.  ‘You heard?  You heard?’  I responded that I had.  It was the first wireless event ever sent.  What was the message?  I asked him, and he answered with a smile, “There is music in the air!  Ferrari’s efforts on Marconi’s musical education were not altogether wasted.

 

Fermanagh Herald December 11 1915.  OPENING OF SAINT MARY’S NEW SCHOOL DERRYHALLOW MULEEK.  On last Wednesday, the 1st of December Saint Mary’s National School, Derryhallow, in the Mulleek District of Pettigo parish, was opened for the admission of almost 50 pupils.  On the previous day the Feast of Saint Andrew, this beautiful school that has cost over £500 was blessed by the manager Very Rev. George Canon McMeel D.D., P.P., Pettigo, who at the same time installed Mr. John Kane as its principal teacher.  Owing to landlord intolerance in the past no suitable site could be procured for love or money for the building of a school for the Catholics on this estate, with the result that the present teacher as well as his late respected father were obliged to hold forth the lamp of learning to these downtrodden and persecuted people for upwards of half a century in a thatched cabin that was little better than a hovel.

As the mill of the Lord grinds slowly but surely, these tyrannical laws were at last swept away by the fierce agitation that has been carried on for the past 35 years by Messrs. Parnell and Redmond with the other members of the Irish Parliamentary Party, backed up by the ever loyal priests and the warm-hearted catholic people of Ireland.

When at the present energetic parish priest Dr. McMeel came to Pettigo parish he made up his mind to make the unfortunate tenants on this estate the owners of the land they tilled, and at once took steps through the Estates Commissioners to buy out their farms.  In this he succeeded admirably, so that at present their annuities are not  40 per cent of their former rack-rents.  Moreover, he succeeded in getting about 400 acres of the richest lands in demesne that surrounds the Bloomfield castle split up into reasonably sized plots, which were mostly allocated to the holders of uneconomic farms in the district; and by means of which these poor people are able to raise sufficient hay to feed their cattle during the winter.  It is unnecessary to give all the details of this purchase, including the troublesome question of turbary, which always gives great annoyance in the sale of any estate.  On this estate, however, the turbary question was settled satisfactorily by the tenants, who are assured of a plentiful supply of turf for centuries to come.

The landlord’s prohibitive power being now cleared away, the question of acquiring a suitable site was rendered comparatively easily.  When Mr. William N. Monaghan, Derryhallow, was approached, for a site, he, at once consented to give for the, on reasonably fair terms, a site which is most centrally situated for the children of this wide locality.  The obtaining of the usual grant from the Board of Works was a matter of great difficulty, which after years of persevering was at length overcome.  The plans and specifications having been drawn up, and a competent contractor having been selected, the work went ahead until the long wished for end was accomplished, and the splendid school with all its modern and up-to-date improvements has been thrown open amidst the joy and jubilation of the people.  To make the opening of the school a red letter day, the ladies of the neighbourhood provided a plentiful supply of tea, cakes, and apples for the youngsters, which they heartily enjoyed.

 

Fermanagh Herald December 11 1915.  THE SAD DEATH OF A YOUNG FERMANAGH MAN IN MANCHESTER.  With feelings of deep sorrow the relatives and friends of the late Mr. Lawrence Keon learned of his untimely demise at a hospital in Manchester, as a result of an accident. Deceased, who was a son of Mr. John Keon, D.C., Cornahilta, Belleek, was employed at the Oldham Road, Manchester, goods station, and on October 30th, after returning from his tea, when passing between two wagons was accidentally knocked down by one of them, the wheels of the wagon crushing his leg in such a manner as to necessitate his removal to hospital, where despite everything that medical science could do to prolong his life, septic poisoning developed, and he passed peacefully away fortified by the rites of the Catholic Church, of which he was an exemplary member.

 

Fermanagh Times December16th 1915.  GALLANT STAND OF THE INNISKILLINGS FACING OVERWHELMING ODDS AND HARDLY A MAN ESCAPES.  ANXIETY IN FERMANAGH.  No details have yet to come to hand of the casualties suffered by two companies of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, who in the face of overwhelming odds held a ridge in Macedonia the other day for several hours, thus checking the Bulgarians advance and giving the remainder of the British and French troops a valuable opportunity to withdraw and complete their defensive positions further in the rear.  All we do know is that according to the reports sent by the Press Association “hardly a man escaped.”  We have been informed that already at least two Enniskillen families have received notices from the War Office of the death of members of the household in this particular engagement, but this statement we have, so far, been unable to verify.  Why the superb courage of the men of our Territorial regiments were not mentioned in the official dispatches is one of those mysteries of the war, which only the General responsible, or the Censor, can elucidate.  One thing is certain, however, that such omissions or eliminations do not tend to encourage recruiting in the districts concerned.

Fermanagh Times December16th 1915.  ENNISKILLEN SOLICITOR BEREAVED.  Very much sympathy will be felt throughout Fermanagh with Mr. George Atkinson, solicitor, on account of the death of his son Mr. Andrew George Atkinson, who succumbed on the 27th of November in hospital in Alexandria, to wounds received at the Dardanelles on the 29th of October.  Mr. Andrew Atkinson who would have been 24 years of age on the fourth of the present month went to Australia four years ago.  In November, 1914, he joined the Australian Contingent with which he was drafted to the Dardanelles in early summer last.  He was at the landing at Suvla Bay, and took part in practically all the subsequent operations in that part of the peninsula.  On the 29th of October he was very badly wounded, his skull being fractured.  From the first there was but little hope of his recovery, but a owing to his wonderful vitality and the remarkably skilful treatment he received in hospital his life was prolonged for a month all but a few days.  The surgeon, who treated him said he had never operated on a more healthy man.  Deceased was 6 feet high, was built in proportion and was one of the picked Australians.  He was most popular with all who knew him in Enniskillen and district, and his death will be felt with very much sorrow.  He was educated at Lisgoole Abbey and at Conway College, England. Two other sons of Mr. Atkinson’s are with the colours.  His eldest son, Captain John Atkinson, of the West Riding Yorkshire Regiment, and who has been several years in the Army, has been in the trenches in France for some time.  The other son, now in the army, is William Claude Hamilton Atkinson who came over with the Canadian Contingent and is undergoing training prior to being sent to the front.

 

Fermanagh Times December16th 1915.  ENNISKILLEN SOLDIER’S SUICIDE.  INVALIDED HOME FROM THE FRONT AND CUTS HIS THROAT WITH THE RAZOR.  A GHASTLY AFFAIR AT OMAGH.  Word reached Enniskillen yesterday of a shocking case of suicide which occurred at Omagh that morning, the victim being Private Henry Gallagher belonging to the Inniskilling Fusiliers.  Gallacher is a native of Enniskillen where, we are informed, he the tenant of a house, and was here for some time recently after returning from the front.  He was afterwards sent to the Depot at Omagh, where he was found in the military barracks yesterday morning quite dead with his throat cut and a razor in his hand.  At an inquest held later in the day the jury brought in a verdict of suicide while temporarily insane and expressed the opinion that this was probably the result of depression caused by his experiences in the war.

 

Fermanagh Herald December 18th 1915.  A FARMER’S TRAGIC MISTAKE.  HE DRANK POISON FOR RUM.  A SAD OCCURRENCE NEAR IRVINESTOWN.  An inquest was held at Dullaghan, near Dromore, on Tuesday evening touching the death of a farmer named John McCarron.  Patrick McCarron, Dullaghan, deceased’s cousin, gave evidence that on the 8th of December deceased called at his house on his way home from Irvinestown fair, and he told witness that he drank portion of the contents of a bottle, now produced.  He said he had drunk it in mistake for rum, a naggin of which he had in his pocket and he afterwards drunk a quantity of water from a bog hole, and did his best to vomit off the fluid which he had drunk in mistake for the rum.  While he was in witness’s house, witness gave him a little soft water and mustard and he vomited.  He was put to bed, and he remained there until Friday, vomiting at intervals during that period.  He complained his throat and breast were burning.  Deceased was about 42 years of age and unmarried he had drunk a portion of the contents of a bottle which was labelled “Poison” and marked “Ringworm Wash.”

 

Fermanagh Herald December 18th 1915.  MR. CARSON AND EGGS.  There is something in the spirit of Christmastide which stimulates the descendants of the great Mr. Bumble to acts of pompous, uncharitable valour which arouse nothing but intense loathing in all generous hearted mortals.  This year some of the Enniskillen Bumbles have a new weapon ready to their hands.  We are at war and economy has become a national virtue, nay, an urgent necessity, therefore let us insist, to some extent, upon those who are looking after the ratepayers interests being economical.  Mr. Bumble was ever valorous in the public welfare at the cost of someone else’s happiness, and such folk as the anti-egg majority on the Enniskillen Board of Guardians wear his mantle with distinction.  Mr. Crumley, M.P. it was, I believe, who first secured the officials an egg each every day, and at the last meeting of the Guardians the valorous Mr. Carson made a desperate attempt to do away with the officials eggs in the interest of economy.  Good gracious!  On that great day of reckoning when Mr. Carson’s grandchildren shall ask him what he did for his country in the Great War?  He will say proudly, “I initiated the fight against luxury, by endeavouring to stop the officials’ eggs!  I do not think the children of the future will be edified by the announcement.  Petty tyrannies are repugnant to children and all healthy youngsters despise meanness.

 

Fermanagh Herald December 18th 1915.  JOTTINGS. Under the Allies Restriction Order, Mrs Gallagher, lodging-house keeper, Head St., Enniskillen, was at Enniskillen Petty Sessions on Monday fined 2s 6d for failing to register a Pole named Slakeman who resided in her house for one night.

That the present three shillings and sixpence in the pound on unearned incomes will be raised to five shillings in the pound and the lower rates of income tax in proportion is the general opinion of the next Budget in April, according to the London correspondent of the Yorkshire Post.

The many friends of Mr. and Mrs. Dick, principles of Roscor and Cornahilta National Schools, Belleek, will be pleased to hear that they have been awarded by the Commissioners of National Education triennial increments of good service salary of £10 each, dating from the first of April last.  This recognition speaks volumes for the efficiency of the schools in their charge.

Captain R. B. Burgess, Royal Engineers who has died in France of wounds received on the 9th inst., was the only son of Mr. H. G. Burgess, manager in Ireland for the London and North Western Railway Company.  He was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen and Dublin University and last year left a growing practice at the Irish Bar to join the Army Service Corps, from which he was transferred on promotion to the Royal Engineers.  He was a man of splendid physique and a noted Rugby football forward.

Private E.  G.E. Stewart, Irish Guards, brother of Dr. Stuart, J.  P., Belturbet, has died of his wounds in London.

Mr. George Atkinson, solicitor, and coroner for North Fermanagh, Skea Hall, Enniskillen, has received word that his third son, Mr. Andrew George Atkinson, aged 22, had died of wounds in Alexandria Hospital.  The deceased emigrated to Australia four years ago and came over to the Dardanelles with the Australian contingent.  He was at the landing at Suvla Bay and was afterwards very severely wounded at the back of the head.  Mr. Atkinson has two other sons in the Army, Captain John Atkinson, the West Riding Yorkshire Regiment at present in the trenches in France, and Mr. William Claude Hamilton.?

 

Fermanagh Herald December 18th 1915.  BRITISH AIR RAID.  The following telegraphic dispatch has been received from General Headquarters.  On the eighth six Dean of her aeroplanes bombed a store death four at Marymount and an aerodrome at heavily.  This attack was carried out in a highly westerly when it’s made a flying difficult.  All the machines returned safely, and considerable damage is believed to have been done to both objectives.

 

Fermanagh Herald December 18th 1915.  INNISKILLINGS AND GALLANT STAND.  HARDLY A MAN ESCAPED.  The magnificent work of the Irish in saving the French and British forces from being cut off retreat to Greece from Serbia is the subject of enthusiastic commendation not only in Ireland but throughout to the British dominions.  In the British communique published on Monday the Connaughts, the Munsters and the Dublins were especially marked out for praise and now the Inniskillings are mentioned as having behaved with magnificent bravery, hardly one of them now remaining.  The London newspaper suggests that the Irish regiments who took part in the action should be thanked by a special vote of thanks passed simultaneously in both Houses of Parliament.  The Bulgar’s attempt to break through the British line was rendered fruitless by the bravery of the Irish and although the engagement resulted in retirement, the enemy was made to appreciate the qualities of the foe to which he is now opposed.  Not only were they outnumbered by about 10 to 1 by the enemy who was abundantly provided with field and mountain artillery and machine guns.  The Bulgarian attack began at 3.00 on Monday morning and a tremendous hail of lead poured upon our trenches which also suffered from whistling fragments of stone, the Bulgarian high explosive shells splintering the rocks and sending fragments in all directions, was greatly intensifying the effect of their fire.

Two companies of the Inniskillings held on to the ridge known as Kevis Crest, and kept back the Bulgarians practically the whole morning, although they were backed only by rifle fire.  Hardly a man escaped, but their stand impressed and delayed the Bulgars, thus giving much needed time to complete our defensive dispositions on our third line, where the Bulgarians were finally held up.

 

Fermanagh Times December 23rd 1915. THE GALLANT INNISKILLINGS.  STORY OF A GREAT SACRIFICE.  CRAWLING THROUGH A SEA OF MUD SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH THE DEAD.  The Daily News says: – The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, who sacrificed two whole companies in the rear-guard action in Macedonia, are never spoken of by their full title in the army, but they are invariably described by themselves as well as by their comrades as “The Skins.”  We have been allowed to learn how, by sacrificing one half of its personnel, one battalion of the Inniskillings secured the retreat of the British forces in Macedonia; but no official story has been published of the great feat achieved by the 2nd battalion of this gallant regiment at Festubert.  Yet it was only the enterprise and daring of the 2nd “Skins” that made possible the success of the – – Division.

One attack against the German trenches had been made and had failed, and the ground between the opposing lines was strewn with the dead of both sides.  A second attack was ordered.  The 2nd Inniskillings were to lead the van in the principal sector, and the attack was to be made under cover of darkness.  The space between the trenches was about 200 yards and in spite of the pitch blackness of the night it was certain that the German machine guns and rifles would take a heavy toll before the trenches were reached.  But the Inniskillings mix brains with their bravery.  So soon after night fell, about eight p.m., they crept over the parapet, one by one they squirmed on their stomachs towards the German trenches.  Slowly and painfully they crawled through a sea of mud, from dead man to dead man, lying quite still whenever a star shell lighted up No Man’s Land.  By this method platoon after platoon had spread itself over the corpse strewn field, until the leaders were within a few yards of the German parapet.  Then came the hardest task of all to lie shoulder to shoulder with the dead until at midnight a flare give the signal to charge.  But the “Skins” held on through all the alarms of the night.  Occasionally bullets whistled across the waste, and some who had imitated death needed to pretend no longer.  But the toll was not heavy; it was infinitesimal by comparison with the cost of a charge from their own trenches.  When at last the flash lifted the suspense the leading platoons were in the German trenches before the occupants had time to lift their rifles.  They caught them in many cases actually asleep and because of their cuteness the Inniskillings paid less for the capture of the first and second lines of trenches than they might have done for the first alone.  The same cuteness made it possible for the whole division to sweep on and to score a victory where another division had previously found defeat.

 

Fermanagh Times December 23rd 1915.  DANCE IN BELLEISLE.  On Friday night a very enjoyable dance was given by Captain Porter to the tenants and employee’s at Belle Isle.  Some 50 couples were present and dancing started at 9.00.  Captain Porter and his bride were given a most rousing reception as they entered the room, which was beautifully decorated.  Mrs. Porter was introduced to everyone present and she and her husband took part in the first couple of dances.  Mr. O’Keeffe was M. C., and the refreshments were looked after by Mrs. McDowell and Messrs. Shanks and Porter.  At supper the health of Captain and Mrs. Porter was duly proposed and heartily responded to.  Dancing was kept up till early morning and after a hearty vote of thanks had been returned to the gallant Captain the proceedings terminated by the singing of Auld Lang Syne followed by God Save the King.  The music was supplied by Mr. W. Scott, Enniskillen, assisted at intervals by Mr. Cathcart, Killygowan.

 

Fermanagh Times December 23rd 1915.  CHRISTMAS 1915.  It is with a diffidence easily understood that we wish our readers the compliments of the season.  Old prescriptive usage scarcely justifies it in this year of grace of 1915.  “Peace on Earth; Goodwill towards Men” –how fall of emptiness, worse even how full of irony sounds the phrase when the most fertile and populous parts of the earth are covered with woe and desolation.  The crash of armed men, the rush of battle, the roar of mighty guns, the cry of strong men in their agony are a terrible, a sinister, forbidding echo to the wish, “A Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year.”

Never in the whole Christian era has there been a period of tragedy comparable to the present.  Ruin and devastation widespread, the loss of millions of human lives, the mutilation and crippling of other millions are features of the passing time that even the most thoughtless and careless cannot contemplate without almost the blackness of despair.  The record of  events throughout the whole theatre of war are absolutely appalling.

When will it end?  We know not.  To what good does it tend?  Writers treatise dissertations on the purifying influences and ennobling results of war.  The dreaming of visionaries!  The whole world cannot be turned into a hell and only virtue and its attributes to emerge from the fierce cauldron of brutality, massacre and tribulation.  The prospect is deplorable.  In the surrounding gloom we see not a ray of hope for the near future.  If German autocrats are responsible for the outbreak of the war plague, if to them primarily is due the awful affliction, the indescribable sorrow, the ravages and miseries that it has brought about, to British politicians, to their narrowness of view, their lack of vigour and intellectual and selfish infirmities must be attributed much of its prolongation and not a little of the waste and horrors of bloodshed and death by which it has been accompanied.

 

Fermanagh Times December 23rd 1915.  BRITISH LEAVE THE DARDANELLES!  TROOPS, GUNS AND STORES REMOVED.

From http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/evacuation_dec15.htmBattles – The Evacuation of Anzac Cove, Suvla Bay and Helles, 1915-16. Preparing for the Allied evacuation of Suvla Bay, Gallipoli In the wake of the failure of the Allied attacks at Scimitar Hill and Hill 60 beginning 21 August 1915, intended to link the two Allied sectors of Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay, Mediterranean Commander-in-Chief Sir Ian Hamilton telegraphed London in a state of increasing despondency. In his telegram Hamilton requested a further 95,000 reinforcements from British war minister Lord Kitchener.  He was offered barely a quarter, 25,000.  Confidence in the Gallipoli operation in London and Paris was dwindling.  While former First Lord of the Admiralty and architect of the operation Winston Churchill pressed both governments to provide continued support, French General Maurice Sarrail suggested a combined offensive against the Asian coast, a proposal rapidly over-turned by his Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre, who insisted upon retaining French focus on the Western Front.

Affairs outside of Gallipoli began to intrude upon strategy in the region.  The invasion of Serbia and plans for an extensive landing at Salonika exhausted resources from both French and British governments, with the latter offering to provide up to 125,000 troops (much against Kitchener’s inclination). Such were the demands for men intended for Salonika that forces were diverted away from Hamilton in Gallipoli, to the latter’s great dismay.  As it was Hamilton was facing increasing criticism from London as grim news of the expedition reached home, along with complaints of his mismanagement of the campaign (from the Australian journalist Keith Murdoch among others).

Thus with the possibility of further reinforcements to the region seemingly ruled out, Hamilton received word on 11 October 1915 of a proposal to evacuate the peninsula.  He responded in anger by estimating that casualties of such an evacuation would run at up to 50%: a startlingly high figure. The tide was clearly moving against Hamilton.  His belief in what was widely viewed as an unacceptable casualty rate in the event of evacuation resulted in his removal as Commander-in-Chief and recall to London at a meeting of the Dardanelles Committee on 14 October. Hamilton was replaced by Sir Charles Monro.  Monro lost no time in touring Helles, Suvla Bay and Anzac Cove upon his arrival on the peninsula on 28 October.  His recommendation was prompt: evacuation.  This did not however meet with Kitchener’s approval.  He travelled to the region to see the state of affairs for himself. Upon his arrival however he quickly reversed his thinking upon seeing the conditions facing the Allied force and recommended evacuation on 15 November 1915, overriding arguments by senior naval figures Sir Roger Keyes and Rosslyn Wemyss to attempt a naval seizure once again. The British government, having prevaricated for several weeks, finally sanctioned an evacuation on 7 December.  Unfortunately by this stage a heavy blizzard had set in making such an operation hazardous.  Nevertheless the evacuation of 105,000 men and 300 guns from Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay was successfully conducted from 10-20 December 1915.  The evacuation of Helles was conducted – comprising 35,000 men – from late December until 9 January 1916. The evacuation operation was easily the most successful element of the entire campaign, with casualty figures significantly lower than Hamilton had predicted (official figures quote just three casualties). Painstaking efforts had been made to deceive the 100,000 watching Turkish troops into believing that the movement of Allied forces did not constitute a withdrawal. Winston Churchill however viewed Monro’s achievement with a somewhat jaundiced eye: “he came, he saw, he capitulated” he wrote of Monro, and the sneer has remained through the years to blight Monro’s correct decision and remarkable follow-through.

480,000 Allied troops had participated in the Gallipoli campaign which comprised the Turkish Army’s most significant success of the war.  Of this figure 252,000 suffered casualties (of these 48,000 were fatalities).  One-third of the 33,600 Anzac casualties comprised fatalities. Turkish casualties have been estimated at 250,000, of which at least 65,000 are believed to be fatalities.

 

Fermanagh Times December 23rd 1915.  MR. REDMOND AS USUAL POLITICAL CLEVERNESS MUST HAVE DESERTED HIM SADLY when he allowed to be published Mr. Asquith’s letter regarding the 16th Division.  We now have it on the very highest authority that only two of the three brigades in this much advertised Irish Division are up to strength, and that there seems so little prospect of the remaining brigade filling up at a reasonably early date that the division will have to go on active service without it.  What a remarkable comment this is upon the thousands of Irish Nationalists who are alleged to have joined the army!

The excuse given for the failure only makes matters worse.  We are told that 1,200 men had to be drafted from the 16th Division to fill up the Tenth, or else it too could not have gone on service when it did, so that this division also did not fill even though although a whole English regiment, the Hampshires, was brought in, as well as hundreds of other English recruits to complete the Leinsters and the, Connaughts.  It is also worth mentioning that men were taken from the Ulster regiments in the 16th Division and sent to the Munsters and, Connaughts in the 10th division.  Thus once more Ulster supplied the men for which other parts of Ireland claimed the credit.

As a matter of fact in the entire 10th division when it went to Gallipoli only about 20 per cent of the men where Irish Roman Catholics, though the Nationalists claim 100 per cent of the credit, and the numbers have not increased since.  And yet the Irish Nationalists, who from the whole of Ireland have not been able to raise a single division of their own, were never tired of sneering at the Ulster Division, the only genuine “all Irish” division from its commanding officer downwards, for it had not to be completed for service by drafts from any other division or from England, and whose success has only emphasized the failure of the other so-called Irish divisions.

 

Fermanagh Times December 23rd 1915.  FORD’S FOLLY.  A CHRISTMAS BURLESQUE.  NO RECEPTION IN EUROPE.  Surprized and considerably disconcerted at the lack of even the semblance of an official welcome to Norway, Mr. Henry Ford and his quarrelsome crew of Peace Pilgrims arrived at Christiania, on Sunday morning in the liner Oscar 11 from New York.  There was not a single Scandinavian pacifist at the docks to greet the remarkable conglomeration of –the-war cranks, whose members have for two weeks been fighting among themselves on the Atlantic.  Christiania seems coldly indifferent to the visit of these deluded pro-German propagandists.  Mr. Ford’s menagerie of misguided Peace soldiers arrived on European soil in as aimless a condition as that in which they left the United States.  Internal dissensions are as widespread and bitter as they were the day following the mutiny on the high seas, which was precipitated when an attempt was made to coerce befuddled delegates into signing a declaration censuring President Wilson for his “preparedness” program.  There is no disguising the fact that the majority of the Pilgrims now realise that they’re out on a fool’s errand.  As an insurgent expressed it in mixed Yankee metaphor “We have jumped the switch and are busted.  We have as much chance of getting away with one stunt as a snowball has of freezing in the hell.”  There is an overwhelming feeling of depression in the party.  At least a dozen delegates intend to desert before they make themselves more ridiculous.

 

Fermanagh Herald December 25th 1915.  JOTTINGS.  The flax markets remain as strong as ever.  Prices of Russian flax are steadily rising and there is still an absence of advice of new arrivals.  However the Belfast spinners are fairly well off for some time to come.

Dr. T.  Knox reported to the Lisnaskea Guardians on Saturday last that a further outbreak of smallpox had occurred involving three persons, who came from the same house, as the two cases previously reported.

The report that Anton Lang, who took the part of “Christus” a number of times at Oberammergau over the years has been killed in the war, which was first published in America, has been contradicted in America.  It is now announced by the German papers that the report was correct.

The farmers in Newcastle, Co., Down, are deriving phenomenal profits on flax during the present season.  The produce on an Irish acre of land in Legananny near Castlewellan, scutched during the week at Mr. McAnulty’s mill in Leitrim, yielded 104 ½ stone, which were sold at 22s 6d per stone, and realized £117 11s 3d.

Mrs. Alicia Adelaide Needham, the famous Irish composer, of Clapham Park, London S.W. is collecting and buying all kinds of comforts including woollens, tobacco, etc., for the Irish troops at the front.  She will gratefully acknowledge contributions received and for any money donated forwarded to her for this purpose she will send one of her autographed songs.

When a verdict of “Accidental death” was returned at an inquest on the charred remains of Fleming Wilson which were found in his barn, which was burned, at Ranelly, near Omagh, his widow stated that on the day of the tragedy he returned from Omagh with a large quantity of whisky and porter and toys for children.  He then left to go to his brother’s house and the short time afterwards the barn and was found to be in flames.

Mrs. Joseph Carson, egg and poultry merchant, Killeshandra, purchased a turkey cock, one of this season’s birds, from a farmer named Keith, which weighed 30lbs.  Mr. Keith was paid 1s per pound, which amounted to £1 10s for his bird.

 

Fermanagh Times December 30th 1915.  SANTA CLAUS IN ENNISKILLEN.  It will be remembered that a new departure was inaugurated last year by Rev A. J.  Jenkins in presenting gifts “from Santa Clause” to the poor children of our back streets.  This was repeated this Christmas with even more gratifying success.  As before an appeal was made to the families of all denominations to send in older toys to be renewed and made acceptable by the little-often-forgotten-ones.  The response was splendid from all sources with the result that some 400 toys, together with a large number of books, were brought to the homes of our poor, and each child in every household was made by the happy recipient of a little train that actually moved, or a pretty doll which actually closed its eyes, or a nice book with lovely pictures.  For some time before the distribution a number of ladies from the various Churches met together, renovated any of the toys which required the application of their deft fingers to make them as good as ever and packed them neatly.  The gifts brought a real and genuine joy to the little boys and girls and all thanked from the bottom of their warm throbbing little hearts the great kindness of “dear old Santa Claus.”

 

Fermanagh Times December 30th 1915.  MILITARY NOTES.  Private J. E. Johnston, 19th Battalion, Royal Canadian Grenadiers (Queen’s Own), has arrived home at Ballinamallard on sick leave from a military hospital in Sheffield.  Private Johnston was only out a few weeks at the Western front, when he was wounded, sustaining a fractured ankle.  He was formerly in the employ of Messrs. John Lemon and Sons, Enniskillen.

 

Fermanagh Times December 30th 1915.  ENNISKILLEN BOYS IN THE BALKANS.  SOME NARROW ESCAPES AT THE DARDANELLES.  An Enniskillen man writing from “Somewhere in Servia” to a friend at home gives the following graphic description of his experiences since he left of the ancient borough.  After a stay of a week at Lemnos we shipped for the scene of action where we arrived on the morning of the 7th of August the task before us being the forcing of a new landing at Suvla Bay.  I don’t think anybody who were as there is ever likely to forget that day and a good many following.  Our first greeting was the plumping of shells around the transports.  One ship next to us was struck, but little damage apparently was done. The landing had to be done in lighters under heavy shell and shrapnel fire.  Some poor fellows did not reach the shore alive.  We had to wade ashore well above our knees in water with all our equipment on, including rifles and carrying two hundredweight drums of cable tied on poles –two men to each drum.  The greatest danger landing apart from shrapnel, was the landed mines.  They were all around the shore and for some distance inland.  The first sight we met on shore was the dead bodies of three Fusiliers.  One poor chap with his head blown off.  It was terrible to see these landmines going up.  You would see the chaps charging along, one mine go up and some emerging from the smoke and dust unscratched, run on another few yards, trip up another mine, and come toppling over.  I watched five go up like that within a few yards of each other.  We lost an officer and some men of our own company that day.  Well, we took up our quarters on a ridge and that afternoon and the rain came down as I never saw it rain before.  We got soaked through in a few minutes and had neither overcoats nor blankets, only just the clothes we stood in –no change of under clothing nor did we get any for three or four weeks later.  That night we just lay down as we were with our wet clothes on of the bare ground.  You can guess how hardy we were when not a man was knocked up over it.

Next morning I was laying a line and came across any amount of dead British and Turks; some of the sights would be inclined to make you sick under normal conditions, but we seemed to be braced up for anything.  Next night I was wakened up at about midnight and sent up to the firing line with a strange officer.  I was taking the place of a fellow who had been sent earlier in the day and hadn’t turned up.  After about two hours wandering in the dark we reached our destination; I was then ready to sleep on a clothesline.  The bullets were pinging around the whole night.  The next morning the other chap turned up with daylight and I returned alone to our own camp.  Twice I was sniped at, but soon learn to keep under cover of the brushwood.  I was very lucky all through.  One of the narrowest escapes I had was when having breakfast one morning; the shells were flying about as usual.  I was sitting with a chap named Meldrum when a shrapnel shell burst almost overhead.  One of the bullets hit Meldrum wounding him on the head and another buried itself in the ground by my side as I dropped flat on the ground.  If it hadn’t been that he was wearing his helmet at the time he would undoubtedly have been killed, as it penetrated first the purgaree, then the helmet, before it reached his head; the scalp was cut to the skull, but the bone was uninjured. On three other occasions high explosive shells burst so close to where we were working that we were covered with dust and stones.  I have been doing all classes of work – telegraphs, laying lines, digging trenches, of repairing broken lines and all classes of fatigue work.  When we first went there we were often 16 hours per day cramped up in a narrow trench with a telegraph instrument.  The flies and other vermin were terrible; there was a fearful lot of dysentery; we lost some men with it.  I had a touch myself for about 10 days, but hadn’t to go of duty.  We left there rather unexpectedly, destination, as usual, unknown; we got back to Lemnos where I met Fred Brennan again and after a week we set sail for Salonika.  This is a beautiful place approaching from the sea, but it is an ill-kept and dirty town, populated principally by Greeks, Turks and Jews.  I was able to get beer here – the first for three months for 5d for a large bottle and only 5d for a bottle of wine; other things were awfully dear.  Since I started this page Lewis Herbert called to see me. I met him in Salonika also and he is looking fit although he hasn’t had a wash or a shave for some days. Hope you will all have a good time at Christmas. Can’t say what mine will be like, but will make the best of it.  Your old pal.

 

Fermanagh Times December 30th 1915.  Hell at Suvla.  When Sir E. Carson described the condition at Suvla Bay as “a kind of hell” and indignantly asked why the troops had been allowed to stay there so long, he was understating rather than overstating the facts.  The sufferings of the men were awful.  Towards the end of the campaign owing to the breaking up of the season, they became almost unendurable.  A great storm of rain burst over the peninsula and lasted for 18 hours.  The trenches were flooded out, the men drenched to the skin, and many of them were exposed to the alternative of death by flood or by gunfire.  When the storm passed the land was frozen by a great frost, and the snow drifts became a source of danger – a veritable death traps at times.  Men’s wet uniforms froze stiff upon their backs.  To make matters worse, it was impossible for relief to be sent for as no one could find his way through blinding snow storms.  The fact that the Turks suffered as heavily as the British offers little consolation.  The most lurid description can give but little idea of all that our magnificent soldiers suffered for the last days of the occupation of Suvla Bay.

March 1915.

Fermanagh Times March 4th, 1915.  ANOTHER ZEPPELIN WRECKED.  From the Hague comes a report that a Zeppelin, which engaged in guarding the bridges over the Rhine at Cologne, has been blown down and destroyed, though the crew escaped.  This is the third of these unwieldy gasbags that has been wrecked in the past fortnight, if the report is correct.

 

Fermanagh Times March 4th, 1915.  THE TAX OF TEA.  FEARS OF HIGHER DUTY.  There seems to be a strong probability of still it dearer tea in the near future, says the London Daily Express.  In November the duty was raised from five pence to eight pence per pound.  Some of the largest multiple shop tea firms are preparing for the possibility that the Budget will add a further 4d, making the duty one shilling a pound.  This would mean that the cheapest tea would be about two shillings and one penny per pound retail.

 

Fermanagh Times March 4th, 1915.  THE MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY’S WILL.  The Marquis of Londonderry, K.G., P.C., who died on the 8th of February last, aged 62 years, left unsettled property provisionally valued at £500,000, “so far as at present can be ascertained.” Probate of his will has been granted to his son, the Most Hon. Charles Stewart Henry, now seventh Marquis of Londonderry, the sole executor.  He bequeathed £100,000, a carriage and pair of horses, and a motor car, as she may select, to his wife, together with the selection of any two of his thoroughbred brood mares, with either foals or yearlings; £150,000 to his daughter, the Countess of Ilchester; £100,000 to his sister Lady Allendale; and all other property to his son.

He stated: – “It is my wish that my said son should, out of the said gifts of residue, make such presents to my faithful agents, and also to such of my servants I shall have been in my service for 10 years and upwards at the date of my death, as in his absolute discretion he may think fit.”

He further stated – I wish that my death shall not be allowed to cast more gloom than is absolutely unavoidable upon those with whom I have been so long and so happily associated but that my relations and kind friends will not allow my death to make any difference in their arrangements, but that they will resume their engagements and diversions exactly as if that event had not happened.

 

Fermanagh Times March 4th, 1915.  SANATORIUM FOR FERMANAGH.  THE COUNTY COUNCIL ADOPTS DR. TIMONEY’S SCHEME BY A LARGE MAJORITY.  The vexed question of their provision of a Sanatorium for Fermanagh came up again for discussion at the meeting of the County Council on Thursday, when Dr. Timoney’s report came up for consideration.  Mr. Arnold said he was opposed to the scheme, and he was opposed to it for a very good reason.  If he could prove to him that the scheme was going to be the benefit that it was claimed to be he would agree with that.  If they could prove to him that sanatorium treatment was a cure or a preventative he would be with them.  He deplored the ravages which consumption was making in the country, but he had yet to learn of the advantages which would accrue from a sanatorium scheme in County Fermanagh.  It was said that the scheme would put £5,000 on the rates.

 

Fermanagh Herald 6th March, 1915.  THE CHANNEL TUNNEL SCHEME.  At present, owing to difficulties arising out of the war, there does not seem to be any possibility of the projected scheme for the construction of the channel tunnel between England and Ireland, materialising, but there are grounds for believing that the project will again come before parliament and after the sensation of hostilities.

 

Fermanagh Herald 6th March, 1915.  GOLD IN OUR BOGS.  Now that the price of coal is so high, people are asking why it is that up to date methods are not availed off for the production of more fuel from our Irish Bogs.  The bogs are the true gold mines of Ireland and infinitely more valuable than any inexhaustible supply of the precious metal.  Turf dried by machinery has a much higher heating power and will not burn away so quickly as ordinary air-dried turf.

 

Fermanagh Herald 6th March, 1915.  JOTTINGS.  Lady Erne has written expressing her thanks to the Fermanagh County Council for the resolution recently passed on the death of her husband, Lord Erne.

The various Volunteer Companies in Arney have been reorganised during the past few weeks.  As soon as the good weather sets in drilling will be resumed.

The report of the annual meeting of the Sligo, Leitrim, and Northern Counties Railway will be read with pleasure by the shareholders.  The company has passed through a time of stress and difficulty, and they have surmounted the difficulties successfully, and the directors have pleasure in recommending that the same dividend be payable this year as last year.  This is a matter of congratulation both by the directors and the shareholders, having regard to the fact that practically all of the railway companies in Ireland and Great Britain had to recommend a reduction in their dividends.

News has been received in Enniskillen of the death in Arbroath of Mr. William Alexander Harvey, a son of Mr. James Harvey, Belmore Street, Enniskillen.  The late Mr. Harvey was in Scotland visiting some friends, and death was caused by motor cycling.  At the time of the outbreak of the Boer War he joined the South African Constabulary Force, and in 1912 he returned home and afterwards left for Patagonia to share a ranch with a friend.  At the outbreak of war he disposed of his share, and set out for home with the intention of joining the colours.  His demise under such tragic circumstances will be learnt with regret, and sympathy will be extended to his father, mother and relatives in their great sorrow.

 

Fermanagh Herald 6th March, 1915.  ENNISKILLEN.  HOUSING SCHEME B.  Chanterhill Road West – 10 houses.  Here the committee propose to erect a row of better class dwellings on the left hand side of the roadway going from the town and beyond Alexandra Terrace.  The houses are to be of 18 feet frontage and to contain kitchen, three rooms, good attic, and bath accommodation with bay window.  The estimated cost of each house is £36 – 7 shillings and 11 pence.

 

Fermanagh Herald 6th March, 1915.  DEATH OF AN ENNISKILLEN SOLDIER.  A GOOD MAN AND A BRAVE SOLDIER LOSES HIS LIFE IN THE TRENCHES. We briefly announced in our last issue the death in action of Private Francis McKiernan of the 2nd battalion of the Inniskilling Fusiliers.  Private McKiernan was an employee of the Enniskillen Urban Council, and on the outbreak of war answered the mobilization call, as he was on the Special Reserve, and on the 31st of October he left for the firing line, and on the 10th of February he was shot by a sniper.  His mother has received the following letter from the Catholic Chaplain, Fr. McCabe and from the C.Q.M.S.: – Dear Mrs. McKiernan, – I have the sorrowful duty of informing you that your son, number 1724, Private Francis McKiernan, was killed in action on the evening of the 10th of this month.  I trust you will not take this heavy blow too much to heart, and I am sure it will console you to know that your son was well prepared for his death.  Only a few days ago I said Mass for the men of his company, and your son was amongst those who went to Confession and received Holy Communion.  The circumstances of us death were as follows: He was in the advanced trenches and was doing up his pack, when he raised his head above the tranches.  A sniper who was on the lookout immediately fired and hit your son in the head causing almost instantaneous death.  This German was soon after shot himself by his comrades.  Yesterday accompanied by as many men who could be spared I buried him with full Catholic rites in a little country cemetery not far from the firing line and this morning said Mass for the repose of his soul.  R.I.P.

Try then my dear madam to see even in this great sorrow the finger of God.  Your holy faith will comfort you and sustain you.  Your son was a good man, and brave soldier and a devout catholic.  He has died bravely, strengthened with the Sacrament he had received so shortly before.  No better ending can any man have.  God bless you and comfort you.  Yours very sincerely in J.C.  A. E. McCabe, R.C. Chaplain.

 

Dear Mr. McKiernan, – I am very sorry to have to convey to you the sad news of the death of your son.  He was killed on the 10th inst, and buried the next day, a clergyman being present.  I am sending you all the things that were found on him by post, and I hope you will see them safely.  There are other things which you will receive through the Record Office, Dublin.  We are making his grave as nice as possible.  If there is anything you want to know I will be only too pleased to give you any information.  I have just scribbled these few lines in a hurry.  W.  Thompson, C.Q.M.S., “C” company 2nd Bn. Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.  1st Army.

 

Fermanagh Herald 13th March, 1915.  WITH THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE FERMANAGH HERALD there will be presented a beautiful half-tone portrait suitable for framing of Mr. Joseph Devlin, MP.  It has been reproduced from a special photograph and will be printed on Art Paper.  Orders from newsagents for extra papers should reach us at the latest on Monday next.

 

Fermanagh Herald 13th March, 1915.  JOTTINGS.  The Enniskillen Guardians have given a grant of £3 3s to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Mr. Justice Gibson was presented with white gloves at of the Fermanagh Assizes on Saturday.  His remarks in his address the schoolboys will be ready with interest.  He spoke about the six fruitful years spent in the classrooms of Portora and the “throb and thrill of memories which come over him when he visits Enniskillen.”

The depot Brass Band from Omagh arrived in Enniskillen on Wednesday morning for the purposes of giving a fillip to recruiting.  Wednesday was fair day in the town.

It has been decided that on completion of their tour through Antrim, Derry, and Fermanagh, the 36th Battalion of the Cycling Company will be stationed at Enniskillen until further orders.

Becoming frightened at the burr of a motor bicycle, a horse which was harnessed to a cart took fright on Tuesday night and galloped up Townhall Street.  The animal approaching the Imperial Hotel went in on the footpath and try to dash through the portals of the hotel and in the effort smashed the cart.  The horse continued to drag it up as far as Mr. Taylor’s window, where it fell in a heap.  Mr. Taylor’s windows had certainly a miraculous escape from had being broken.

 

Fermanagh Herald 13th March, 1915.  LIGHTING CLONES WORKHOUSE.  Clones in Guardians on Tuesday received an account for £7 – 5s – 9d, lighting for two months and 13 days.  Oil lighting for the corresponding period last year it was stated cost £4 – 13s – 4d.

 

Fermanagh Herald 13th March, 1915. NURSES’ CHEERY TASK.  Writing to the Clones Guardians regarding the alleged neglect of the dead, the Local Government Board state that is the duty of the nurse to wash and prepare a body for coffining, but not actually to coffin it.

 

Fermanagh Herald 13th March, 1915.  THE GAA FERMANAGH COUNTY CONVENTION.  On Sunday, the 7th of March the Fermanagh County Convention of the GAA was held at Derrylin –Mr. P. L. McElgunn, chairman of the County Board presiding.  The following clubs were represented – Shamrocks, O’Connell’s, Brian Borus, Rapparees, Brehons, and Maguires.  The report showed that during the year Fermanagh had made a very creditable display in the Ulster Championship, beating Tyrone and Cavan and thus qualifying for the final in which it was defeated by Monaghan.  In the semi-final of the Croke Cup Competition, Fermanagh was drawn against Louth, and was only beaten by this famous combination by the score of 1 point.  The credit for this is principally due to the Shamrocks, who selected the team.

In the competitions in the county good progress was made during the year.  The 1913 League competition, won by Maguires, had to be finished and all of the championship, which was won by Shamrocks.  In the 1914 championship all the matches were played except the final.  In the league, however, things are not so far advanced owing to unfavourable climatic conditions.

The convention next proceeded to make bylaws.  It was decided to play championships on a league system vis., home and away matches, the home team to take charge of the gate and field arrangements.  Only 10 minutes’ grace is to be allowed after the time appointed for starting matches and the entrance to the Junior League was fixed at had two shillings and sixpence.

 

Fermanagh Herald 13th March, 1915.  FOOTBALL.  Trillick Football Club and travelled to Brookeborough on Saturday last to play a friendly with the homesters.  A very enjoyable game was the outcome.  Trillick had rather the better of a hard game, which ended with the score: Trillick, six goals; Brookeborough, four goals.  The marksmen for Trillick were McElholm two, McGee two, Slevin and Brennan one each.

 

Fermanagh Herald 13th March, 1915.  BALLYSHANNON GUARDIANS.  The Master reported that owing to Dr. McMullen, medical officer of the workhouse, been called away on urgent private business, he was obliged to requisition the services of Dr. Gordon to temporarily discharge the duties of medical officer.  He also stated that he lodged a sum of £112 8s 7d to the credit of the Guardians, being repayment for the treatment of military patients.

An application was received from Andrew McShea for the grazing of the hospital field for 11 months at the sum of  £10 16s.  The application was granted.

 

Fermanagh Herald 13th March, 1915.  THE DEATH AND FUNERAL OF MRS. ANTHONY CASSIDY.  Her death occurred on Friday last the 5th, inst., at the age of 78 at her residence, 16 Upper Pembroke Street, Dublin.  Coming from Enniskillen some years ago with her late husband Mr. Anthony Cassidy, who predeceased her by a little over four years, she has since resided in Pembroke Street.  On Wednesday last she received with edifying piety and resignation the last rites of the church and on Friday morning she passed peacefully away in the presence of her daughter, Mrs. Gordon.

Of the most charitable disposition, the deceased lady will be very much missed by the poor of the parish of Westland Row.  From whatever quarter the appeals came – and they came in numbers – Mrs. Cassidy, once assured of their genuine worthiness, give them with open hand and willing heart and the prayers of the poor will be offered to the God of Mercy for her who was so merciful.  The remains arrived in Enniskillen by the 12.40 train, and the interment took place subsequently in the Catholic Cemetery.  The chief mourners were Dr. John Cassidy, London, and Dr. Louis Cassidy, RAMC, Dublin sons.  Mrs. Gordon, daughter and Mrs. Louis Cassidy daughter-in-law, Michael and Maurice Cassidy brothers in law. (Anthony Cassidy was the owner of a tobacco factory in Enniskillen and also the Graan Monastery farm, Enniskillen.)

 

Fermanagh Herald 20th March, 1915.  JOTTINGS.  Official intimation has just reached his mother in Enniskillen, that Private Sandy Hynes, of the Inniskillings has been killed in action.

The number of dozen eggs required in the Enniskillen Union for the current week is 25.  Some short time ago 60 dozen were required.

Mr. Donnelly was declared the contractor for meat, and Mr. Whaley the contractor for bread, at a meeting of the Enniskillen Guardians on Tuesday.

A case of spotted by fever was reported at a meeting of the Board of Guardians in the county during the past week.  Stringent measures have been adopted for the segregation of the affected person.

 

Fermanagh Herald 20th March, 1915.  THE RESIDENCE OF THE BELLEEK DOCTOR IS TO BE LIGHTED BY ELECTRICITY.  At a meeting of the Ballyshannon Board of Guardians on Saturday Mr. Felix Leonard vice chairman said he believed that it was the intention of the Guardians to have lighted by electricity Dr. Kelly’s house in Belleek, but he saw by the minutes that they were only going to put in the wire is etc., and Dr. Kelly was to supply the globes and shades.  He was of the opinion that as well as putting in the wires they should supply the globes etc., because Dr. Kelly’s residence was the property of the Guardians and they were receiving a big rent from him annually for it.  Mr. D. Gilfedder said in his opinion Dr. Kelly was a man who gave them very little trouble.  He never got a holiday for the past five or six years, which was the means of saving the Guardians a sum of almost £25.00.  If any man was worthy of consideration Dr. Kelly certainly was.

Mr. Gallacher said there was a scheme on foot for the public lighting of Belleek, and it was possible if the scheme matured it would be easier and cheaper to light the Doctor’s residence.  It was also stated that the current for the lighting of the streets of Belleek would be generated at Belleek Pottery.

 

Fermanagh Herald 20th March, 1915.  WAR PICTURES IN MANORHAMILTON FOR SIX NIGHTS IN SAINT CLARE’S HALL.  The people of Manorhamilton and surrounding district will be pleased to learn that Daniells Irish–American Animated Picture and Variety Company are here at present paying their sixth annual visit to Manorhamilton and will remain the whole week.  As everybody knows here, Mr. Daniells always gives a refined and up to date program and shows a complete change each night.  The subjects filmed by this popular company includes exceptionally fine pieces in drama and comedy, as well as the very latest war pictures, which win the unanimous approval of large and representative for audiences.  Mr. Daniels will show during the week, “War scenes in Belgium,” The Russian army in action,” “The Germans entering Brussels,” “The English army in France, etc. etc., which are all highly interesting and attractive.  The popular manager of this company – Mr. Happy Harry Harden – informed our representative that all films are quite new and have been chosen from the best kinematographic works procurable. In addition to the pictures and illustrated songs a variety concert will be given each evening by the following distinguished artistes: -Mr. Jack Seeby, Mr. Happy Harry Harden, Mr. Bert L. Dempster, Mr. Jimmy Greene, Miss S. Ryan, and the Brothers O’Brien, all of whom are great favourites.  A full orchestra will render high class music at each performance.  Doors open at 7.30 to commence at eight o’clock and admission is 6d or 1s with children half price.  Seats may be booked in advance. (Photograph of Mr. Braecy Daniells.)

 

Fermanagh Times March 25th, 1915.  THE U.S. THEATRES HUGE SALARIES AND A REFUSAL.  Madame Melba will go to the United States in the autumn and will receive there £1,000 a week.  The New York Tribune which makes this announcement gives details of an interesting “star hunt” of Mr. Edward F.  Albee, who is offering huge salaries to attract the great ones of the concert hall over the Atlantic.  He received, it is said, a rebuff from the Irish tenor Mr. John McCormack, who when offered £300 for every appearance, with a percentage of the profits, or, failing this, £1,000 a week, intimated that the lowest terms in which business could be done where £5,000 a week. Mr. McCormick is the only singer whose price has been so high, and Mr. Albee is now said to be negotiating with Tetrazzini.

 

Fermanagh Times March 25th, 1915.  FERMANAGH A SOLDIER KILLED.  Mr. Frank McGovern is the first of the Newtownbutler boys to fall on the battlefield.  A letter has been received from the War Office stating that he was killed in action on the 28th of February.  The following letter has also been received by his father: – “The King commands me to assure you of the true sympathy of the King and Queen. – Kitchener.

 

Fermanagh Times March 25th, 1915.  ENNISKILLEN STREET TRAFFIC.  We think the time has come when the Urban Council should pass a by-law compelling all moving carts and vehicles to keep as close to the footpaths on their own side of the street as possible.  At present they seem to have an irresistible tendency to keep the centre of the thoroughfare.  Under any circumstances this leads to inconvenience but now when fast travelling has become one of the permanent facts of our traffic that leads to danger as well as to unnecessary annoyance.

The rule we suggest is being adopted and applied stringently everywhere else.  It gives drivers no extra trouble, but greatly relieves the strain and stress of street locomotion.  There is no reason why Enniskillen should lag behind other places in enforcing so sensible a regulation.  Indeed, our traffic is so concentrated and so continuous that there are few towns which more demand the most accommodating and safest method of travelling.

 

Fermanagh Times March 25th, 1915.  OUR LOSS OF OFFICERS.  CASUALTIES NOW EXCEED 5,600.  Up to Saturday morning an analysis of the casualty list showed our loss in officers as follows: – Killed 1,808; Wounded 3,022; Missing or Prisoners 844.  Total 5,674.  Of the Irish regiments the Inniskilling Fusiliers; nine killed, 24 wounded, two missing or prisoners, total 35.

 

Fermanagh Times March 25th, 1915.  THREE WARSHIPS SUNK IN THE DARDANELLES.  BRITISH SAILORS SAVED.  FRANCE LOOSE 650 OFFICERS AND MEN.  In the Dardanelles operations on Friday H.M.S. Irresistible, H.M.S.  Ocean, and one of the French battleships Bouvet were sunk after striking drifting mines.  Practically all the crews of the British ships were saved, but the crew of the Bouvet, which foundered in three minutes after the explosion, were drowned.  She had a complement of 650 officers and men.  The ships lost were not of modern construction, nor of first class fighting value.  (From the Times.) The first sustained attempt to overcome the defences in the Narrows of the Dardanelles resulted in serious though not unexpected losses, and we must be prepared to lose still more ships before our object is completely achieved.

 

Fermanagh Times March 25th, 1915.  MAINSPRING OF THE TRENCHES.  THE WONDERS OF THE BRITISH HEADQUARTERS.  The Special Correspondent (G.  Valentine Williams), of the Daily Mail, writes from the General Headquarters, British Army in the Field (France).  It is related that at one of the blackest stages of the retreat from Mons Sir John French astonished his entourage by announcing, after a long morning’s work at his headquarters, that he thought he would go for a stroll.  And, picking up a walking stick, the Field-Marshall calmly walked fourth to take the air as unconcerned as though he were going to stroll down to the War Office through the park.

That the British Commander–in–Chief should have been able to free himself momentarily from the enormous responsibilities of those days of stress is not only a remarkable instance of his mental detachment, of which I have already written, but it is also a most striking tribute to his absolute confidence in the perfect organisation of the British Army, without which even the undying heroism of the British troops would have availed nothing against the systematised frightfulness of the bosche.

Sir John French knows better than anybody else how admirably organised the British Army machine is.  He devoted his whole life to it when, emerging in a blaze of glory from the South African War, he was not content to rest upon his laurels but embarked on a long spell of silent, unostentatious hard work, the fruits of which are seen in the marvellously efficient army under his command today.

The amount of foresight required to feed an immense army serving on foreign soil may be imagined, yet so perfect are the arrangements of the Quartermaster Generals department that even during the great and glorious retreat from Mons when our troops were constantly on the move, the men never liked anything.  The Director of Supplies is kept daily posted on the number of men to be fed.  Each day the amount of rations required is sent up from the supply base to the nearest railhead, where it is met by the mechanical transport and conveyed to the distribution centre, where the regimental horse transports carry it up to the firing line.  The same procedure is followed with regard to ammunition.

An important part of the department’s duties concerns requisitioning and billeting.  There is a Claims Office at General Headquarters, whither the farmers and peasants of the region occupied by the British troops send in their requisition receipts.  Officers are provided with special requisition forms clearly printed in French and English contained in a book, which has a preface with some concise hints as to what an officer may and may not do when requisitioning from the civil population.

The Royal Army Medical Corps has now many motor ambulance convoys, each with 50 ambulance cars and repairing outfits, cars for officers, and motor cyclists, attached to the army in the field.  When a man is wounded he is taken to the regimental aid post which is just behind the firing line, where the regimental doctor, assisted by a corporal and five Red Cross orderlies, there tends to him.  He is then sent down by horse ambulance to the field hospital, whence he is removed by a motor ambulance to the casualty clearing station.

 

Fermanagh Times March 25th, 1915.  THE FLIES AS A DISEASE CARRIERS.  Medical authorities are urging the importance of a more energetic campaign than ever against flies in the coming spring.  It is pointed out that the existence of military encampments in all parts of the country must inevitably tend to provide breeding places for these pests, and where troops are billeted in cottages, where sanitary arrangements are primitive, the conditions must also be very favourable to them.  Another factor favourable to flies if the weather is dry will be the clouds of dust which we must expect in the months ahead were grass has been trampled down and roads cut up.

 

Fermanagh Times March 25th, 1915.  MUNITIONS OF WAR.  NO STRIKE AGREEMENT.  THE GOVERNMENT AND DRINK.  The draft of an agreement between the workers’ representatives and the employers regarding the output of ammunition and equipment was published last night.  The important terms are: – Free employment of women’s labour.  No restrictions on output for the duration of the war.  In the meantime the government has decided that the profits of armament works shall not exceed 10 per cent during the war and that any surplus shall go to the state.  Mr. Lloyd George addressed the delegates on the excessive drinking among several certain sections of workmen in particular districts throughout the country.  He announced that the Government had under consideration the question of limiting the hours in these areas, and that they would be glad of the views of the conference on their suggestion to allow public houses to open only between 12.00 p.m. and 2.00 p.m. and 7 o’clock to 9 in the evening.

 

Fermanagh Times March 25th, 1915.  THE WON’T WORKS.  AN ENGLISH TOWN’S PRIDE AND SHAME.  The pride of Sunderland is its claim to be the biggest shipbuilding town in the world; the shame of Sunderland is its large body of shirkers, and that shame is paraded openly and almost ostentatiously in the main streets of the town, says a Times special correspondent.

“At 10.00 a.m. there are hundreds of men, hands in pockets, slouching idly along in little groups, standing talking at street corners, most of them smoking – many of them able bodied men of military age, and a fair proportion of older men, still capable of good work.  “Who are they?”  I asked a young constable.  “Wont works” was the laconic reply.  I put the same question later to an employer.  “My men, many of them,” he answered bitterly, “The Government work is being delayed because they’re taking a holiday.”

 

Fermanagh Times March 25th, 1915.  PATRIOTIC TYRONE POSTMEN.  Enthusiastic scenes were witnessed at Omagh Railway Station on Monday morning, when 11 postmen and post office officials left to join the Post Office Rifles.  The contingent, which consisted of six men from Omagh, four from Dromore and one from Castlederg, left by the 12.39 train for Dublin, and received a great send off from a large crowd of townspeople and their fellow employees of the Post Office.

 

Fermanagh Herald 27th March, 1915.  LICENCED PREMISES IN THE TOWN OF TEMPO FOR SALE.  I have received instructions from the executor of the late owner Mr. Bernard Maguire to sell by public auction on the premises at 1.00 sharp on Monday, the 29th of March, 1915 those valuable premises at present occupied by Mr. Bernard Breen and situated on the Main Street, Tempo subject to a head rent of £3.00 per annum.  The  property consists of a spacious two Storey dwelling house having four rooms on the first floor and five rooms on the second floor, a cellar 40 feet by 20 feet divided into three apartments and fitted throughout with an Electric Lighting System.  The out offices which are extensive and in good repair, consist of ample stabling accommodation, a byre, coach house, etc..  There is also a neat little garden attached.  The entire premises, which are now in occupation of Mr. Bernard Breen as yearly tenant, paying £12 15s yearly rent are well adapted to a Posting Establishment.  Tempo is a very progressive little town and has a good weekly market and a monthly fair.

 

Fermanagh Herald 27th March, 1915.  A REMARKABLE ENNISKILLEN MAN, JOHN MULLANPHY served in the Irish Brigade in France and later created a Cotton Corner in America.  John and Mullanphy was a pioneer in American commerce in cotton and came from Ireland in 1792 as an emigrant with his wife and a year old child.  He was born near Enniskillen, Co., Fermanagh in 1758 and at 20 he went to France and enlisted in the famous Irish Brigade in which he served until the Revolution drove him back to Ireland.  The emigrants remained a year in Philadelphia, and then went to Baltimore, where Mullanphy prospered in business until in 1799 he pushed further west to Frankfurt, Kentucky.  Here his store became the trading centre of the section, and his house the hospitable refuge of the missionaries who visited this district from time to time to minister to the scattered Catholics settled in the neighbourhood.

Mullanphy’s service in France had enabled him to learn the language of that country and St. Louis was then a French settlement. In 1804 Mullanphy fell in with one of its founders, Charles Gratiot, who persuaded him to locate in St. Louis.  As he spoke French he was soon at home there and the store he opened on Second Street was an object of wonder.  He had 15 children, eight of whom lived and continued his benefactions.  His only son, Bryan, who died a bachelor, in 1851, was Mayor of St. Louis in 1847.  Bryan Mullanphy’s will left one third of his estate, about $200,000, to a trust fund, “to furnish relief to all poor emigrants passing through St. Louis to settle in the West.”

John Mullanphy’s name is recalled to the St. Louis of today by the Mullanphy Hospital and the Mullanphy Orphanage Asylum as that of his daughter, Mrs. Anne Biddle is preserved in the Biddle Home and St., Anne’s Foundling Asylum. His life in St. Louis was one long deed of charity.

1915 – The war and other events as reported by three local newspapers with additions from the national press.

My most recent book is called Sleepwalking Into War. Fermanagh and Surroundings in 1914. The news items were chosen from three local newspapers who cover Fermanagh and surrounding counties and reflect the war news and local events to give an insight into what people were thinking and feeling at the time. The book costs £12 plus £5 P&P.
Similarly I have read and taken notes from the same newspapers for 1915 and intend publishing them throughout 2015 as a blog reflecting life and death as it was a hundred years ago this year. The items include the Christmas Day truce, the high price of potatoes, feeding Belgian refugees with horse meat, recruiting (or the scarcity of recruits), the purchase of remounts, firsthand accounts of the fighting, optimism that the was would be over by the summer etc etc.
Enjoy!

1915 Fermanagh Times, Fermanagh Herald and Impartial Reporter.

Fermanagh Times January 7th, 1915. ONE DAY OF PEACE AT THE FRONT. The following is a remarkable description taken from the Daily Mail by an officer at the front of how the British and Germans ceased hostilities on his part of the line on Christmas Day.

Christmas will remain engraved in the memory of many British soldiers who were in our trenches here as one of the most extraordinary days of their life. For on that day British and Germans ceased fighting with each other for an interval, came out into the open between their respective firing lines, buried their dead and held a short service in their memory.
Our chaplain had come with the colonel to officiate at the funeral in a trench of one of our Scottish soldiers. During the programme of the solemn writes it was noticed that one or two fellows were standing outside. No attention was paid to this to the service ended, when the colonel shouted, “Come inside men!” The reply was that some Germans were standing outside. Gradually more and more of the enemy – some of them officers, by their uniform – appeared, none of them armed.
FOOTBALL MATCH WITH A HARE. At last our commanding officer resolved to get out and see for himself. The chaplain jumped up into the open at his heels, and crossing a ditch which runs down the middle of the field between the lines cried “Does anyone speak English?” As reply a private stepped forward and then to our amazement we saw our chaplain cross the ditch, salute the German commander and his staff, and begin to talk with them. Almost at the same time a hare burst into view and ran along between the trenches. All at once Germans came scurrying from their trenches and British from theirs, and a marvellous thing happened. It was all like a football match, the hare being the football, the grey-tunicked Germans the one side, and the kilted “Jocks” the other.

The game was won by the Germans who captured the prize. But more was secured than a hare – a sudden friendship had been struck up, the truce of God had been called, and for the rest of Christmas Day not a shot was fired along our section. Dotted over the 60 yards separating the trenches were scores and scores of dead soldiers and soon spades were flung up by comrades on guard in both trenches, and by instinct each side set to dig graves for their dead. Our padre had seized his chance and found the German commander and his officers very ready to agreeing that, after the dead had been buried, a short religious service should take place. He told us that the German commander and his officers were as anxious as the British could be to keep Christmas Day as a day of peace. That was quite in keeping with the behaviour of the Germans, who had kept up only an occasional firing on Christmas Eve and were very busy singing carols and glees.

SOUVENIERS EXCHANGED. We did not know all that was being said, but afterwards we asked the padre two questions. The one was, “Why did you and the German commander take off your hats to one another?” What happened, as we learned, was: The German took his cigar case out and offered the padre a cigar, which was accepted. The padre said, “May I be allowed not to smoke, but to keep this as a souvenir of Christmas here and of meeting you on Christmas Day?” The answer, with a laugh was, “Oh yes, but can’t you give me a souvenir?” Then the hats came off. For the souvenir the padre gave was a copy of the “Soldiers Prayer” which he had carried in the lining of his cap since the war commenced, and the German officer in accepting it took off his cap and put the slip in the lining saying as he did it, “I value this because I believe what it says and when the war is over I shall take it out and give it as a keepsake to my youngest child.”
The second question was what was in the notebook the German commander showed you? The answer was that he had been shown the name and address in England of a certain brave British officer. He had been killed, and as he was dying the commander happened to pass and saw him struggle to get something out of his pocket. He went up and helped the dying officer, and the thing in the pocket was a photograph of his wife. The commander said “I held it before him, and he lay looking at it till he died a few minutes after.” Our padre took down the name and address and has been able to pass on the information to the bereaved home.
A FINE SPIRIT OF RESPECT. The whole German staff showed a fine spirit of respect during the service for the dead. On one side of the ditch halfway between the two lines stood German officers with their soldiers about them, on the other the officers of the British regiments in the section with their soldiers about them, and between were our Chaplin, an interpreter, and a German divinity student serving with their army. Our chaplain read the 23rd Psalm in English, the German student reading it after him in German. Then a short prayer which the Chaplin had written on a postcard and the interpreter had turned into German was read sentence by sentence by the student after the English form had been recited.
It was a memorable sight to see officers and men who had been fighting, and as I write are fighting against one another as fiercely as ever, bare headed, reverend and keeping sacred truce as they did homage to the memory of the dead on Christmas Day 1914.

Fermanagh Times January 7th, 1915. HIGH PRICED POTATOES. A NOVEL AUCTION IN BELFAST. 600 bags of specially selected potatoes had been kindly given by members of the Killylea, Killinchy, Kilmood and Tullynakill farming societies, the proceeds of the sale being in aid of the Belgian Relief Fund, and also for the provision of gifts for local battalions serving at the front. Altogether the sale realised the handsome sum of £106 11s 7d of which £78 12s would go to the Relief Fund, while £27 19s 7d will be utilised in providing comforts for men who have left our midst in answer to the call.

Fermanagh Times January 7th, 1915. HORSE FOOD FOR REFUGEES AND OTHERS. To the Editor of the Fermanagh Times, December 29, 1914. Dear Sir – there are many thousands of Belgian Refugees in our midst and it has been announced that others will be arriving in the near future. Many of these are destitute, and as the present widespread distress will tend to increase progressively so long as the war continues, the provision of cheap and suitable food is sure to become an important and an urgent problem.
It is well known that in Holland, Belgium and France horse flesh is used as a staple article of food and in times of peace not less than 1,000 lives horses are exported each week from this country to the Continent. Owing to the war this trade with its attendant hardships is temporarily at least at an end, and strenuous efforts are being made to create a market for the products of the bodies of the horses in this country to save them now, and in the future, from the miseries of the Continental traffic. There is hardly any part of the body of a horse that is not commercially valuable but at the present time in this country the flesh which is the most important item is not used as human food, whereas in Paris and Brussels it is sold for this purpose at an average of one franc per pound. Here we can buy horses at 12 shillings and sixpence per hundredweight and the meat could be sold at a few pence per pound or less than half the present price of beef.
We are extremely anxious to develop a scheme by means of which our Belgian guests could be provided with the form of food which the appreciate; and we think that this provision would be accompanied by an enormous diminution in animal suffering, in that it would enable us to rescue and put to a painless end a far larger number of older horses than is possible to us at present. Those who are willing to combine humanitarianism to horses with benevolence to their fellow men are invited to apply to us for particulars of our work and especially of the scheme adverted to above.
We think that it would not be long before the example of our Belgian guests would be followed by our own people, and bearing in mind the fact that horses are clean feeders whose flesh is wholesome, nourishing and palatable – the meat derived even from older horses is tender owing to the shortness of the muscle fibres and it is regarded as a preventative of consumption and cancer by Continental physicians – the introduction of horse flesh as food into our own country would be a gratifying achievement. HORSE AND DRIVERS AID COMMITTEE, LONDON.

Fermanagh Times January 7th, 1915. EDITORIAL. ULSTER BETRAYED AND SOLD was under no obligation to the Government. Nationalist Ireland having received its wages stood bound in honour to return its services as pledged by Mr. Redmond. What has been the result? From the beginning of the war to the end of the year Ireland sent 40,000 recruits to Lord Kitchener’s army. Of these over 28,000 came from Ulster and about 12,000 from the rest of Ireland. We make no accusation against Mr. Redmond’s sincerity as regards recruiting. But when he is vainly striving to obtain one small Irish Brigade of three or four battalions from the National Volunteers, the Ulster Volunteers within a week or two will have completed the whole of an army Division containing four full brigades, each with four battalions, as well as the proper complement of medical, transport, veterinary, engineering and other necessary services.

Fermanagh Times January 7th, 1915. THE PUPILS OF SEVERAL SCHOOLS IN BELFAST have voluntarily relinquished their prize money this year, as did the boys at Portora School, in aid of kindly public objects. The Methodist College lads devoted theirs to the Belgian Relief Fund. Other Schools have contributed to the U.V.F. hospital. Most excellent self-denial!

Fermanagh Times January 7th, 1915. THE PROGRESS OF THE GREAT STRUGGLE. CONTINUED GOOD NEWS FROM THE FRONT. ENEMY REPULSED AT EVERY TURN. SPLENDID WORK BY THE FRENCH AND RUSSIANS. WHAT THE BRITISH TROOPS ARE DOING. NOTES, INCIDENTS, AND STORIES FROM THE FIRING LINE.

Fermanagh Times January 7th, 1915. IN THE TRENCHES AND ON THE RETREAT many of the soldiers lost their hats, and the various headgear called into use was most curious, nearly all contributed by local inhabitants. Some were woolen sleeping caps, then there were straw hats, slouch hats, green “trilbies”, and one soldier went as far as a glossy top hat. The latter was too much for his officer, who ordered him to discard it. So it was thrown into the ditch, only to be seen later on, badly concertinaed, on the curly head of a kilted Scotsman. The climax came when the same Scotsman went to the aid of one of the thousands of refugees that were marching with us. A poor greybeard was wheeling his old wife along the road in a wheelbarrow, and the next thing I saw was the Scottie in his top hat wheeling her along, pathetic and yet ludicrous.

Fermanagh Times January 7th, 1915. THE ENNISKILLEN COUNCIL AND THE VICEROY. LORD ABERDEEN’S RESIGNATION AND AN EXPRESSION OF REGRET PAST BY A SMALL MAJORITY. The chairman Mr. J.F. Wray, LL.B proposed that “We, the Enniskillen Urban Council have heard with extreme regret the announcement of Lord Aberdeen’s decision to resign and we desire to place on record our keen appreciation of the invaluable services rendered to our people by His Excellency and the Countess of Aberdeen in their untiring and self-sacrificing labours for the improvement of the health of the people and for promoting the welfare of the industrial working classes and alleviating the lot of the poor and the destitute. They had been the first in Ireland to take up a position like that and they had come into close contact with the people of Fermanagh. To carry on the work of fighting the scourge of consumption had been met by Lady Aberdeen by the establishment of Rossclare Sanatorium. Since the establishment of that institution many a victim of that scourge had received treatment and attention there which would have been unavailable to them otherwise.
The proposal was opposed by Mr. Trimble who said that there was a weakness and inefficient Irish Administration. They had Dublin itself, seething in crime, labour was held up, ship stopped, strikes in the city and in some of the railways and during this they had a feeble, weak, old-womanly administration in Dublin Castle. In regard to the local associations referred to by the Chairman, Mr. Trimble continued, the town of Enniskillen received the Lord Lieutenant in silence. He had not been invited and he came without been asked. With reference to the Lady Aberdeen he recognised the great energy she threw into the movement for the prevention of consumption and it was through her efforts that the country people had learned the value of fresh air. It was letters written by Lady Aberdeen however, that contributed largely to the removal of the Lord Lieutenant. For the very little Lord Aberdeen had done, and for the great deal that he had left undone, he was adequately compensated by the salary he received which was equal to that of the President of the United States. In conclusion Mr. Trimble said – “I am delighted to hear of his departure from Ireland.”

Fermanagh Times January 7th, 1915. THE DURATION OF THE WAR. OVER BEFORE SUMMER CHANGES INTO AUTUMN. Quite the most comforting New Year’s message that I have seen (says a London Correspondent) is in the speech of Sir George Buchanan to the British and American colonies in Petrograd. He spoke of the war being over “ere summer has changed to autumn.” As the British ambassador is doubtless fully acquainted with what is going on in the eastern theatre, and is also pretty well posted as to the progress of the Allies on this side, his hopes may be assumed to have a substantial basis, or he would not have given utterance to them.

Impartial Reporter. January 7 1915. THINGS MILITARY. One of the many mistakes made by the War Office was in not adopting the offer of the town of Enniskillen to accept the old prison premises. The offer was not favoured, and now when the County Council have demolish the old prison, and converted the new prison into a fine hall and the old prison hospital into a Technical School – all heated with hot water pipes, lit with gas, and newly floored, the War Office are only too glad to make use of the premises which might have been their own. These premises now house 270 men of Captain Sproule Myles’s Donegal Company of the 11th battalion of the Royal Inniskillings comfortably. There is need for more room to accommodate more men and it has been proposed to put 150 more men within the walls of the old prison, or 420 men in all. If the County Council had allowed the second gallery to remain in the building (and it could be replaced) it would accommodate two full companies, or over 500 men. The probability is that the She Barracks in Queen Street, which have been undergoing repair, may be utilised to house the 150 men, and the surplus room of the County Building kept available for the incoming recruits till the battalion reach the 1,150 standard.

Impartial Reporter. January 7 1915. PICTURE HOUSE ENTERTAINMENT. On Tuesday night the proprietors of the Picture Theatre placed their entertainment at the service of the local reception committee, with the result that the hall was crowded with soldiers. Canon Webb, in a short address wished the men God speed and a safe return and told them that when they got to Berlin to let the Germans know where they came from, a sentiment that evoked loud cheers. He also on behalf of the committee and the men of the 11th battalion thanked Mr. Casey of the Picture Company for his kindness and generosity in placing the pictures at their disposal.

Impartial Reporter. January 7 1915. PURCHASE OF REMOUNTS. On last year I sold a horse for £36 10 shillings to one of for local dealers from whom the army purchases, and delivered him next morning as arranged at this gentleman’s stables, just as one of the Government gentlemen who was there purchasing mounts was viewing his other horses. He requested me to give him a ‘show’ which I did and had the ‘pleasure’ and satisfaction of seeing him put up with the other horses purchased at £50.00 each. Not a bad profit of £1310 shillings – more than he made me for 12 months care and feeding. I am quite satisfied that this is not an isolated case. Some may say I was a duffer to sell him at the price. Well, I sell a few horses, and generally know what I’m about but when it is impossible for me to meet the Government purchaser we are obliged to sell to the middleman, and worse still, at his price. No wonder we have given up horse breeding, nor will any scheme induce us to rejoin it so long as we cannot get the value of our horses by selling direct to the Government. Let the Government appoint places and dates in each county, same as they did at the beginning of the war last August where their purchases will attend, and I assure you they will be able to buy cheaper and still give a much better price. CABALLUS.

Impartial Reporter. January 7 1915. WHAT A PLUCKY SOLDIER SAYS. Writing to Mrs. A. Taylor, Druminchin, Newtowngore, Co., Leitrim, Trooper Thomas Bryson, North Irish Horse, says – the first of the sad sights I saw when I landed in Belgium was of the Germans shelling a town. I went about not thinking or fearing, picking up bits of shell for curiosity. Then our officers shouted to get into the house. We had no sooner obeyed orders when a shell burst in the yard and smashed the windows of the house where we were standing. The bullets and shells were falling as quick as hailstones on the three roads leading from the town. I saw one shell bursting which killed two of the Lancers, eight horses and three others. We could not leave until it got dark, and then we were riding over men and horses lying dead as thick as they could be.

I often heard and read of war never expecting to take part in it! But, now, when I have taken part in this great struggle I am not sorry for doing so, although it is a bit hot sometimes. Neither am I tired of it. I never was as happy in all my life as I am at present helping to hold up the old flag, and I believe I could not die happier than to die for it. And I must say that any man or boy fit to hold or help to hold up that flag which we all should love and does not his duty, is a coward and should be deemed a coward. The friends at home and around are so kind in sending me such good things that I want for nothing and trusting in God, I expect D. V., to see you all. (Ed. D.V. Deo Volente i.e. God Willing.)

Fermanagh Herald 9th January, 1915. HAVOC IN HOLLAND. Amsterdam, December 29. A violent storm raged last Monday and Tuesday morning over Holland and for hours all communications with the Provinces, with England and with Germany were cut off. Even now – on Tuesday afternoon – only one single wire is working with London. At Amsterdam the rough weather was especially felt.

Fermanagh Herald 9th January, 1915. THE SECRETARY OF THE ADMIRALTY makes the following announcement: the battleship “Formidable” was sunk this morning in the Channel, whether by mine or submarine is not yet certain. Seventy-one survivors have been picked up by a British light cruiser, and it is possible that others may have been rescued by other vessels. The “Formidable” was a third class battleship of 15,000 tons, and was launched in 1898 at Portsmouth and completed in 1902 at a cost of over one million pounds sterling. She was 400 feet long and her complement was 718 men, and she was a sister ship of the Irresistible and Implacable. She was a heavily armoured and designed to give a speed of 18 knots. An additional 70 men have been rescued by a Brixham trawler.

Fermanagh Herald 9th January, 1915. THE INNISKILLINGS AND HOW OFFICERS AND MEN FOUGHT AND DIED. Private Francis Conway, now a convalescent and on furlough in Sixmilecross, tells the following tale of his two months active service from Mons to Armentieres. Mons – at 6.00 (dawn) we were having some tea in a farmhouse garden when a shell burst among us killing and wounding several. We seized our rifles and advance towards the enemy’s lines. There was terrific firing. Artillery, machine-guns, rifles and cavalry all in action. After half an hour we had to retire 700 yards. We then reformed and advanced again, but somehow both sides had ceased firing, and we brought our wounded to a farmhouse, the ambulance being far in the rear. My cousin, Sergeant McCrystal, Glenhordial, fell in that action having both legs broken. The horrible artillery fire from the enemy drove us back 3 miles. In this fight we lost 500 out of 1,300. The general retreat then began. We were covering that the retreat; we had a bad day at a certain village. The Germans were about 300 yards behind, and as we retreated up the main street they were really get a field gun into position, and began to Moore’s down when halfway up the street. We wheeled and returned the fire, but were being badly cut up. There was confusion owing to orders advance and Retreat, sure that for a time we were mesmerised so to speak and the gun did horrid execution. We then retreated outside of the village, and concealed ourselves as best we could in a turnip field expecting the enemy to come in pursuit but they did not come. After this we were relieved, and did not come into action again till the enemies retreat began. Before the battle of the Aisne we were ambushed by a battery concealed in a wood; Lieutenant and Boyd and several men were killed; when we reach the wood the battery was gone, leaving dead and wounded horses and men behind. The battle of the Aisne lasted several weeks.

Fermanagh Herald 9th January, 1915. LIFE IN THE TRENCHES AND FIGHTING IN A SEA OF MUD. 31st of December –Monday, the 28th of December was a day of pelting rain. Towards the evening this give way to a hurricane of wind, followed during the night by a violent thunderstorm. On Wednesday the 30th gradual progress was maintained. The Germans again bombarded Armentières and shelled our frontline. On the left to our north, their aviators displayed more activity than they have latterly been, dropping bombs on Dunkirk and Furness. The day was bright and frosty, favourable to reconnoitring. The last day of 1914 passed equally uneventfully all along our front. The fighting is now taking place over the ground where both sides have for a week past been excavating in all directions, until it has become a perfect labyrinth.
A trench runs straight for a considerable distance and then it suddenly forks in three or four directions. Sometimes when new ground is broken, and the spade turns up the long-buried dead ghastly relics of former fights, and on all sides the surface of the earth is ploughed and furrowed by fragments of shells and bombs. From a distance this apparently confused mass of passages crossing and recrossing one another, resembles a large irregular gridiron. The life led by the infantry on both sides at close quarters is a strange cramped existence, with death always near either by means of some missile from above or some exploded from beneath –a life which has one dull monotonous background of mud and water.

Fermanagh Herald 9th January, 1915. THE PASSING OF THE HORSE IN MODERN WARFARE. One of the innovations of this war has been the substitution of the motor for the horse. A horse it is a rare sight now except at the stabling stations near the front. Armoured motor cars and motor cycles for scouting, motor wagons and lorries for ambulance and transport work and almost the only branch of activity in which the horse is still indispensable is for rushing field artillery into action, for motors cannot smashed through hedges and over broken ground as our splendid horses can.

Fermanagh Herald 9th January, 1915. NEW LABORATORIES AT MANCHESTER. The new radium laboratories of Manchester Infirmary, which contain radium to the value of £20,000, raised by public subscription a few months ago were formally opened by the Lord Mayor of the city. A staff of experts will specialize in efforts to apply the radium for the arrest and elimination of cancer. The equipment of the laboratories is second to none in the kingdom and in the 16 rooms allotted to the special work there is ample provision for administering the treatment to patients. There is accommodation at the infirmary for the treatment of the 15 patients a day, and although no one has been accepted until this week some 8 or 10 names have already been entered.
The method by which the treatment is administered at Manchester is both bewildering and fascinating to the lay mind. First one enters a strong room guarded by a massive safe door and there on two shells are four glass bulbs containing some £14,000 worth of radium. Already Dr. Borrows, who has charge of the scheme, has discovered a method of measuring the quantity he requires that admits of no error.

The Night of the High Wind from the Impartial Reporter newspaper.

January 10 1839.  For the last 40 years this country was not visited with so furious a Gale of wind, or one as generally and awfully destructive in its effects, as that which took place on Sunday night last.  At about 10.15 we felt the first symptoms of it from the south and south-east from which it continued to increase in violence until past 12, when it blew a tremendous hurricane from the east; about 3.00 AM in the morning it chopped about to S.S.E. again for  half an hour, after which it flew round ten points of the compass in as many minutes, blowing with terrific force from west by north where it continued until 8 o’clock when it shifted a point or two more northwards: it blew very fresh during Monday until the afternoon, when it lulled and a heavy fall of snow came on which continued all night and part of Tuesday.  A strong frost has since set in.

On my Monday morning the town presented a frightful aspect; the shops were all closed as if death had visited the inmates of each; the streets were covered with broken slates, thatch and rubbish from the different chimneys blown down and the roofs taken of.  An awful extent of damage has been done; windows broken and blown in; trees uprooted; roofs blown off; chimneys thrown down; floors forced in; cattle maimed and killed, and hay and corn blown away.

Providentially we have heard of no human lives lost, except one man who, living near the edge of the lake, went upon the roof of his house during the night to preserve it by putting weights on it, and he himself was blown away and perished in the angry waters.  Mr. Marshall, an inmate at Eden, the residence of the George Rankin, Esq., narrowly escaped with his life, he having been but a few minutes left his room through the entreaties of Mr. Rankin, when a stack of chimneys fell through the roof: it would have crushed him to death!  It would be impossible for us to enumerate in detail the losses sustained, but, we may mention of three houses have been blown down in the Castle lane.  The large ballroom in their rear of Mr. Willis’s hotel, is in ruin, there is scarcely a pane of glass left in the front of the town hall, the roof and window of the Church have been much injured, the Roman Catholic Chapel is partly unroofed and the stone cross shattered to fragments; the greater part of the old distillery of the Messrs. Innis and Armstrong is level with the ground, and their brewery much injured; the massive lead sheeting and roof of the jail was rolled up and stripped off by the wind, like so much tissue paper; £2,000 pounds we learn will not repair the damage sustained by Portora Royal School.  One of the lightning conductors, formed of a thick pole bound to an immense strong bar of iron, in the Castle barrack, was beaten to the earth like a twig.  The sentry boxes were upset in all directions.  There is not a house in the town but has suffered less or more from the effects of the Gale.

Hay and corn are mostly blown away and scattered for miles through the hills: their prospects are most melancholy, may God pity them and assist them under this awful visitation of his wrath.  The Belfast mail, which left this on Sunday night, was upset three times, and we learn that the coach man had his thigh broken in two places.  The Shareholder coach which left this for Dublin on Monday morning had returned the passengers and coach man expecting it to be blown of the road and into the fields.  The mails due here have lost several hours every day since Sunday, the Belfast particularly.  Nearly behalf of Kells is correct burned to the ground.  Part of Navan was also in flames on Monday.  Monaghan has suffered – a dreadful fire has added its horrors to those of the Gale, and the town is nearly depopulated: a party of the 38th marched from this on yesterday morning en route for it to protect the property of the unfortunate sufferers which had been saved from the flames.  Up to the hour of going to press we continue to hear occurrence of the dreadful ravages that have been engender by the storm in all directions which has been one of the most desolating and awful in its consequences that ever visited us.  The foregoing account does not contain a tithe of the damage which has been done.  It would be impossible at present to estimate it, for none have escaped.

Fermanagh’s Impartial Reporter – January 1920.

Impartial Reporter, January 8th 1920.  ROMANCE OF A PICTURE.SAID TO BE WORTH a £1,000. FIRST SOLD IN SLIGO FOR £1. A remarkable story centres round a picture which is now estimated as worth thousands of pounds, and is believed to be Russell’s long-missing work, “The Recording Angel.” The picture was taken to the Town Hall, Sligo, some six months ago with another collection, and offered for sale but attracted little attention.

It was old and worn-looking, and after repeated calls for a bid, the auctioneer bought the picture himself for £1, land the “old thing“ was stored in a warehouse and finally in the window. Then Mrs. Jackson, wife of Mr. Arthur Jackson, of Sligo, was attracted by the canvas, and eventually suggested that her daughter should buy it.

The latter did so for a sum of about £5, and subsequently took her purchase to her home in Belfast. As the picture, however, occupied too much space—being about 4 ft. by 3½—she decided to sell it, and called in a dealer in old pictures to value it. The dealer offered £50, remarking, it is said, that he was taking a risk in buying the picture at that figures as it might prove to be valueless.

The purchase was completed, and now it is reported that the painting really is Russell’s “Recording Angel,” and it is stated that the dealer has refused an offer of £1,000 for it.

The picture was taken for auction from the house of Mr. Palmer, of Shriff, Dromahair, Co. Leitrim.

 

January 8th 1920.  UNDERTAKING. I THE UNDERSIGNED withes to draw attention to the fact that he is prepared to execute orders in the undertaking, promptly and efficiently, the motto being promptitude and moderate charges.

Good horses, good hearse, coffins, stained and unstained, floral wreaths, & kept in stock.

GEO. M’CREA, Corner House, Pettigo.

 

January 8th 1920.  LUCAS D. GRAY, J.P., COMMISSIONER OF DEEDS, BALLYBAY, Co. MONAGHAN. LEGACIES AND PROPERTY IN AMERICA RECOVERED. ENQUIRIES MADE AND ESTATES WOUND UP IN ANY PART OF THE WORLD.

 

January 8th 1920.  MANORHAMILTON. £500 DAMAGES AGAINST FARMER. At a Sheriff’s Court in the Grand Jury Room, Green Street Courthouse, Dublin, Mr. Lorcan Sherlock presided with a jury to access damages in two cases in which judgement had been entered against Robert Acheson, Garrison, Co. Leitrim. (Fermanagh?)

Mr, Adam Cox (instructed by Mr Robert Macready, of R. Lonsdale & Co., Manorhamilton), who appeared for the plaintiff said, in the absence of the defendant it was only a question for the jury to access the amount of damages. Kate Ryan lived in Manorhamilton, and in 1916 she went to Garrison where she was employed in a hotel belonging to Mr. McGovern.

Her Pay and Tips..

She was paid £5 a year with her board and she also got tips. Out of this she sent whatever she could to her mother. The defendant had a farm near Garrison of about 30 acres, which was bought out. He knew the girl slightly before she went and after she went there he frequently went to see her and kept company with her.

Joined the Army Next Day.

In February, 1917, he visited her, and joined the army the following day and later came back and saw her several times. She first noticed her condition in August.  A Dr. Maguire, who visited the hotel engaged her as a servant, and Kate Ryan went with him and Mrs Maguire to Chorley, in Lancashire where they resided, and where they are still. Kate Ryan gave birth to a child in the Workhouse there in 1918. She had to pay 10s per week for the upkeep of her child.

Kate Ryan was examined, and bore out Counsel’s statement. She said the defendant offered her £50 first, and then £100 and costs, but her solicitor would not accept it.

 

January 8th 1920.  Daring Outrages in Cork.. Four Police Stations Stormed. One Blown up and “Captured” POLICE PUT IN HANDCUFFS. Three Hundred Raiders Take Part.

During Friday and Saturday nights four police barracks in the Co.,  Cork were attacked by armed men, who fired on the policemen through the windows. In one case a policeman was slightly injured.

In the neighbouring county of Kerry a police constable while walking from his lodgings to the police station in village of Ballylongford was shot and dangerously wounded.

The attack on the little police station of Carrigtwohill, in Cork, was one of the most daring outrages that have occurred in a long time. Between two and three hundred men arrived in the village at night and having cut the telegraph lines, proceeded to carry the station by storm. It was defended by a sergeant and five men, who gallantly replied to the fire of the attackers until their ammunition was exhausted.

The attack which began; at 10 o’clock and lasted until two o’clock in the morning, when the attackers blew out the gable of the barrack with gelignite and rushing through the breach, over-powered the little garrison, handcuffed them, stole all the guns in the place as well as a considerable sum of money belonging to the policemen, and marched off cheering.

It is stated that the police at Carrigtwohill observed indications of developments before the attack took place, and got a message through to Midleton which was transmitted to Cork, whence armed aid was despatched, which reached the scene too late.

Some of the raiders are reported to have left the scene in motor cars.

At South Kilmurry the police, after a sharp fight, succeeded in driving off the attackers with hand grenades. Attacks are also reported at Inchigeela, (West Cork), Carrignavar (five miles from Cork), and Rathcormac (near Fermoy). In the former place one policeman was wounded slightly, and this is the only casualty reported to have resulted from the whole series of attacks. The attacks on the three other stations of Inchigeela, South Kilmurry and Carrignavar, appear to have been beaten off. While one of them was in progress a medical doctor was held up for several hours on the roadside.

 

Barracks almost in Ruins. DETAILS OF THE ATTACK. Further details of the elaborate attack on Carrigtwohill police barracks, Co. Cork, on Saturday night show that the affair was planned in a most determined manner, and speak volumes for the pluck and tenacity of the little party of police—a sergeant and five men—who held at bay for over four hours a band of over 100 Sinn Fein ruffians. Inspection of the wrecked building revealed ample evidence of the desperate character of the battle. Every window is smashed, the ………

GRENADES IN CLARE. Doctor and Constable Wounded. On Saturday night while a police patrol was on duty protecting a local farmer in N. Clare its members were ambushed from both sides of the road from behind.

Many shots were exchanged, and on the police flinging some hand grenades – this being the first time they were used in Clare — the assailants fled. One of the constables was wounded twice, in the back and shoulder. During the conflict, Dr. Keane, Ennistymon, appeared in a motor car on a visit to a patient in the neighbourhood …..

 

JANUARY 15, 1920. The Inniskilling Dragoons. Recruiting Centre at Enniskillen. Major Fleury-Teulon arrived at Enniskillen last week to arrange for a recruiting centre of the Inniskilling Dragoons being formed at Enniskillen, and two sergeants from the mother regiment have arrived from Cologne to specially attend to this matter. Smart young men of good bearing and character are desired, so that the regiment may partake of more of the Inniskilling element, and we venture the expectation that good young soldiers from this part of the world  may look forward to a speedy rise from the lowest pay of 2s 9d per day, and many things found free for him, to a sergeant’s pay of £5 per week. The regiment now is on what may be termed holiday, in the army of occupation on the banks of the Rhine, at Cologne, and a soldier’s life there would be a delightful holiday. Already some young answered the advertisement in the Impartial Reporter and have been accepted, and it is expected that a fresh Enniskillen troop to be developed into a special Enniskillen squadron, will be formed to include Fermanagh, Tyrone and Donegal men. Several Donegal men were enrolled at the original raising of the regiment in 1689.

As Major Fleury-Teulon was educated partly at Enniskillen Royal School, it is fitting that he should come here on such a mission.

 

JANUARY 15, 1920. The Dublin Union estimates are up this year by the sum of £70,000.

The Mayor and First Lady Magistrate of English town signalised her first presidency of the local police court by dismissing three cases of chimney-firing.

The New York Police seized 18 barrels of the poisonous wood alcohol, which was sufficient to kill 20,000 persons. Another sort of makeshift whisky has caused blindness where it does not kill.

A League is being started in Ireland to protest against immodest fashions in dress.

The first batch of recruits from London for the Royal Irish Constabulary arrived in Dublin from London.

 

JANUARY 15, 1920. LIVELY FIGHT IN GALWAY. Onslaught on Police Barrack. Raiders Taken in Rear, Decamp. A large party of raiders attacked the police barrack at Castlehackett, Co. Galway, on the night of Thursday and Friday, with gunshot and bombs. There were only two policemen in the barrack at the time, Sergeant Higgins and Const. Gormley.

The raiders opened a fierce fire from a position behind a wall facing the barrack, but it is said that some of the shots apparently came from tops of trees surrounding the police station, some of the missiles lodging in the floor and in Sergt. Higgins’ bed, where he was when the attack commenced, and he received some gunshot pellets in the face, but his injuries are not serious.

TAKEN IN THE REAR. All the windows and doors in the building were riddled, while a bomb blew away a portion of the back wall, but it did not penetrate fully.

Another bomb which, had it exploded, would probably have demolished the whole structure; it is stated, was found subsequently. The fuse had extinguished within two inches of the explosive.

The two defenders kept firing at the attackers, but as far as the former were concerned the situation was saved by a party of four policemen guarding a patrol motor car two miles off, who heard the shots.

Taking a short cut across the fields they returned to the vicinity of the barrack, and taking its assailants in the rear opened fire. The raiders then found themselves between two fires, and they were called on to line up and they retired precipitately and Col. Bernard, of Castle Hackett compared the fusillade to that of a battle in Flanders. Police from surrounding districts were afterwards drafted into the village. In the course of the onslaught cries of “Will you surrender now” followed each volley of shot at the barrack.

 

JANUARY 15, 1920. The Drumlish Affair. There is great activity by police and military throughout Co., Longford following the raid on Drumlish barrack. It is now generally believed that one of the raiders was wounded, as a shot-gun was left behind and traces of blood were observed on the roadside. The barrack during the raid was garrisoned by five policemen and six soldiers who returned the fire of the attacking party.

 

JANUARY 15, 1920. DISTURBED DUBLIN, MILITARY RAIDS. Highway Robbery and Strikes, Sinn Fein and the Elections. Several incidents in connection with political unrest took place in Dublin last week.

The first was a raid by military and police on the headquarters of the Sinn Fein “Parliament” in Harcourt Street. The premises were closed, the rooms being nailed up by the soldiers. The caretaker and his wife were allowed to remain, and to gain admittance and exit to the house by the back door.

A raid was also made on rooms occupied by the New Ireland Assurance company at Bachelor’s Walk, which were visited by police last week. In this case, soldiers made a thorough search, and it is stated that some of the floors were lifted. So far as was known nothing unusual was discovered.

In connection motor drivers’ “strike” against the permit regulations, it was announced that a military guard had been posted at the premises of the Anglo-American Oil Company at North Wall where petrol supplies are stored. Such petrol as is required for military or police purposes has to be carried by Army motor lorries, and Thursday, when a consignment for petrol for military use was brought to Kingsbridge for conveyance to Cork, an attempt was made by the strike committee to prevent the railwaymen from working the train on which the petrol was loaded. The attempt, however, failed, but the actual handling of the petrol drums had to be performed by soldiers.

Later in the day a motor delivery van belonging to Messrs. Dawson and Sons newsagents, which had been stolen by a gang of unknown men last week, was found in the Liffey. A crane was employed in lifting it out from its petition in the river bed.

It was also reported that while going home from the theatre, a well-known citizen of Dublin—whose name was not disclosed—had been held up by two armed and masked men, who robbed him of all the money in his pockets.

Numerous larcenies are reported all over the city.

With regard to the municipal elections, there have been only four withdrawals, and the total number of candidates going forward for the 60 seats is 154. The Sinn Feiners are conducting a most active campaign and despite the fact that their organisation is illegal, are holding numerous meetings without interference. The plan adopted, however, is to hold “lightning” meetings at street corners without any preliminary notice. No disturbances are so far recorded.

In addition to these features of the general unrest, the strike of public-assistants continues, about five or six thousand young men being affected.

 

JANUARY 15, 1920. THE ROYAL MAILS RAIDED. MORE DARING ROBBERIES.

MASKED MEN CARRY AWAY MONEY.

Raids by masked men on post office mails have occurred at Clare, Westmeath, and Galway. That at Cratloe disclosed a cleverly conceived plan, and both there and near Mullingar the robbers secured money intended for the payment of old age pensioners. The raiders in Co. Galway were disappointed the mail ear intercepted carrying merely empty bags.

The porter on duty at Cratloe on Friday morning was warned by a partially disguised man, who presented a revolver at him, not to stir for an hour after the mail train from Limerick to Ennis had passed. The train was due about three a.m.

According to one account, the raider added—“I have accomplices.” On the arrival of the train, the guard unsuspectingly threw from his van to the platform the mail bag containing letters, and £20 in cash to pay old age pensions. Subsequently an official came out to the platform to find a bundle of letters, but the cash and the mail bag had disappeared.

Near Closed Barracks.

Between five and six a.m. on Friday morning, the mail car from Mullingar to Tyrrellspass was held up between Milltown Pass and Rochford Bridge by two armed masked men, who had bicycles. In addition to ordinary mails, the car carried £16 in silver for old age pensions. The raiders seized and carefully examined all the mail bags. These they afterwards handed back, but kept the pension money. Two police stations in the vicinity have, states the Press Association, recently been closed.

The mail oar from Tuam to Galway was held up at Annaghhill, Turloughmore. Masked men jumped over the wall and called on the driver to pull up, and when he failed to do so, he got a blow of an ash-plant on the head. He then halted, and the raiders  searched the car, but found nothing.

 

JANUARY 15, 1920. KERRY’S LATEST ATTEMPTED MURDER. Of Mr. Sergeant Sullivan. On Friday night, about 9.30 o’clock, Mr. Alexander Sullivan, K. C., His Majesties  First Sergeant-at-law in Ireland, Mr. H. B. Slattery, solicitor, and Mrs. Slattery were sitting down after dinner in Mr. Slattery’s residence at Clounalour, near Tralee, a knock came to the door. When the door was opened a party of about eight disguised and armed men tried to force an entrance into the house. After a scuffle, in which some shots were fired, they were ejected.

A revolver was pointed at Sergeant Sullivan, but he closed with his assailant and grasped the weapon, and when the shot went off the flash singed his eyebrow.

Mr. Slattery, when grappling with his assailants, slipped on the tiled hall and while on the ground he was kicked. The hall and staircase are riddled with bullets and show that a large number of shots must have been fired.

 

JANUARY 15, 1920. (ED. Re. the Impartial Reporter by the Editor.) There have been times when allegations were made that this newspaper was controlled by this one or that one; that it was a League medium or an Orange organ; that there was some joint proprietors &c., and in none of those statements was there one particle of truth. The paper has always reflected the views of one person and been guided by one person only—that person its Editor and sole proprietor, and that individual myself. It has never been fettered by outside circumstances except that of the law; and it still happily in the same condition.  I know perfectly well that my views which the paper reflected —have not always been well received by my readers. I can remember well when it was battling for Ulster tenant right against tremendous power and influence several of my friends thought I might have acted differently and ranged myself with the Orange Press of Ulster in opposing any legislation to protect the people in their homes and enable them to breathe the air of freedom. Opposition mattered not; the paper in this instance as in others was in harmony with reform; it advocated the Ballot Act as well as Purchase of Land, and other reforms; and it has always given its help to the humble and the oppressed and in later years consistently fought as best it could for other reforms, but most certainly not for the rupture of the United Kingdom, most certainly not for separation from Ireland’s best customer, friend, and ally; and most certainly not to divide or disrupt the heart of the world Empire, which would be injurious to  every component part of it, and fatal to Ireland itself.

As the public know, for a period extending over many years I have taken a bold stance in defence of (what I considered to be) high principle and public morality; and in consequence of this expression of my opinions on public topics I have come into collision with magistrate, judge, clergy, and solicitor, &, & and have been vindicated again and again though at great pecuniary lose to myself; for the victor in a lawsuit is only second best to the litigant who loses. I am very far from presuming to claim infallibility: but I can claim this—that public opinion, as openly expressed, has always been with me, and the few dissidents have been lost in the chorus of general approval.

It was not to be expected that a paper like the Impartial Reporter could be allowed to plough its independent course without competition. My father told me that in his day almost 20 papers bad been started in opposition; I have copies of several of them, the Enniskillen Mail, the Fermanaghman, Fermanagh Record, the Enniskillen Advertiser …..

 

JANUARY 15, 1920. BELLEEK POTTERY. Drainage Board to Make an Offer. At Lough Erne Drainage Board on Saturday, Mr. Burke, D.L., presiding, after some discussion it was decided to communicate with the Belleek Pottery Company to see if they are prepared to sell their interest in the Pottery to the Drainage Board. A letter was read from the Secretary of the Belleek Pottery Company stating that the water was considerably below level at periods on certain days in November and December. The gatekeeper at Belleek to whom the complaint had been referred said that a squall or sudden change of wind was quite enough to either give the Pottery temporarily a little too much water or leave it just slightly short. No action was taken relative to a letter from Edward Maglone, Ballyshannon, complaining that his yard had been flooded, the Secretary being directed to reply that the Board had nothing to do with anything that happened below the gates at Belleek.

Fermanagh in January 1905 – nearly 100 years ago.

Fermanagh in January 1905 – nearly 100 years ago in a recently established local newspaper.

Fermanagh Herald and Monaghan News.1905. Price One Penny.

January 7th 1905. LISNASKEA CHILDREN SENT TO AN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL. At the Lisnaskea petty sessions on Saturday, Mr. J. Gray, R.M., presiding Head Constable McKinney applied to have two little girls named O’Neill committed to the Monaghan Female Industrial School.

B. L. Winslow, solicitor, appeared on behalf of the mother of the children. It appeared that the mother of the children had just completed a term of imprisonment, and her husband was at present in jail. When the parents were sent to jail the children were taken to the workhouse, where they had been for the previous three months. Mr. Winslow submitted that the magistrates had no jurisdiction to send these children from the workhouse to an industrial school. The mother of the children implored the magistrates not to send them away from her. The majority of the bench decided to send the children to an Industrial School, and Mr. Winslow asked to have a poll of the magistrates mentioning that he intended to apply for a certiorari in the Superior Courts. The voting was as follows: — For sending the children to an industrial school—Messrs. Mulligan, Murphy, Mc Caffery, Tierney, and O’Donnell—5. Against  — The Chairman, Major Haire, Messrs. Arnold and Henderson —  4. The order was accordingly made, the mother of the children crying bitterly.

January 7th 1905. NEW YEAR’S EVE IN ENNISKILLEN. The New Year was ushered in in Enniskillen in the customary manner. When the shops had closed the Enniskillen Grattan Band and Protestant Band alternately paraded the town playing lively airs. Large numbers remained until after midnight on the streets where the best of good humour prevailed. For some time mutual felicitations could be heard on all sides, after which the crowds dispersed and the streets were soon quite deserted.

January 7th 1905. Boating accident on Lough Erne. On Saturday afternoon a boating mishap occurred on Lough Erne. A boat, in which there were five men of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, capsized a little below the Convent grounds, Enniskillen and the occupants were immersed in the river. Some of the men were able to swim ashore, and the others assisted themselves with the aid of an oar to the bank. The men were not apparently much the worse for their involuntary bath.

January 7th 1905. ENTERTAINMENT IN ENNISKILLEN WORKHOUSE. At the meeting of the Enniskillen Board of Guardians on Tuesday, Mr. H. R. Lindsay, J.P. (chairman) preceding, the master, Mr. Thos. N. Gamble, reported:—“On Wednesday last, 20th December, an excellent dinner of roast beef and ham was given to the inmates from funds remaining on hands after the entertainment given last year. Mrs. Humphreys and Mrs. Lindsay were unable to come, and no person connected with the board or workhouse attended to assist in any way but four gentlemen from the town: Messrs. R. W. Wilson, R Ross, F Thorpe, and J. Stewart kindly came over and carved the meat, and gave great assistance in distributing it to the inmates, who enjoyed it greatly. It is proposed by several ladies and gentlemen (with the permission of the board of guardians) to give a treat to the inmates this evening. Tea, rich cake, buns, apples, sweets, tobacco, etc. will be given in the afternoon to be followed by a concert.

On the motion of Mr. Thos. Elliott, seconded by Mr. E. Corrigan, a hearty vote of thanks was accorded to the gentlemen who had assisted at the dinner, and to the ladies, and gentlemen who intended to give an entertainment to the inmates that evening.

January 14th 1905. NOTES. Eggs are being sold in the Kinawley District at 8d per lb.

An inmate of Ballyshannon Union Workhouse, named Roughan, died on Sunday morning, after at least fifty years’ sojourn in that institution. Over twenty-fire years ago he was placed in the dead house as a corpse, and frightened another inmate who was working round the mortuary by sitting up in his shroud on the rude table where the dead are placed.

One of the difficulties facing creamery managers in Ulster, and probably elsewhere in Ireland, is the cost of cartage of milk from the farmsteads to the creameries. The individual supply of the majority of small farmers is not sufficient to induce them to cart their own milk, and, on the other hand, the tax of ¼ per gallon is not sufficient remuneration for man and horse even in the times of the greatest supply of milk. As a result of this many Co-operative Societies are considering the advisability of ceasing the carting system, and compromises between competing creameries have been and are being arranged with this end.

January 28th 1905. LICENSING BUSINESS. Transfers of licences were granted to James Armstrong, Main Street, Kesh, and Thomas Daly, Belleek (ancestor of Bishop Daly of Derry of Bloody Sunday fame). The applications were supported by Mr. W. B. Allingham and Mr. Michael Maguire (Ballyshannon) respectively.

January 28th 1905. As a result of representations made to the War Office, Mr. James Mc Manus, Dame St., Enniskillen has been awarded a pension dating from 1st January last of 9 pence a day for life in recognition for his services to the Empire. Mr. Mc Manus served in the 27th Inniskillings and was one of the 200 men who sailed on the ill-fated Charlotte for the Indian Mutiny. The vessel it will be remembered was shipwrecked in Delagoa Bay and only 60 men were saved of which he was one. After the survivors were landed in India, Mr. Mc Manus saw considerable service there and was in some engagements but was eventually invalided home. He has the Indian Service Medal and treasured it faithfully ever since he received it.

January 28th 1905. Mr. Payne Seddon, proprietor of the Derry Opera House was on a train running to Loughborough, joining express at Stranraer and was asleep in the last coach one night last week when an accident occurred and he was thrown to the floor The first thing he heard was someone shouting—“Run along the line and stop the express.” The coaches were ablaze in a few minutes. Mr. Seddon assisted lads named Kinnock from the train – one boy being found quite dead. Mr. Payne Seddon is well and favourably known in Enniskillen, and his theatrical companies have often times entertained local audiences.

January 28th 1905. Enniskillen Brewery. This old-established Brewery and Mineral Water Factory is about to be taken over by Mr. Mc Donagh (present manager) from Messrs Downes , who are retiring from the business after many years of successful trading. Mr Mc Donagh, who has had a long experience in the management of both branches, had secured the whole concern at less than half selling market price, and has in hands the formation of a private limited liability company to work it. The proposed capital is £10,000 divided into £1 shares, payable as follows: – 5s per share on application, 5s on allotment, and 10s in six months from the date of allotment. The brewery has been pronounced to be one of the most up-to-date of its size in Ireland and the premises and plant are in perfect order.

January 28th 1905. Enniskillen Jail. Arrangements have been completed for the transfer of Enniskillen Prison to Fermanagh County Council. At a meeting of the body on Friday the Chairman, Mr J. Jordan, M.P. remarked that it showed the country was in a peaceable state when the Prison Authorities could close the Jail and hand it over to the County Council; and Mr. H. R. Lindsay said he remembered seeing sixty suspects in it.

The site of part of the Jail which was built in recent years covers a portion of what was formerly a “commons” in which were found buried remains of the “gads” with which criminals had been hanged. The late Barney Bannon a respectable storehouse of local traditions, always asserted that Fermanagh men had a decided objection to being hanged with a rope. They preferred an osier gad.

From the Broads to the Lakelands – English Plantation in Fermanagh in the early 17th century..

From the Broads to the Lakelands – English Plantation in Fermanagh.

 To give a very simplified mental picture of the Plantation of Fermanagh one has to visualise Fermanagh as a rectangle with Lough Erne running from east to west through the centre of the county. South of this east west line are three of the seven Baronies of Fermanagh with the most easterly and the most westerly namely Knockninny and Magheraboy were  granted to Scottish settlers and the central one partly to Irish and partly to English. On the northern side of the Erne the two Baronies on either end of Fermanagh were granted to English settlers and the two central largely to Irish natives other than around Enniskillen which was to be the new centre of the county of Fermanagh.

The south eastern barony originally granted to Scots from around the Edinburgh collapsed with the first ten years of the Plantation so that of the 9000 acres granted to them Sir Stephen Butler, an Englishman from Bedfordshire had purchased 8000 of these acres rendering this Barony therefore English rather than Scottish nearly straight away. So now the English had almost four of the seven Baronies of Fermanagh and had them in the most strategic places in the county – in the west next to the sea at Ballyshannon, in the centre about Enniskillen and in the east close to the entrance to the Upper Erne.

Most of the English who arrived in Fermanagh came from the area of East Anglia generally as Undertakers – those who undertook to carry our various conditions such as the building of a castle and bawn enclosure and the building of a church. To do this they had to have a certain high level of income (self assessed but) to build and to attract with them from England sufficient quality settlers to labour and farm and occupy the territory granted. Most of the servitors who got land in Fermanagh were also English. In Clinawley Barony, Sir John Davies, Attorney General 1,500 in the rich wheat bearing district around Lisgoole Abbey and reaching towards Enniskillen. Samuel Harrison, English 500 acres and Peter Mostyn, from Flintshire 246 acres.

The Barony of Coole and Tirkeneda Barony contained 116,006 acres almost entirely occupied by 9 undertakers, four of whom were servitors. These were Sir Henry Ffolliott, Baron Folliott of Ballyshannon, 1,500 acres, Roger Attkinson, 1,000 acres,  William Cole, reputedly from Devon 1,000 acres, and Paul Goore, son of a merchant-tailor of London, who had 1348 acres called the Manor of Inishmore.

In this short talk I am trying to explore why these English people were coming to Ireland when at the same time their neighbours, particularly in East Anglia were making America their plantation destination choice. Why Fermanagh rather than Jamestown in America, named after King James 1st? Most of the inhabitants of America’s first permanent English settlement came from Norfolk, England, including Samuel Lincoln, a forefather of President Abraham Lincoln. These are very fully documented in contrast to plantation and migration to Ireland e.g. from the Jamestown Original Settlers and Occupations – May 13, 1607 we even have the labourers recorded – John Laydon, William Cassen, George Cassen, Thomas Cassen, William Rods, William White, Ould Edward, Henry Tavin, George Golding, John Dods, William Johnson, William Unger.

Firstly I think that at this stage in history the English had gained a lot of knowledge about this part of Ireland while relatively little was known of the Americas. Quite a few events of the Nine Years War had taken place in and around the Erne. In 1597 the English were defeated at Ballyshannon and then there had been a major siege of Enniskillen Castle in 1594. The island was captured by the English in 1607 and Ballyshannon had received a Royal Charter in 1613. So those who had served in the English army in Ireland and who as English Servitors wanted to be rewarded with Irish lands knew Fermanagh well and liked what they saw.

Sir John Davies, chief architect of the Plantation wrote after visiting Fermanagh, “ Have now finished in Fermanagh, which is so pleasant and fruitful a country that if he should make a full description thereof it would rather be taken for a poetical fiction, than for a true and serious narration. The fresh lake called Lough Erne being more than 40 miles in length, and abounding in fresh water fish of all kinds, and containing 100 dispersed islands, divides that county into two parts; the land on either side of the lough rising in little hills of 80 or 100 acres apiece, is the fattest and richest soil in all Ulster.

He goes on to suggest planting Dutch people in Fermanagh also led by a Dutch merchant called Maximilian van der Lever, who, by their industry the lake will be so full of boats and barks, that they will be a great strength to all the civil inhabitants round about.”

The Dutch interest in Fermanagh came to nought but it too had an origin in East Anglia. For centuries there had been huge commercial links between the Low Countries and this part of England. Dutch Protestant refugees fleeing Spanish Catholic persecution in their own country were getting refuge in East Anglia much to the annoyance of the Spanish. When the English upbraided the Spanish for giving refuge to the Irish Earls who fled there they responded in turn by pointing out England’s acceptance of Dutch refugees.

Such was the English interest in Fermanagh that they actually petitioned to plant the entire county themselves. The names of 40 gentlemen are recorded who offer to bestow £40,000 on the plantation of Fermanagh as they intend to have a market town on the south side thereof at Bellike, and from thence, three miles nearer the sea, to erect a strong corporation at Ballyshannon. They intended to erect 40 manors, if they are granted  60,000 acres, the Loughe, Islands therein, Fishings, and the sole command thereof and they with followers, not less than 1000 men well furnished for all kind of handiwork.”  Of those 40 listed 22 came from Norfolk and Suffolk and the rest from adjoining counties, London or were already in Ireland, presumably with contacts to the same area.

In the Precinct of Lurg and Coolemakarnan in northwest Fermanagh 9000 acres were allocated mainly to men of Norfolk and Suffolk. 1000 acres each to Thomas Flowerdewe, John Archdale, Suffolk, Edward Warde, Thomas Barton, Norfolk and Henry Honynge, Suffolk. John Archdale was related through marriage to the Honynge family having married Francis Hoynynge. The last two were portions of  2000 acres each to Thomas Blenerhassett, Esq., Norfolk and Sir Edward Blenerhassett of the same place. . The Blennerhassetts built what is now known as Crevenish Castle, near Kesh, which they called Castlehasset and established English workmen and tenants about them which they brought from their home near Norwich, in the county of Norfolk in the  East Anglia region of England.

Before becoming established in East Anglia the Blennerhassetts had lived in a village of the same name in Cumberland about twenty miles to the south-west of the city of Carlisle. The village of Blennerhassett today consists of a pub, post office and a village school with a small scattering of houses. So previous generations of the family who had lived on the Cumbrian coast just a short distance from Ulster also had a familiarity with Ireland which included the Blennerhassetts who had set themselves up in County Kerry area shortly before around Blennerville where they are still to be found today. These large of land had come from Queen Elizabeth 1 when the Earl of Desmond’s Estates were forfeited and so the family had a familiarity with the idea of Plantations before they ever came to Fermanagh.

Thomas Blennerhassett’s career before coming to Ireland included being Captain of Guernsey Castle. He was a literary man and wrote several books including, a book entitled, “Directions for the Plantation of Ulster.” He also issued a proclamation as a form of advertising to encourage others in the task of bringing “civilization” to Ireland. In part it reads,

“The County of Fermanagh, sometimes Maguire’s County rejoice. Many undertakers, all incorporated in mind as one, they, there with their followers, seek and are desirous to settle themselves. The islands of Lough Erne shall have habitations, a fortified corporation, market towns and many new erected manors, shall now so beautify her desolation that her inaccessible woods, with spaces made tractable, shall no longer nourish devourers, but by the sweet society of a loving neighbourhood, shall entertain humanity even in the best fashion. Go on worthy Gentlemen, fear not, the God of Heaven will assist and protect you.”

Thomas Blennerhassett has with him six persons, one a joiner, another a carpenter, and three other workmen with one tenant. He has built a boat, and has broken stones for lime and some burnt; and thirty trees felled; some squared and sawed; a fair large Irish house, with windows and rooms after the English manner, wherein is a new kitchen with a stone chimney and an oven. For cattle three horses, a mare and some thirteen head of other cattle.

There were two chief ways of generating wealth in Fermanagh in this early period of the Plantation; smelting low grade iron ore and the making of barrel staves. Both Blennerhassetts built iron works at Clonelly and Hassetts Fort which is now Castle Caldwell near Belleek while there was another nearby at Garrison. Boates indicates-woodcutters were needed, sawyers to saw, carpenters, masons, smiths, bellow makers, water leaders or water-course keepers to steer the water course, bucket makers to make containers for carrying ore and other materials, diggers of ore, carriers of ore, colliers to make charcoal, fillers to put ore and charcoal into the furnace, furnace keepers, firers and hammerers to look after the smelted iron and labourers to look after anything else:

“and for all this, the owners there of did greatly gain thereby, ordinarily not less than forty in the hundred per annum” ,” Iron works were a very profitable if highly destructive industry. Most of the Fermanagh produced iron being exported via Ballyshannon at £11 per ton and fetching £17 per ton in London.” In those days the favourite objects of solicitude were the manufacture of pipe-staves, and the development of the iron-works which were then supposed to be the true El Dorado of Irish enterprise—most people holding with Bacon that ‘Iron is a brave commodity where wood aboundeth.’ Both industries depended for their success upon the woods, which were accordingly drawn upon regardless of the consequences. From Munster whole shiploads of pipe-staves were exported, to the great profit of the proprietors and the great destruction of the woods; and Boate says, in his  Ireland’s Naturall History, “it is incredible what quantity of charcoal is consumed by one iron-work in a year.’’ These enterprises were carried on at a terrible price to the Irish landscape. This wholescale deforestation began the process which has resulted in Ireland being one of the least forested countries of Europe with only about 9% of the country covered in trees while for example France is about 40% afforested.

In summary therefore the vast majority of Fermanagh was planted by either English undertakers or servitors many of whom had an intimate knowledge of the area from their military experience or previous contact as planters in Ireland. They knew with plentiful forest they could make money from smelting iron or converting the forests into usable timber particularly barrel staves. They brought in numerous English settlers whose names are still found in the county, Barton, Archdale, Allingham, Cole, Chittick, Eves and there is even a solitary Blennerhassett. Fermanagh history needs to be rewritten to take account of this English aspect of its heritage.

I have been in East Anglia numerous times and in its libraries and public record offices and the amazing thing is that there is no record whatsoever of people from East Anglia coming to Fermanagh. There are ships lists of those going to Jamestown, down to the least commoner but a total amnesia about plantation families going to Ireland. Perhaps the overwhelming fame of America has totally eclipsed the memory of those who went to Ireland but this is a remarkable fact.

My particular interest in the plantation period concerns name of Eves, an East Anglian name from Old English meaning a dweller beside a forest. Three of that name came to Fermanagh with the Archdales as ploughmen. An Eleanor Eves is noted in the 1821 Census fragment for County Fermanagh as a lady’s maid to the wife of General Archdale. Unusually perhaps the Eves family remained Roman Catholic despite being closely allied and working for the landed Archdales who were Church of Ireland. It has been noted in the predominantly Protestant Kesh area that through the centuries the Eves could purchase any property in the locality despite their religion in a largely Protestant neighbourhood – presumably under the benevolent wing of the Archdales and they also were the operators of one of the first Post Offices in the village of Kesh. As one might say old family links from the Broads of East Anglia were maintained in the Lakelands of County Fermanagh.

JBC 7-11-2008.

Ballyshannon Herald 1847.

1847.

 

January 1st, 1847, This issue contains a classic tale of drama in this famine stricken countryside. On Christmas Eve a schooner lay at anchor just inside the Bar of Ballyshannon Harbour. The Bar is a high sandy ridge about four miles downstream of the town which constantly tries to block the river’s exit to the Atlantic. The ship was waiting here for a favourable tide or wind and was bound for Liverpool with a cargo of bacon and lard. She had been chartered by Mr, Edward Chism of Ballyshannon. (Food was being constantly exported from the country during the famine). A boat of Mr.Wade’s, carrying men who said they were salt-makers from the Ballyshannon salt works, pulled alongside. (Salt-workers would have been making their way out to the sea to fill barrels of salt water for evaporating on their salt-pans).

 

Some asked to come on board to light their pipes and then, suddenly, produced pistols. These pirates then stole a large quantity of bacon and lard from the ship after overpowering the crew, The men made off with as much as possible and no doubt an unexpectedly happy Christmas was had by many. The police and soldiers were alerted and found some of the booty buried in the sand dunes on the following day. Later three people were arrested and the newspaper says that scarce a night passes without a robbery in the town or vicinity.

 

January 8th, 1847, There is great distress in the Ballyshannon area. One man died just after being admitted to the Ballyshannon Workhouse. People will not look for aid until the last moment. The dead from the famine are not being buried properly in the Abbey Graveyard Ballyshannon as there is too little depth of clay, A man on his way from Ballyshannon to Donegal heard the sound of lamentation from a house and found a girl of sixteen dying there and her parents trying to keep her warm. In the tradition of the good Samaritan he gave money for food but it was too late and the girl died soon after.

 

January 22nd, 1847, From Fermanagh is is reported that the Rev Grey Porter of Lisbellaw has imported 150 tons of Indian meal on the ship ” Peru”, The grain had cost him £10-10s-6p per ton and inclusive of carriage to his tenants he hoped to sell it at a cost price of less than £12 per ton. This compared with current prices of £24- 10s-0 for Indian meal and £30 for oaten meal.

 

In a continuation of the saga of the Christmas Eve piracy on the Erne, James Currie, was tried for receiving a ham knowing it to be stolen. The ship’s name is now given as the “Confidence” and it’s master as Joseph Davidson. Nine bales of bacon had been stolen and several hogsheads of ham. Sub-Constable Davis had arrested Currie on Christmas day in Ballyshannon carrying the ham. Currie said that he had found it in a hole in the sand dunes. He was found guilty with a recommendation for mercy and was sentenced to 9 months hard labour.

 

April 30th, 1847. There is a great fever sweeping Fermanagh. It is most common in the countryside and arises largely from the people who have left or been sent out of the Workhouse. These have gone home and infected their friends or relations who have generously but fatally taken them in.

 

May 14th, 1847, The deaths around Clones Co., Monaghan are said to be “inconceivably great” and in Enniskillen the poor and starving had rushed the meeting of the Board of Guardians meeting and had to be admitted. Col., Connolly has given his tenants 8 tons of rice free and also given free turnip seed. William and John Tredenick have reduced their rents by between 40% and 50%. These were local landlords in the Belleek-Ballyshannon area.

 

In the Lowtherstown or Irvinestown Poor Law Area there are 9 Electoral Areas and 5,008 people receiving free rations and 407 persons paying for them.

 

September 17th, 1847, No rot can be seen in the potatoes so far this year but a great famine rages around Enniskillen.

 

October 1st, 1847, The forcible dissolution of the Lowtherstown [Irvinestown] Poor Law Union is reported. The immediate cause was the raising of the Roman Catholic chaplain’s salary. In the row that followed the Protestant Chaplain’s salary was also raised. Further rows caused the dismissal of the Master of the Workhouse and then the Board of Guardians of the Workhouse were themselves dismissed.

[ This is the newspaper version of the dismissal of the Irvinestown P.L.U. but in fact there were much more serious reasons why the Union was dissolved by the Government and a Commissioner appointed in their place. The Guardians failed to levy anywhere near a sufficient rate to enable the starving population of the area to survive. The famine here was therefore far more severe than it might have been and the Irvinestown Workhouse possibly the worst run in the country.An Inspector who visited the Lowtherstown Workhouse reported that he had found people almost naked, lying dying on the floor, in their own vomit and excrement. He said that it was the worst Workhouse that he had ever visited.]

 

April 7th, 1847. John Smith was elected Dispensary doctor for Pettigo and hundreds crowded into the town to congratulate him. A celebratory meeting was later held in Hazlett Hamilton’s Hotel [later Egan’s Cosy Bar]

 

December 8th, 1847, This tragic story concerns the freezing to death of two lost children on a mountain near Lettercran,about five miles from Pettigo. “On Friday last, James Mc Grath of Scraghv Mountain had gone to Pettigo with his daughter of fifteen and boy of twelve. Their father had to stay in Pettigo for the night and the children went home on their own across the mountain. A storm came and the children died of exposure. The boy had his shoes and socks off, possibly to walk more quickly. The children were found the next day with the girl’s heavy flannel petticoat wrapped around the boy’s feet and the girl lying with her arm around the boy’s head. It seems that the boy was overpowered first and the girl was trying to preserve him at the risk of her own life.”

 

This tragic story is preserved in the folklore of the Pettigo area, but not quite in the form, as the newspaper reports it. The local story is that the girl, Peggy Mc Grath, was seventeen years old and had a boyfriend. Her father strongly disapproved of him and had absolutely forbidden her to have anything to do with him or even pass his house. An old woman, Mrs Rose Haughey of Meenclogher, who lived near where the children perished and who died at the age of 106 on April 12th 1936 gave her account of the events in a newspaper article, later reprinted in the Irish Independent, May 22nd 1968. She would have been 18 years old when the tragedy occurred. She said that Peggy and her boyfriend had run away but had been brought back and that the two children and their father had been in “Gearg Fair” i.e.Castlederg fair and not in Pettigo.

 

The children coming home would have had to pass the boyfriend’s house or cross the mountain and unfortunately they chose this as a blizzard sprang up. They died quite close to the house of an old woman who heard their diminishing cries for help through the night but was too infirm to be able to assist them. The children were buried in Lettercran graveyard with a headstone with an incomplete inscription. It began,”In loving memory….” and their father who had tried to carve the stone was unable to complete it.

Sadly the stone was destroyed in recent renovations to the graveyard. A little green hollow on a heather covered hillside in Carrigaholten Townland is still pointed out as the deathbed of the children. It is a remarkable story and so widely known at one time that it was carried in a school textbook under the title of “The Tragedy of Termon Mount.” The Termon River flows nearby. From this a generation of schoolchildren all over Ireland were familiar with the story.