Tag Archives: Maguiresbridge

1942 Fermanagh Herald.

.JANUARY 14, 1942. LARCENY CHARGE AT CASTLEDERG. ‘BOUGHT CYCLE FROM FERMANAGH MAN” Before Mr. J. O. H. Long, R.M., at Castlederg Court, two youths, James Hegarty and William John Hegarty, Cormacoll, Drumquin, brothers, pleaded not guilty to the larceny of a cycle, value £4. They were not professionally represented. Thomas Lynch gave evidence that on Sunday, 7th Sept. he left his bicycle outside Castlederg Chapel and when he came out it was gone. On 28th Sept. he observed a cycle outside a house in Scraghey and on examination. identified it as his although the handle grips and oil bath had been removed. James Hegarty claimed the cycle and said he had bought it from his brother William John. Witness reported the matter to the police. Sergt. Blackstock said James Hegarty came to the barracks and said he bought the cycle from his brother for £2.15s.  William John said he bought the bicycle from a Fermanagh man for £3. He described the Fermanagh man but the police could not trace him. Mr. Long at this stage dismissed the case against James. William John Hegarty gave evidence that he met the Fermanagh man on the road and he offered to sell the cycle, but witness had no money at the time, and they arranged to meet at Castlederg later on. He did so and paid 30s and got possession of the cycle; he met him later by appointment and paid a further £2, getting 7s 6d as a lucks penny on condition that witness would give back the oil bath and witness agreed. The Fermanagh man appeared to have plenty of money. Cross-examined by the District-Inspector, witness said the Fermanagh man would turn his back to people who were passing them when they were negotiating the sale. He had not seen the man since he bought the cycle. Mr. Long said there was a doubt in the case and he would dismiss it, but he made an order that the cycle be returned to Thomas Lynch.

JANUARY 14, 1942. NEWTOWNBUTLER FIRE. BUSINESS PREMISES SERIOUSLY DAMAGED. Serious damage was caused by a fire which broke out during the blackout hours in the grocery and drapery premises of Mr. John J. O’Donnell, Main Street, Newtownbutler. The outbreak occurred on Saturday morning. The alarm was given by the proprietor, Mr. O’Donnell, who was awakened by the crackling of burning timber. He ran to his sister’s bedroom and carried her through the flames to the Main Street. R.U.C. and military assisted civilians to fight the outbreak but by the time they arrived the fire had a strong hold and the flames were extending to the adjoining shop. Water was carried by civilians from the two town pumps in buckets, tubs and creamery cans. When it was seen that it was impossible to try and confine it. Mr. Joseph McNamee and his four sons climbed to the roof of an adjoining shop and broke down the roof, portion of which fell on Mr. McNamee, who was rescued by his son, Marcus. The Enniskillen fire brigade was  summoned but when it arrived on the scene the local residents had the fire under control. Mr. O’Donnell’s premises included a private house as well as a large store, all of which were burned to the ground.

JANUARY 14, 1942. G.N.R. OFFICIAL DEAD. NATIVE OF MAGUIRESBRIDGE. The death has taken place at a Belfast nursing home of Mr. W. A. F. Graham, aged 46, deputy traffic manager of the Great Northern Railway Co. He was a native of Maguiresbridge, Co. Fermanagh, and was educated at Enniskillen Model School, and entered the railway service 29 years ago. He is survived by his wife and. one child.

January 7th 1942. A FERMANAGH DONKEY. AMUSING COURT EVIDENCE. An unusual claim in respect of alleged breach of warranty in the sale of a donkey came before Deputy Judge Ellison, K. C at Newtownbutler Quarter Sessions in Enniskillen. Plaintiff was John Cassidy, of Cullintagh, and he claimed £4 10s damages for the alleged breach from Morton. Greaves, of Knockdooris, Derrylin, who sold him the animal for £2 10s on the 16th September, 1941.Mr. Cooper, solicitor for plaintiff, said the case was an unusual one. The animal was warranted sound and able to pull a 15 cwts. load. The animal was big but not too well looking. On being brought home the animal’s condition became worse and it died. Plaintiff in evidence said defendant asked him to buy the ass in the fair of Ballyconnell, but he did not like to buy it as it was imported. However, the deal was made and the animal was left for him at Blake’s of Derrylin. Defendant said the animal could draw 15 cwts anywhere, and was the best ass in County Fermanagh. (Laughter). He also told plaintiff that when trotting along the road the feet of the ass made a noise like a pony (laughter), and that it had mowed with a pony. The beast was brought home by plaintiff  but it died on 15th October. On the way home it was dragging its feet. Mr. Cooper – It looked like a lady doing one of these new dances. (Laughter). Plaintiff added that the ass had lumps on its backbone, and was, “jinked.” It also walked sideways. (Laughter). Mr. Ferguson (for defendant) —What did you think you were buying, a horse or a donkey?—-A donkey. I am not that far gone yet that I would not know a donkey. (Laughter). Did you ever see a donkey ploughing? –No, but he told me this one ploughed. Don’t you deal in donkeys?—No, but when I get an order I buy one. Didn’t you inspect this donkey? —No, I did not. I was in a hurry for the bus. (Laughter) Didn’t you run it up and down the fair green in Ballyconnell?—No, I took his word for it. You would think it was a thousand-pound horse he was selling. I could not keep him from warranting it. (Laughter). He told me it was the best in the world and was worth £20. This was .a stallion donkey ?—Yes. Did you find it on its back in a drain? —No. Have you got a girl in your house?— She’s not a girl3 she’s a woman. (Laughter) I will not differ with you about the age, but you have a. girl?—I have a housekeeper, if you want to know my business. (Laughter). I don’t want to know your business any more than necessary, but did it take you, the girl and your nephew to pull it out of the drain? There is not a word about it. Fred Hart, M.R.C.V.S. said he examined the carcass of the animal on 15th October and found that it had suffered ailments of the liver, heart and spine. The animal was about 10 years of age and the ailment of the spine was of five or six months standing. To Mr., Ferguson witness said the spinal trouble would be apparent to any one buying the animal. Mr. Cooper–What did it die of?— Witness— it was dead when I saw it. Laughter.). Apparently it lay down as a result of this spinal trouble and ‘konked out.’ (Laughter). To the Judge witness said his opinion was that the animal could not have pulled a load of 15 cwts.

In the witness box, defendant said he had the donkey in his possession for nine months, and the bargain was made with plaintiff in Ballyconnell fair in September. Plaintiff ‘vetted’ the animal in the fair and defendant told him it could pull a good load. No warranty was given, and the bargain was made by a man called Fitch. The first complaint he got about the animal was in the form of a note given to him in Derrylin fair in October, the note demanding defendant to take it back. Cross-examined by Mr. Cooper, defendant said the animal brought a load of 14 or 15 cwts. For him at times. There was no talk of mowing. Mr. Cooper I notice this ass was smuggled twice as a matter of fact. (Laughter). Defendant. Yes. Mr. Cooper. Well we are not going to say anything about that. (Laughter). You bought another ass? Yes. What age was it? It was a wee foal. Mr. Cooper. To plaintiff – What age was it? Plaintiff. It was an oul ass. (Laughter). What did he pay for him? – 18 shillings. Mr. Cooper. What do you intend to sell him for? Defendant – I don’t intend to sell him. (To the Judge)—-I didn’t notice anything wrong in the way the ass walked to Ballyconnell fair. Foster Greaves, son of the defendant, said the ass in question was a strong one, and had always been kept in the house or tied when let out while in defendants possession.

Thomas Fitch gave evidence of the making of the bargain and said plaintiff had been inspecting the donkey all morning. Mr. McEntee of Clones, “the biggest horse-dealer in the world” (Laughter)—was giving £20 for him not so long ago. Witness did not see anything wrong with the donkey when it was running up and down. It was represented that it could draw a load of 15 cwt., but no warranty was given. Mr. Ferguson questioned witness as to whether the offer of £20 was of recent date or not. Witness—Not so long ago, it was wartime. Mr. Cooper — During this war? I think it was the last one. (Laughter). But we have been told it was ten years old? —bout ten or twelve years. How could it have lived in the last war? I suppose it was the last. (Laughter). .It must have been this war?—No. You said it was not so long ago?—Mr. McEntee could have been here if he had been summoned. If it was not so long ago  when was it. I could not tell; I have not a good memory. Was it a year ago? It was more than a year. Was it more than two years?—It may be four or five. The man who owned him said he did not want him any more for the children. Mr. McEntee wanted him as a sire. It was represented he could pull 15 cwts.?— He could run like mad. He could leap over me or Cassidy either. (Laughter). His Honour held there was a breach, of warranty and allowed a decree for £3 with 15/- costs and expenses.

BALLYGAWLEY—Country butter Is 3d to Is 6d per lb.; potatoes 8d – to l0d per stone; fowl; chickens; 5s to 6s, hens 3s to 3s 6d, ducks 3s 9d to 4s 3d—each; slip pigs 75s to-85s, suckers 50 to- 60s— .each.

February 14th 1942. PETTICO COURT CASES. At Pettigo District Court on Tuesday of last week, before Mr. Justice O’Hanrahan, Guard Gallivan summoned Gerald McMenamin, Minchifin for using an unlighted cycle. Fined 5s.

Supt. Noonan charged Michael McGee, Carntressy, with cutting and carrying away eighteen young trees from a cut away plantation at Carntressy on the lands of William Monaghan. Guard James Ryan proved tracing the trees to McGee’s residence. Mr. Monaghan, the owner, refused to prosecute and pleaded for leniency for defendant. A fine of 10s was imposed.

Guard, Gallivan summoned Adam Eves, Gortnessy, for using an unlighted cycle. Fined 6s.

Guard Treanor summoned J. Fitzpatrick, tractor driver, for driving without licence and no rear light. The Justice fined defendant 10s.

February 14th 1942. BROOKEBORO’ COURT CASES. At Brookeboro’ Petty Sessions, before Major Dickie, R.M., Thos. Clarke, Little Mount, was charged with slaughtering a pig without a licence on 2nd January. D.I. Smith prosecuted, and Mr. Stewart, the Ministry’s Inspector gave evidence of visiting Clark’s house, and Clarke admitted having slaughtered the pig, and at that time there were only l0 lbs. of pork left in the house. Clarke pleaded that he killed the animal in November last, as he had a large number of men working, and wanted the pork to feed them.

His Worship, remarking that it was the worst case he had known, fined defendant 40/-.

CYCLISTS’ DIFFICULTIES. His Worship, when dealing with, a number of cases where cyclists, charged with no rear lights, gave the excuse that they could not get batteries, and he would like to make it known that cyclists should have a clear patch of white paint as a background to a reflector when they could not get batteries.

 

February 14th 1942. FERMANAGH CLAIM FAILS. ACTION AGAINST BELCOO TEACHER. BOY WHO LOST EYE. A denial that he had dictated a story to the pupils as to what they should say when asked about an accident was made by the principal teacher, the defendant in an action for damages, the hearing of which was resumed in the Belfast King’s Bench Division on Wednesday of last week before the Lord Chief Justice. Mr. James Ferguson, P.E.T., of Belcoo, was alleged to have been negligent by not exercising proper supervision over the pupils on March, 25, 1959, when one of the boys, Patrick Anthony Leonard, aged 13 years, of Creenahoe, Belcoo, lost his right eve. The plaintiff’s case was that while playing on the road during the luncheon interval he was struck by a stone and he sought damages against the master for negligence. Mr: C. L. Sheil (instructed by Messrs. Cooper and Cooper) was for plaintiff, Mr. J. D. Chambers, K.C., and Mr. J. Agnew (instructed by Messrs. Maguire and Herbert) represented the defendant. The defendant said it was customary for the boys to play on the road on which they had played in his predecessor’s time. Answering his Lordship, the witness agreed that he had no personal knowledge of that. Mr. Ferguson added that he had instructed the boys not to play on the road on Blacklion or Belcoo fair days and the days, immediately following. He had warned the children not to go on the road on the day of the accident as the previous day was Blacklion fair day. He said he was quite unaware that there were pupils playing on the road. In order to get a clear story of what happened he had asked the boys to write a letter stating what had occurred, but there was nothing in the nature of dictation.

In reply to Mr. Sheil, the defendant agreed that the road was the best, playground they had, as there was an open sewer in the yard. There had been a dancing class in the school during the lunch hour. Mr; Sheil commented that a girl pupil who had not been on the road had written in her exercise, book— “No one knows whether it was a ball or a stone that hit him,”

“Did that child imagine that story,” asked Counsel, to which the defendant replied that the girl heard the inquiry going on, and could think for herself and form her own conclusions. It was a description of what the girl had heard from other children. That pupil was only writing an essay. The witness mentioned that he had never seen children in Belcoo School throwing stones.         He agreed with Mr. Sheil that the Ministry of Education were apprehensive about children playing on the road, and that in a circular he had produced it was shown that between January and December, 1939, some 569 accidents to children at school had happened in Northern Ireland, and of that number 575 were due to the presence of the children on roads. He reiterated that he had taken all the care possible. Mrs. Annie McCabe, the first assistant in the school, and a number of pupils also gave evidence. The lord Chief Justice held that the supervision exercised was not unreasonable, saying that the accident was caused by a fellow-pupil who was acting playfully. Having detailed his findings as to fact, his Lordship entered judgment for the defendant, with costs.

February 14th 1942. £15 FINE AFFIRMED. KESH FARMER’S FAILURE TO PLOUGH

John. Spence, Bannaghbeg, Clonelly, Kesh, appealed to Deputy Judge Ellison, K.C., at Enniskillen Quarter Sessions on Friday against a fine of £15 and costs imposed on him at Kesh Betty Sessions for having, as alleged, failed to obey a direction of the Ministry of Agriculture to plough five acres. Mr. Aiden Herbert, solicitor, represented the appellant and Mr. J. Cooper was for the Ministry.

Opening the case Mr. Cooper said it was a somewhat peculiar case. The farm in question was almost twenty-five acres in extent. Appellant was visited by a couple of inspectors from the Ministry to whom he spoke of the difficulty of getting tractors to do the ploughing. To another inspector he said the land was not fit for ploughing. That official took him over the lands and, using a spade, pointed out to him that the soil was suitable for cultivation. He should have ploughed five acres but only cultivated a plot for potatoes and at the Petty Sessions a fine of £15 was imposed. At that Court appellant denied ownership of the farm and told the R.M. it was the property of his sister who lived in Co. Donegal for whom he acted as manager. Under the regulations, an occupier meant a person rated or liable to be rated to the poor rate in respect of the holding or who would be so rated or liable to be rated for the provisions of the Local Government (Rating and Finance) Act (N.I.), 1929, that was the Derating Act and included in relation to any holding, the occupier of which was absent from Northern Ireland, any agent or other person entrusted with the management of the land on his behalf. On appellant’s own statement that he managed the farm for his sister and that he was the herd he was convicted. Since then he (Mr. Cooper] had made a search and found that appellant was the person actually rated for the land (certificate produced). Mr. Herbert intimated that the defence was that the land was not arable.

Samuel Jordan, Ministry’s Inspector, said fifteen acres of the farm were arable. When defendant said the land was not arable witness got a spade, and showed him in the field he said was most suitable that there were four or five inches of soil.

Cross-examined by Mr. Herbert, witness agreed that generally Clonelly was not an ideal district for tillage. He did not test the area he said was arable as there was no question raised by appellant at the time. Furrows in the fields showed that cultivation had been carried out previously.

  1. S. Flack, area officer, swore he visited the farm on 7th March and 26th May. Appellant complained of the difficulty of getting tractors to do work. There were about fifteen acres arable. He agreed that in general Fermanagh farmers were not very fond of ploughing. Appellant had taken out a crop of flax in 1940. In the witness box appellant swore that he was reared on this farm, owned by his sister, and never at any time had there been more than six or seven acres cultivated. In 1940 he got Samuel Mills to work the tractor plough on his land but owing to the rocky nature of the field he was unable to do the work. The soil was only two to four inches deep whereas one needed seven inches of soil to do successful work with the tractor. Appellant also got a man with horses and plough but his ploughman was no more successful than Mills. Mr. Cooper—I suggest you are what is known as a lazy farmer?

Appellant—I have had to work hard all my life.

Samuel Mills gave evidence of his unsuccessful effort to work the tractor plough on appellant’s land. On an adjoining farm he broke eight socks in the ploughing of three acres.

To Mr. Cooper—I believe with a different type of tractor yon could plough this land.

James Allen said he started to plough with a chill plough and gave it up as there was a danger of getting killed. He refused to do any more work on the farm. His Honour affirmed the lower court conviction and fine.

FEBRUARY 14, 1942. £120 REWARD FOR DOMESTIC SERVANT. SEVERE BURNS SUSTAINED. A domestic servant who received severe burns while working at eggs in the kitchen of her employer’s house; her clothing catching fire. and causing severe burns to face, right arm, shoulder and body, appeared before Deputy Judge Ellison, K.C., at Enniskillen Quarter Sessions last week in connection with the recording of an agreement whereby the applicant .had agreed to accept £50 compensation, together with the sum of £10 costs, and £3 11s 0d medical expenses.

The applicant was Margaret Muldoon, Drumcullion, Dernacrieve, Co. Cavan, and the respondent Patrick Rooney, Sessiagh East, Inishmore, Lisbellaw. The matter had been referred to his Honour to see if the compensation was adequate or not. Mr. J; P. Black (for applicant) told his Honour that applicant was employed by respondent as domestic servant, and on the 10th March, 1941, at her employer’s residence she received serious burns.

Mr. R. A. Herbert, LL.B. (for respondent)—Not arising out of her work, according, to my instructions.

Proceeding, Mr. Black said that applicant was detained in Fermanagh County Hospital for a period of about, 4 weeks, and subsequently the agreement was arrived at as set out in the opening paragraph. Applicant gave evidence in the witness box. She said that respondent was in comfortable circumstances. Applicant had been living with a married sister since the accident had occurred, and had no means in the world at all.

Mr. Herbert—I am afraid it is more than a question of means. The doctor, he added, said that the only limitation she had was limitation of her arm on account of skin grafting. Her beauty might be injured, but beauty was not the subject of the Workmen’s Compensation Act.

Mr. Horace T. Fleming, surgeon in Fermanagh County Hospital, described the extent of applicant’s burns when she was admitted to hospital. He had again examined her that day and she was totally incapacitated for work.

In reply to Mr. Herbert, witness said that he did not think applicant could do the ordinary work of a house servant.

Mr. Herbert made an offer of £75 in settlement.        . .

Mr. Black said that applicant had agreed to accept £100. He thought she was meeting respondent very fairly in accepting £100.

His Honour—I am not inclined to sanction a settlement of £75.

His Honour made an award of £120, with £10 costs and £3 3s 0d medical expenses.

 

February 14th 1942. EVIDENCE AT INQUEST. The tragic death of a Kinawley school boy was investigated by Mr. James Mulligan, coroner; and a jury, at an inquest on 6th inst., on William John Thompson (7), Derryvran, Thompson’s Bridge, Kinawley, who was killed instantaneously the previous day by a motor lorry.

Head-Constable Thornton represented the police authorities, and Mr. R. A. Herbert, LL.B. (Messrs. Maguire and Herbert) the driver of the lorry. James Molloy, a conductor on the bus, said the boy was travelling from Stragowna School to his home and got off at Thompson’s Bridge Post Office. Witness was helping other children off the bus; he heard the lorry go past and after a few momenta looked up to see that the accident had occurred. Bernard McGovern, Gortgesh, said he was standing on the roadside and saw the boy go forward from the bus and cross the load end collide with the lorry. He had seen the lorry pass the bus and it swerved as it met the boy, who, however, hit against the left front off side and fell, the wheel going over him. Dr. S. McQuaid, Derrylin, said the boy suffered from multiple injuries to the head and neck. Sergt. Devine gave evidence of measurements.

The lorry driver, Patrick Corrigan, Clonatrig, said he was driving from Derrylin—in the same direction as the bus was headed and the boy was walking— and saw the bus by the roadside at the Post Office. He was driving slowly and passed the bus. He saw no traffic on the road. When he had the engine of the lorry past the front of the bus he suddenly saw the boy a few feet in front of him, crossing the road. He applied his brakes and tried to avoid the boy, but after he got the front of the lorry past him he heard a noise and knew the boy was hit. He stopped and got out and found the rear wheel had passed over the boy’s head. There was four or five tons of sand on the lorry. A verdict was returned that death was caused by injuries received when the boy was knocked down and crushed by the lorry, loaded with sand, and that the accident was unavoidable. The funeral to the Protestant Cemetery, Derrylin, on Saturday, was very large and representative of all creeds and classes.

February 14th 1942. EDERNEY FARMER’S APPEAL CATTLE SEIZURE ECHO.

The seizure of seven cattle belonging to a young Ederney farmer and dealer, and the subsequent forfeiture of five of the animals, had a sequel at Enniskillen Quarter Sessions on Thursday, when David Jones, Crimlin, Ederney, from whom the animals were seized, appealed against their forfeiture of the five animals. Mr. G. Murnaghan appeared for the appellant and Mr. J. Cooper for the respondent authorities. Head Constable Conlin, Kesh, said the cattle were seized on 1st Sept. last on suspicion of being smuggled. Jones’ statement was that two black polly heifers were bought from John Kane, Kilgarry, and three from William Lunny, same place, on 35th June, 1940. Subsequently, Lunny and Kane stated the cattle were sold a year previously. Mr. Murnaghan said the whole thing was the result of a slip in regard to the date of the sale on the part of Lunny, who said 1939 instead of 1940. Kane, when questioned, said he could not remember the date but it was the same date as Lunny’s sale.

Five, witnesses having given evidence for the appellants, and Head-Constable Conlin (recalled) and Mr. J. McMenamy, veterinary surgeon, of the Ministry of Agriculture, for the respondents, Deputy Judge Ellison, G.C., dismissed the appeal.

September 1915.

Fermanagh Times September 2nd, 1915.  MILITARY NOTES.  TWO V. C.s FOR INNISKILLINGS.  Last Wednesday night shortly before going to Press we received the following brief gratifying message: – Captain Gerald Robert O’Sullivan, 1st Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers has been awarded the V.C. for conspicuous gallantry at Gallipoli.  Captain O’Sullivan joined the 1st Inniskillings on 7th of March, 1912.  This is the second Victoria Cross won by the Inniskilling Fusiliers, the other V. C. being awarded to Sergeant Somers, a native of Belturbet, particulars of which are published in another column of this paper.  The regiment has got several Distinguished Conduct Medals and other coveted decorations.  Further particulars regarding Captain O’Sullivan’s gallant feat for which HE has thus been honoured are not yet to hand.

Fermanagh Times September 2nd, 1915.  THE NATIONAL PERIL OF A COAL STRIKE.  10,000 MEN OUT IN SOUTH WALES.  More than 10,000 men have struck in the Abertillery district off Monmouthshire, and they are endeavouring to persuade other districts to follow their example.  Mr. Tom Richards, M. P., the Secretary of the miners’ federation, affirms that a strike is inevitable unless the decision of Mr. Runciman, the President of the Board of Trade, that certain classes of men are to be excluded from the “bonus turn” is reversed.  There was general satisfaction on Saturday when it became known that Mr. Lloyd George was again in conference with the miners’ leaders.

Fermanagh Times September 2nd, 1915.  THINGS PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW.  SOME PERTINENT QUESTIONS.  Fermanagh Times September 2nd, 1915.  Is poor Tempo ever going to get a doctor to take up his permanent residence there again?  And what is wrong with the district that no doctor will remain in it?

Are the people of Maguiresbridge once more happy and content since they have got their former medical officer again appointed to look after their health?

What is the price of hay likely to be in Fermanagh in another month’s time after so much was destroyed by the recent rains?

How can a number of people who object strongly to football matches and other games on Sundays at home can reconcile their attitude in this matter with their own habit of bathing, swimming and diving in the sea on Sundays at Bundoran during the summer?

Fermanagh Times September 2nd, 1915.  ROLL OF HONOUR.  THE TOLL OF THE BRAVE.  LORD ERNE’S FAMILY.  ANOTHER TRAGIC LOSS.  Few families in the Northern peerage have suffered more through the war than that of which the Earl of Erne, of Crom Castle, County Fermanagh, is the head.  A further bereavement has fallen on the family through the death of Lieutenant-Colonel, Sir John Milbanke, Bart., V. C., commanding the  Notts Yeomanry, who has been killed in action at the Dardanelles.  Sir John, who succeeded to the baronetcy in 1899, was married in the following year to Amelia, daughter of the Hon.  Charles Frederick Crichton, eldest surviving brother of the late Earl of Erne. Lady Milbanke’s only brother, Major H. F. Crichton, of the Irish Guards, was killed early in the war.

Sir John was born in 1872, and served in the 10th Hussars, retiring with the rank of major in 1911.  He rejoined last October, and was posted to the command of the Notts Yeomanry.  During the Boer War he was A.D.C. to Sir John French, and was seriously wounded.  It was in that campaign that he won the V. C. for gallantry, rescuing a wounded trooper after he himself had been seriously injured.  The baronetcy dates back to 1661, and the daughter of a previous holder of the title was the wife of Lord Byron the celebrated port.  There is, we may add, still no news of the present Earl of Erne (Royal Horse Guards), who has now been missing for the greater part of a year.

Fermanagh Times September 2nd, 1915.  IRVINESTOWN COUNCIL.  KILLADEAS POST OFFICE AND THE KESH WATER SUPPLY.  Mr. Robert Phillips, J.P. presided and Mr. Clarke moved that the Council renew their guarantee of the Killadeas Money Order Post Office.  Although, he said, the office had a deficit of 14 shillings on last year’s working it was a great benefit to the poor, and that if there would be a deficit in the future he would not come again before them with a similar request.  Mr. Duncan said it was a matter of 30 years since the old Board had given the guarantee for the purpose of establishing that office.  The deficit was so paltry that the people there should have paid it themselves and not asked the council to pay it.  The application was unanimously granted and Mr. Clarke returned thanks on behalf of the people of Killadeas to which the Chairman replied, “Don’t come back again.”  (Laughter.)

Dr. Patten wrote calling attention to the defective condition of the Kesh water supply and mentioned that the water from the river got into the well.  Mr. Duncan said – We spent about £20.00 on the Kesh water supply a short time ago.  Mr. May – The well is too near the river and it cannot be changed, but something must be done for there is no drinking water in Kesh at all.  It was decided to refer the matter to two local Guardians and the sub–sanitary officer W.  H.  Simpson.

Fermanagh Times September 2nd, 1915.  THE IRISH CREAMERIES MANAGERS’ CONFERENCE AT BUNDORAN.  The annual conference of Ulster and Connaught members of the Irish Creamery Managers Association was held on Saturday with Mr. J.  Timoney, J. P., Belleek presiding.  The Chairman said that the past year had been an eventful one.  The war overshadowed everything else, but it had not adversely affected the industry in which they were engaged.  What the result would be when hostilities had concluded it would be difficult to say, but there seemed no reason to doubt that they were likely to have a great trade depression and heavy taxation.  Hence the present opportunity should be availed off to strengthen their resources, to clear off bank overdrafts and machinery debts, and put by a reserve for bad debts, which were certain to be more numerous in the future.  While the industry was in a prosperous condition, he was sorry he could not say the same of the position of the managers themselves.  It was true that some creamery committees had recognised the greatly increased cost of living and given their managers substantial advances.  Others, however, had not done so, though their own income as farmers had been greatly increased, and though the managers, owing to greater experience, and taking advantage of all opportunities placed at their disposal, were producing better and better results year by year.

Fermanagh Times September 2nd, 1915.  “BILLY” SUNDAY.  Here is an example of the picturesque diction of the baseball evangelist “Billy” Sunday who some say has founded a party of buffoonery and blasphemy.  “Cleopatra was a flat-nosed wench who sailed up the Nile clothed only in sunshine and climate.”

Fermanagh Times September 2nd, 1915.  A SON OF SIR CHARLES CAMERON IS DEAD.  On Friday morning Lieutenant Ewan Cameron, 7th Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers, son of Sir Charles Cameron, C. B., was found dead in the lavatory of the train which left Dublin for Wexford at 10.15.  There was a revolver bullet wound in his head.  The keenest sympathy is felt for Sir Charles.

(Ed. Sir Charles presided at the first experiments in the manufacture of Belleek Pottery in the kitchen of Castle Caldwell, Belleek using the local china clay and feldspar. Journal of the Association of Public Analysts (Online) 2009 37 14-39 by D Thorburn Burns.

Sir Charles Alexander Cameron (1830-1921) Dublin’s Medical Superintendent, Executive Officer of Health, Public Analyst and Inspector of Explosives. Although Charles Cameron is not particularly well known these days, he was in his time, very well known in chemical, medical and social circles in Dublin and in London. A deal of information about him is available via his Reminiscences and Autobiography. His importance at the time

can be judged from the report in The Irish Times, March 3, 1921, giving details of the funeral

service and procession “whose proportions bore testimony to the esteem in which Sir Charles

Cameron was held”, and listed the chief mourners, the representatives of the Royal College of

Surgeons of Ireland, the Royal Dublin Society, the Masonic Order, members of the general

public, the floral tributes and the messages attached, and finally the contents of the telegrams

of sympathy received.

Charles Cameron was born in Dublin on 16 July 1830, son of a Scottish British Army

Officer, his mother Belinda Smith was from Co. Cavan. He was schooled first in Dublin and

then Guernsey. After his father’s death in 1846 the family returned to Dublin and Cameron

obtained employment in the laboratory of the Apothecaries, Bewley & Evans. The

Superintendent of Bewley & Evans laboratory, John Aldridge, was Professor of Chemistry at

the Apothecaries Hall Medical School and Cameron received from him a good knowledge of

pharmaceutical chemistry. Cameron studied medicine in the School of Medicine of

Apothecaries Hall, the Dublin School of Medicine, the Ledwich School, the Meath and the

Coombe Hospitals, and studied in 1854 in Germany. During his long career he collected

numerous degrees and memberships and high office in many professional bodies, most of

which were recorded on the title pages of the various annual editions of Report upon the State

of Public Health (see for example that for 1914.).

Fermanagh Times September 2nd, 1915.  THE 6TH INNISKILLINGS AT SUVLA.  ABSOLUTE HELL.  The following are extracts from a letter which has been received in Ireland from an officer in the 6th Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.

August 10, 1915.  Here we are back on the beach “resting” though shells are bursting all around after three days of absolute hell.  How any of us got through alive God only knows; but a few of us did, though the poor old Division is cut to ribbons.  However, it has made a name for itself that will live.  I suppose you have read by this that we made a new landing on August 7, and in one day won4 miles after desperate fighting.  If dispatches have been published by the time you get this, you will see that the regiment was specially complimented for their brilliant attack.  Our General said he had never seen better work by infantry.

Well, we landed at dawn on Saturday morning in lighters, and as we got to the shore shrapnel began to burst about us.  It is the most absolutely terrifying sensation you could imagine.  The thing comes with a vicious whizz, bursts with a bang, and all round you the air seems full of flying lead.  We had not many casualties landing as we advanced for a mile or so under cover.  We were then told we had to take a hill about 2 miles away, and as we advanced across a stretch of sand the high explosive shells began to come.  It was ghastly: they blew whole groups to pieces, and we had lost pretty heavily by the time we got to the first cover.  While we were getting a breather here and getting the battalion sorted out, against shrapnel found us, and on we had to go.  It was worse now, as both shrapnell and high explosives were coming.  One hit the ground about 10 yards from me, but luckily did not burst, although it buried me in sand.  Another bit of shrapnel carried away my ration bag from my side.  At the next ridge where we halted I found a Brigadier–General with his leg blown off, and I left him my water bottle.  The sights here were absolutely sickening – far too horrible to describe.  On we went again, but were getting more cover now from our own artillery and naval guns were beginning to quiet the enemy.  Things were better till we got within about 800 yards of the position, and then all hell broke loose, and we began to know what rifle and machine gun fire was like.  Rushes were now very short, and when you got down you had to lie in the open, face flat to the ground, and bullets …………..

Fermanagh Times September 2nd, 1915.  A CHILD IS DROWNED IN LOUGH ERNE AT BALLYSHANNON.  Since Wednesday last the 25th ult., nothing was heard of a little boy named Thomas Sheridan, aged four years.  The child is a son of Sergeant Sheridan, Connaught Rangers, who was wounded in the present war, and is at present in hospital in Dublin.  His wife, who is staying with her parents at Ballyshannon, missed the child some time on Wednesday evening, but it was thought it might have strayed into the country.  Though search parties scoured the country no information as to the child’s whereabouts was ascertained.  It was feared the little fellow fell into the Erne which flows past Mrs. Sheridan’s residence and was drowned.  The river below Ballyshannon Bridge was dragged several times but for days no trace of the body was discovered.  During the dragging operations a man named James Daly, and ex-soldier of the Irish Guards, had a narrow escape.  A strong current carried the boat which was being used over the smaller of the two Assaroe Falls, and only he was a very strong swimmer he would have lost his life.  The body of the boy was eventually discovered on Monday evening floating in the Erne below Ballyshannon Bridge.  The remains were removed to the residence of the child’s grandfather, Mr. Charles Gallogly, jeweller, West Port, Ballyshannon.

Impartial Reporter.  September 2nd 1915.  SECOND LIEUTENANT R.  TRIMBLE’S ESCAPE.  HOW CAPTAIN JOHNSTON WAS KILLED.  A letter from Mr. Reginald S.  Trimble6th Royal Irish Fusiliers, tells how he was knocked down at Gallipoli.  He had been three days on the firing line; and on the fourth day he was standing between his colonel and adjutant in conversation under a hot fire so that the high explosives were making fireworks where they were.  A shell came along and tore the colonel’s harm to pulp and passing Mr. Trimble who was slightly behind the line of fire dashed the unfortunate adjutant, Captain Johnston of Magheramena to pieces.  It was a wonderful escape, he adds, but then everyone has wonderful escapes at times.  He was dazed and fell and when he was lifted his head was sore from the concussion.

Fermanagh Times September 9th, 1915.  DISTINCTLY AND INEXCUSABLY LIBELLOUS.  We devote a good deal of space this week to dealing with the malicious vagaries of Mr. William Copeland Trimble regarding the family of the Editor of this paper.  We have had sound legal advice that the articles and letters that have appeared in the  Reporter are distinctly and inexcusably libellous.  We detest law proceedings.  We have never been afraid of the Impartial Reporter.  Where ability and honour are involved we have never felt in confronting the Editor it was a case of Greek meeting Greek, or that he was a foeman worthy of a steel.  He has always been a poor sort of antagonists.  We cannot recall an instance where in an encounter with us he has not been ignominiously countered and shut up.  The public will pardon, we know, the implied vanity of the statement, but it is an absolute truth, and is a necessary declaration in surveying the past relationship of the two papers.  Instead of flying to lawyers for help we will continue to fight our own corner.  With some sections of the inexperienced public Mr. Trimble may pose as a luminary; with as he is a light of a very poor magnitude indeed – and he knows it.

Fermanagh Times September 9th, 1915.  TREMENDOUS FIGHTING AT GALLIPOLI.  Mr. Ashmead Bartlett, says the Daily Mail, closes a thrilling narrative of the great battle in Gallipoli for the crest of Sari Bair with the following vivid passage, which epitomises a glorious failure in which Generals and Colonels fought with rifles and bayonets alongside their troops in the firing line.  It was a fierce hand to hand struggle among the scrub, through broken ground, in which no man knew how his comrade was faring.  Many commanding officers were killed, including General Baldwin, who had throughout these four days set a splendid example to his men. Gradually the enemy was driven back and the ground we had been obliged to abandon regained.  Thus closed for the time being, amid these blood-stained hills, the most ferocious and sustained soldiers battle since Inkerman.  But Inkerman was over in a few hours, whereas Englishmen, Australians, New Zealanders, Ghurkhas, Sikhs and Maoris kept up this terrible combat with the Turks for four consecutive days and nights, amid the hills, dongas and ravines 900 feet above the sea, to which point all water, rations had to be borne along paths which do not exist except on the map, and down which every man who fell wounded had to be borne in the almost tropical heat of August in the Mediterranean.

Fermanagh Times September 9th, 1915.  ENNISKILLEN GUARDIANS, THE FERRYMAN AND THE TEMPO DISPENSARY.  Mr. Patrick Crumley, M.  P.  Presided over the weekly meeting of Enniskillen Board of Guardians on Tuesday.  Some laughter was created by the Clerk reading a letter from Dr. G. F. Luke, who wrote enquiring if Tempo Dispensary District was again vacant and asking to be informed when the appointment of a medical officer to that dispensary would be made.  Dr. Luke is the gentlemen who, in or about July, 1914 was appointed to Tempo Dispensary.  At the meeting of the Board on August 4, 1914, the Clerk mentioned that in connection with the appointment he had received 11 letters and eight telegrams from Dr. Luke, and a couple of days after his appointment Dr. Luke wired asking could he resign.  It was then decided to re-advertise for another doctor.  When his letter was read on Tuesday a member suggested that it be marked read.  The Chairman –Why should I initial a letter from a fellow who is humbugging the old country round.  He was at Cookstown and then he joined the army, and now he is on the loose again.  The letter was thrown to one side

Joseph Feely, the ferryman, wrote applying for five guineas for extra work which had fallen upon him through having to bring the medical officer over to the infirmary after 7.00 p.m.  He had to bring the doctor over 42 times and he asked that he be allowed two shillings and sixpence for each journey.  The Clarke explained that this was unusual and was accounted for by the fact that the doctor had frequently to attend a serious case in the hospital.  It was decided to adjourn the matter till the patient got better.

Fermanagh Times September 9th, 1915.  BELTURBET’S VICTORIA CROSS.  In view of the fact that Sergeant J.  Somers, of the Inniskillings, who has won the V. C., is being claimed as a Tipperary man, the following particulars of his career show that he is an Ulsterman.  He was born in Church Street, Belturbet, 21 years ago, his father being Robert Somers, then sexton of the parish church, a position which his grandfather also held.  His mother was Charlotte Boyce, a native of Wexford, who previous to her marriage was the parlour-maid at the residence of Mr. Fane Vernon, D. L., Erne Hill, Belturbet.  His grandmother, Mrs. Somers, and his aunt, Miss Anna Somers still reside in Belturbet, another sister being Mrs. McLean, wife of Mr. A. McLean, USA, formerly town surveyor of Belturbet.  His parents left Belturbet when he was a boy.

Fermanagh Times September 9th, 1915.  WAR NEWS.  The war is making heavy demands upon the life assurance companies, particularly those of the industrial type.  About £860,530 has been paid out in respect of 46,200 sailors and soldiers killed during the war, while in the past four weeks £90,530 has been paid to settle 4,200 claims.  With regard to officers the claims now amount to over £2,800,000 and in many of the cases the insurances are very heavy.

Hundreds of women are now engaged in the rural districts of Lancashire in lifting the potato crop and assisting in dairying and other farm work in order to release men for the colours.

About 100 troopers have arrived at Plymouth from South Africa to enlist.  They have paid their own expenses.

An officer just back from the front has had a German bullet, which penetrated his shoulder and came out by his wrist, mounted in gold and made into a charm, but not altered.  Others have had rough pieces of shrapnel which have struck them mounted in gold wire; for tiny fragments a little gold cage had been made.  German shells have been mounted to serve as dinner gongs, and the base of a shrapnel case turned into an ash tray; a cigar box too, has been constructed from a German helmet, with the Prussian eagle on the lid.

The death of M. Pegoud, the well-known aviator, has caused deep sorrow among the French public, whose affection he had gained no less by his personal modesty and by his wonderful skill, and the Matin suggests that as a mark of popular esteem a Paris Street should be named after him. (Ed. Adolphe Célestin Pégoud (13 June 1889 – 31 August 1915) was a French aviator and flight instructor, who became the first fighter ace during World War I. Pégoud served in the French Army from 1907 to 1913. Immediately thereafter he began flying, earned his pilot’s certificate, and in a few months, on 21 September 1913, as a test pilot for Louis Blériot, in a Blériot model XI monoplane and in a series of test flights exploring the limits of airplane manoeuvres, he flew a loop, believing it to be the world’s first. Pégoud’s feat was consequently widely publicized and believed by many to be the first loop, although Pyotr Nesterov, a Russian army pilot, had flown the first one on 9 September 1913, just 12 days earlier, in a Nieuport IV monoplane at an army airfield near Kiev. Pégoud also was the first pilot to make a parachute jump from an airplane. He also became a popular instructor of French and other European fledgling pilots.

At the start of World War I, Pégoud volunteered for flying duty and was immediately accepted as an observation pilot. On 5 February 1915, he and his gunner were credited with shooting down two German aircraft and forcing another to land. Soon he was flying single-seat aircraft and in April claimed two further victories. His sixth success came in July. It is not known how many of Pégoud’s victories involved destruction of enemy aircraft, as early air combat was rare enough to warrant credit for a forced landing. However, it is certain that Pégoud, rather than Roland Garros (four documented victories), was the first pilot to achieve ace status of any sort.

On 31 August 1915, Pégoud was shot down by one of his prewar German students, Unteroffizier Kandulski, while intercepting a German reconnaissance aircraft. He was 26 years old. The same German crew later dropped a funeral wreath above the French lines.)

Fermanagh Times September 9th, 1915.  THE SINKING OF THE HESPERIAN.  The splendid Alan Line twin screw steamer Hesperian in command of Captain N.  S.  Main, F.R.G.S., bound from Liverpool to Quebec and Montreal with upwards of 600 passengers and crew on board was torpedoed at 8.30 on Saturday night by a German submarine about 135 miles west of Queenstown.  No warning whatever was given by the submarine of her intention to attack, and although neither the submarine nor the torpedo was seen there is a consensus of opinion among officers, passengers and crew that the liner was torpedoed.  The fact that the attack was made upon the ship just as darkness had set in made the work of the lowering of the boats more difficult than it would have been had the same task to be carried out in daylight, and, under all the circumstances there is room for congratulation that the loss of life was not appalling.  A few of the passengers and crew expressed the opinion that the German submarine follow the liner for some hours in daylight, but was afraid to venture an attack as the liner carried a gun for protection purposes.  This gun was quite visible, and the feeling is that the enemy watched until darkness came down on the Hesperian before making the attack.

A remarkable thing occurred in connection with the attack on the ship which deserves mention.  Along the passengers on the ship was a Canadian soldier, named Chambers, of Truro, Nova Scotia.  He was returning to his home owing to having completely lost the sight of both eyes, but, strange to say, when the ship was torpedoed, and he felt the great shock caused by the impact, his sight was suddenly restored to him.  His first act on landing was to telegraph the good news to his parents in Nova Scotia.

Fermanagh Times September 9th, 1915.  LIVE AND LET LIVE.  A curiosity of trench life is noted in Blackwood’s Magazine, by an officer.  It is that while the night work behind and between the trenches is going on, there exists an informal truce, founded on the principle of live and let live so long as each side confines itself to purely defensive and recuperative work, there is little or no interference.  After all, if you prevent your enemy from drawing his rations, his remedy is simple – he would prevent you from drawing yours.  Then both parties will have to fight on empty stomachs, and neither of them, tactically; will be a penny the better.  So, unless some elaborate scheme of attack is brewing the early hours of the night are comparatively peaceful.

Impartial Reporter.  September 9th 1915.  THE NEW SCHEME UTILISING THE FALLS OF BELLEEK FOR MUNITIONS OF WAR.  FACTORIES TO BE CONNECTED BY CABLE.  It reads like a chapter from the Arabian Nights.  The immense water power of Lough Erne and that of the Shannon is to be utilised to produce Electric Power to run factories for producing munitions of war.  When the Impartial Reporter last April gave the exclusive information that the company was being formed to obtain Parliamentary powers to acquire the water power of the falls of Lough Erne at Belleek and the Shannon at Killaloe to generate enough Electric Power to light a large area of country, people rubbed their eyes in wonder, and asked had the Impartial Reporter been deceived or could the hope of many minds be so near fulfilment!  Some newspapers even sneered at it.  The dream of the engineers is now to be realised.

It was noticed that a party of men under Government supervision were at work in the Belleek district last week along the line of the proposed works and we are now in a position to acquaint the public with some of the details.  The company, which was registered last year has been permitted by the Cabinet to be formed when all or nearly all others have been forbidden, and that this company has been allowed to consider fresh issues of capital is a sufficient guarantee of the Bona Fides of the undertaking which has now assumed a new phase.  The consulting engineer is Mr. Theodore Stevens, a well-known expert; and Mr. P. J. McAndrew, now of Sheen Lodge, Bundoran is the superintending engineer.  Mr. B.  L.  Winslow is the solicitor for the company.

Impartial Reporter.  September 9th 1915.  SIR ROBERT S.  LOWRY, K.C.B.  A DISTINGUISHED ULSTER ADMIRAL.  Admiral Sir Robert Swinburne Lowry, K.C.B. commanding the coast of Scotland is a distinguished Ulsterman, being the eldest son of the late Lieutenant-General Robert William Lowry, C. B., of Aghnablaney, County Fermanagh, by his marriage with Helena MacGregor, daughter of the late Mr. Thomas Greer of Sea Park, County Antrim, who represented Carrickfergus in Parliament from 1880 to 1884.  He is a relative of Lieutenant-Colonel R. P. G.  Lowry, D.L., of Pomeroy House, Dungannon, the senior representative of a branch of the Earl of Belmore’s family.

Impartial Reporter.  September 9th 1915.  VOLUNTARY RECRUITING AND COMPULSORY SERVICE.  REPORT OF THE CABINET COMMITTEE.  The Cabinet Committee presided over by Lord Crewe which has been engaged in drawing up a report on the measures that may be required for maintaining and increasing the strength of our armies has agreed upon its report.  It will recommend the system of recruiting by public appeals for battalions, district by district.  But it has finally decided that if the quota required for the depot for replacing the casualties and increasing the numbers is not forthcoming the men should be taken from the districts compulsorily.  That is to say the recruiting officers should have the power to conscript men to fill the gaps if these are not filled by the voluntary enlistment resulting on the public appeal by the leading men of the district.  It is understood that the national register is to be used for the purpose of discrimination, and no doubt the much discussed “pink form” would provide the recruiting officers with the data for their selection of conscripts.  Lord Crewe’s committee consists of the following members: – Lord Crewe (Chairman), Lord Curzon, Mr. Churchill, Mr. Austen Chamberlain and Sir Arthur Henderson.

Impartial Reporter.  September 9th 1915.  CLOGHER VALLEY RAILWAY FATALITY.  An inquiry was held at Augher on Monday evening relative to the death of John McKenna a Farmer of Altnaveagh, Augher who was knocked down and killed by the 7.30 train on the Clogher Valley Railway near Clogher on Saturday evening last.  Deceased jumped out of the way of an approaching bicycle when he was struck on the head by the engine and death took place 20 minutes later.  The train at the spot runs along the county road, and the deceased was evidently unaware of its approach. A verdict of accidental death was returned.

Impartial Reporter.  September 9th 1915.  PROMOTIONS. LIEUTENANT COLONEL G.  H.  C.  MADDEN.  Major Gerard Hugh Charles Madden, Irish Guards promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, is the second surviving son of the late Mr. John Madden, D. L., of Hilton Park, County Monaghan, and brother of Lieutenant Colonel G. C. W.  Madden, commanding the 4th Battalion Princess Victoria Royal Irish Fusiliers at Victoria Barracks, Belfast.  Lieutenant Colonel G.  H.  C.  Madden is 43 years of age.  He served with the 16th Lancers in the South African war and took part in the relief of Kimberley and the operations at Paardeberg where Cronje surrendered, obtaining the Queen’s medal with two clasps.  He also served for a time in the 3rd King’s Own Hussars.

Lieutenant Colonel G.  H.  C.  Madden married in 1901 Mabel Lucy, daughter of Sir George Macpherson Grant, Bart., of Ballindalloch.  The Madden family settled in this country in the 17th century, Thomas Madden of Baggotsrath, near Dublin, Comptroller to the Earl of Stafford, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, being M.P. for Dungannon in 1639.  One of his descendants, Rev Samuel Madden, D. D., a great benefactor to the country, was known as ‘Premium’ Madden, having founded the system of giving premiums in 1731 for the encouragement of learning at Trinity College, Dublin and in 1739 for the encouragement of Arts &Industries in connection with the Dublin Society, to which objects he personally contributed considerable sums.  ‘His was,’ says Dr. Johnson, ‘a name Ireland ought to honour.’  ‘Premium’ Madden was a great grandfather of the Right Hon.  Mr. Justice Madden, who was succeeded in the parliamentary representation of Trinity College by the Right Hon. Sir Edward Carson, K. C., M. P., the Attorney-General for England.

Fermanagh Herald September 11th. 1915.  CAVAN’S VICTORIA CROSS HERO.  Sergeant Somers, V. C., 1st Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, of Belturbet, County Cavan, in the course of a statement regarding his experiences, said that the Turks had advanced to the trenches and compelled the Ghurkhas and the Inniskillings to retire.  He alone had stopped in the trench refusing to leave.  He shot many Turks with his revolver, killed about 50 with bombs, and forced them to retire.  The enemy, however, rushed into a sap trench, and he commenced to bombard them out of it; but failed.  Then he ran back for the purpose of getting MEN up to the trench to occupy it.  Some of the officers said that it was impossible to put the Turks out, but the gallant sergeant held the position.  He got some bombs and got up in the trench, under rifle and Maxim gun fire, and eventually succeeded in bombing the Turks had of the sap trench.  When he had finished his officers clapped him heartily on the back and Sir Ian Hamilton send for him and told him that he had done his duty like a man.

Fermanagh Herald September 11th. 1915.  Sergeant James Carney, 2nd Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, whose name appeared in the list of Russian decorations published last week, is a son of Mr. Edward Carney,

Fermanagh Herald September 11th. 1915.  A PATRIOTIC ENNISKILLEN FAMILY HAS SIX SONS WITH THE FORCES AND RECEIVES CONGRATULATIONS FROM THE KING.  At present much efforts are being made in certain quarters to belittle the efforts of Nationalists in the part they are playing in the European conflict.  In the Unionist Press photographs and names of fathers who have sent three or four sons to the front are held up before Nationalists in a somewhat sarcastic manner.  We, therefore, extend our congratulations to Mr. Patrick Keenan, Enniskillen who has given six sons to the forces while another brother of Mr. Keenan has enlisted in the Irish Brigade.  Mr. Patrick Keenan is a brother of Mr. Thomas Keenan, a member of the Enniskillen Urban Council and a lifelong worker in the cause of Irish Emancipation.  Mrs. Keenan has been the recipient of a letter from the King.  It says that his majesty has heard with the deepest satisfaction that Mrs. Keenan has six sons serving with his Majesty’s Forces.

Fermanagh Herald September 11th. 1915.  Every village needs a “village fool” or in Enniskillen’s case the “town oracle” who’s ludicrous effusions are to be found in the columns of the Impartial Reporter.

The leading articles, paragraphs of self-adulation, hypercritical bosh, and brazen bunkum to be found embodied in the writings in this paper afford to the hardworking townspeople a tonic after their day’s labour.  The paper was, is, and always will be, the enemy of Catholicity and Nationality, written by individuals who are absolutely devoid of friendly feelings towards their fellow countrymen and who have no desire to hold out the olive branch for better understanding of all creeds and classes.

Fermanagh Herald September 11th. 1915.  “D.  C.,” writing to the Press with reference to the losses of the 1st Inniskillings said that of the 23 officers who left Rugby on the 17th of March with the 1st Battalion and landed on their Gallipoli Peninsula with the “immortal 29th division” on that forever memorable 25th of April, only one officer – namely, the Quarter-master, Captain Morris – is now with the battalion.  One has been invalided after gaining the D.S.O., and the remainder have all been either killed or wounded.

Fermanagh Herald September 11th. 1915.  FOR 30 HOURS AFTER BEING STRUCK BY A GERMAN TORPEDO the liner Hesperian made a gallant fight for life, and were it not for the adverse circumstances of wind and weather might have been safely landed in the harbour of Queenstown.  Over 60 miles from land at 6.45 AM on Monday, the liner which was in tow of two steamers, began to settle down in the ocean.  There was a strong wind and sea running and Captain Maine who stuck to a ship to the last, with portion of the crew, had to abandon her.  In a few minutes she began to sink rapidly and disappear beneath the waves head foremost, shortly before 7.00.  3,700 sacks of mail went down with her, as well as all the luggage and most of the personal possessions of the passengers who had abandoned her in the darkness of Saturday night.  It has been ascertained at the offices of the Alan Line that 13 of the passengers are missing and four of the crew.

Fermanagh Herald September 11th. 1915.  IN ADDITION TO THE HESPERIAN THREE OTHER VESSELS WERE ATTACKED by submarines during the week off the southern Irish Coast. The Norwegian barque Glimt was torpedoed early on Saturday morning off County Cork.  Eight minutes were given the crew had to leave.  The German commander ticking of the minutes and at the eight shouted time up.  “I’m going to shoot when the boat is clear,” and then stated to the captain, “I am very sorry but I must blow up your ship.”  On landing and the crew expressed great indignation, declaring the ship to be Norwegian and carrying a neutral crew.

Fermanagh Herald September 11th. 1915.  AN AMAZING STATEMENT CONCERNING THE 10TH IRISH DIVISION.  One of the new divisions sent out to the Dardanelles was the new 10th Division under General Mahon – the first to go out of the distinctly Irish divisions.  Admittedly it was a very fine unit, and Ireland took a great deal of legitimate pride in it.  On its arrival it is said to have been broken up, and all but three battalions dispersed among other divisions.  Now we would merely ask whether it is conceivable that, say a Canadian, an Australian, or a New Zealand division should have been handled in this way and how long what will it be, before the military authorities are made to realise, as they should be, that the local and national feeling of Ireland is as worth treating considerately as that of the Dominions. After all the War Office’s blunders in connection with the other Irish divisions – the 16th – the course had taken seems, on the face of it, a really grave matter, which the Cabinet ought not to overlook. Widespread attention and, needless to say, strong indignation has been excited by this information.  As a prominent Liberal said it in commenting upon the matter, “these War Office people are beyond hope.  Such a thing makes one a truly despair of ever getting British officials to understand Ireland.”

Fermanagh Herald September 11th. 1915.  A BALLYSHANNON SOLDIER’S GRAPHIC STORY ABOUT THE FIRST LANDINGS AT THE DARDANELLES.  Lance-Corporal W. Doyle, 1st Battalion Inniskillings, who has returned from the Dardanelles, is at present at his home in Bishop Street, Derry.  He is a native of Ballyshannon, and is a fine type of Irish soldier – comparatively young in years, but old in the art of warfare.  He gave a Derry pressman some interesting details of his life in the Army.  He was through the South African campaign, for which he has two medals.  Afterwards he rejoined the army.  He has had over 11 year’s foreign service, during which time he took part in the suppression of the Chinese Revolt.  Lance-Corporal Doyle is of the opinion that every man who participated in the landing at Cape Helles was deserving of the V.C.  The first party to attempt to get ashore were completely wiped out.  There was a dash for life to get under the cover of the cliffs, but those who were fortunate enough to reach this position of security had to come cut a way through barbed wire entanglements and scramble over their dead and dying comrades.  No language, says Lance-Corporal Doyle, can adequately describe the scene or do justice to the bravery of the troops who first got a footing on the stronghold of the Turks.

When the survivors got formed up they had four days hard fighting, after the end of which they had pushed the enemy inland a considerable distance.  Both sides were then so fagged out that for practically a whole day there was not a shot exchanged.  According to Lance-Corporal Doyle the British units were so disorganised at this period, and different regiments so mixed that had the Turks driven home a counterattack they might have succeeded in hurling that portion of the Expeditionary Force back to the sea.  But the Turks were either so reduced in numbers and fatigued, or had learned to respect the British for their daring, courage, and endurance that no such attack was attempted.  Except for this lull fighting has been continuous.

Lance-Corporal Doyle who was twice wounded received the congratulations of the commanding officer for a gallant act performed by him.  Like all soldiers who have been in Gallipoli he pays a generous tribute to the Turks, who are stubborn yet fair fighters, and he concurs in the view that they have not their heart in the work.

The Turkish snipers are very daring, and a constant source of worry to the British.  How Lance-Corporal Doyle who is a crack shot, dispatch three of them is worth relating.  For some days they had been giving a great deal of annoyance, and it was impossible to discover where they were located.  At night Lance-Corporal Doyle and some comrades went out a distance in front of the British line and constructed a trench shaped like a “T.”  When this was completed they crawled back.  Having procured a days’ rations, and taking with him a telephone, Doyle returned and ensconced himself in this trench.  He was not there long until he heard a report away to the left.  Looking in that direction, he saw, almost in a line with the trench he occupied, three Turkish snipers or two Turks and one German.  He waited his opportunity, and before evening had succeeded in “popping off” the three of them.  This was probably the act for which he received the congratulations of the commandant of the division, but when the note was passed along the trench to him he first thought that someone was having a joke at his expense.

The strain on the troops in Gallipoli is much more severe than it is in Flanders, for wherever they go they are under shellfire.  They cannot escape from it.  Even when hearing Mass they had to crouch in under the cliff to avoid injury from bursting shell.  When the Turks not shelling them from Gallipoli, they were from the Asiatic side.  Lance-Corporal Doyle returns to his battalion in a few days.

Fermanagh Times September 16th, 1915.  THE SOLE SURVIVOR.  A CIGARETTE AMONG THE DEAD.  A private in the 2nd Durham Light  Infantry gives us a remarkable description of his experiences in the assault for the recovery of the lost trenches at Hooge.  He writes home to a friend as follows: – At 2.30 a.m. of the ninth we were led into a wood and got orders to lie down, and then hell opened.  Our artillery opened fire and they replied.  It was simply awful, but we lay there waiting for the orders to charge.  They came and we lost all control of senses and went like mad, fighting hand to hand and bayonetting the hounds.  I did not like to kill, but it was sports like, so I did it and wanted more.  We got into the first line and went straight on to the fourth and passed it and then dug ourselves in under hell’s flames.  Nothing better.

I found my section, and there were nine of us digging in the trench I turned my back one second and when I looked again water a sight!  I will remember it till I die.  Every man in the trenches blown to atoms; arms, legs, and heads staring you in the face.  You will hardly credit what I did under the circumstances.  I sat down and lit a Wild Woodbine, for the simple reason I was not in my right senses.  I was stuck there by myself for 16 hours and all the time a heavy bombardment of our trenches.  I was expecting every moment to go to Glory, but I still kept on smoking.  When night came on I got out and went back.  When we were all formed up the survivors answered their names.  The old commanding officer, who is nearly 70 years of age and a trump, was crying.  I can tell you we got anything we wanted.  I know I got a gill of rum and went to sleep.  When we woke up we were marched back to rest where we are now.  It was well earned.  We are nearly ready to go back again.

Fermanagh Times September 16th, 1915.  BELLEEK DISTRICT COUNCIL.  MR. P.  SCOTT, J.  P., PRESIDING.  A letter was received from Mr. J. Campbell, contractor, asking the Council to relieve him of his contract owing to the scarcity of men in the neighbourhood who have joined the Army and the increase in the cost of building materials.  After a protracted discussion the council decided to relieve him of his contract for the erection of three cottages in the townlands of Tonagh and Churchhill, subject to the sanction of the Local Government Board.  Owing to the abandonment of one cottage to be built with the loan from the Local Government Board the sum of £170 was deducted from the loan. The tender of the Belleek Pottery Company was accepted for the lighting of Belleek with electricity.

Impartial Reporter.  September 16th 1915.  STUPENDOUS COST OF WAR.  In the House of Commons yesterday Mr. Asquith rose to move the new vote of credit for £250,000,000.  He said this was the fourth vote of credit for the present financial year, making a total for the year of £9 million.  If the present vote was accepted the total sum included in the several votes of credit since the 6th of August of last year would be £1,262,000,000.  Last July when the last vote was passed the daily expenditure was three million, and the gross expenditure from the 17th of July to September 11 was an average of £4,200,000 each day.  The general tendency of expenditure was still upwards.  The present vote would last till the third week in November.  These figures afforded some evidence of what we were doing in the war.  He did not say if we were doing all we might or even ought to do.  The number of men serving was not short of three million.  Recruiting had been kept up fairly well to the last few weeks when there was a slight falling off.  The advances to other countries amounted to £250,000,000.

Impartial Reporter.  September 16th 1915.  HUNTING SUBMARINES.  ADMIRAL JELLICOE’S CHART.  The anonymous writer who signs himself ‘Polybe’ publishes in the Paris Figaro an article on Britain’s great war fleet.  After describing the magnificent spectacle at which he was present on the occasion of his visit to the British Fleet he says –England has never had finer crews nor a more homogenous fleet, nor one so well armed there nor one which was at the same time so solid and so rapid.  Every unit has improved after a year of war.  All the imperfections have been corrected.

An Englishman makes it a point of honour to be just.  He regards the work of the German submarines, which torpedoed liners, merchant vessels, and fishing smacks, as infamous, but he is not ashamed to admire their crews of the fifth.  Admiral Jellicoe showed me the chart on which was marked with pinpoints where German submarines have been sunk, burnt or captured.  There are many pins on this chart.  There have been more submarines sunk than captured.  Submarine hunting is organized in the most methodical way, and is considered very fine sport.  Several methods of dealing with submarines have been invented. They are hunted with nets, with guns, with explosive bombs, and in other ways.  At first submarines thought they could act with impunity, but they now know that when they leave port they have far less chance of returning than of being put to sleep in the eternal depths of the sea.

Impartial Reporter.  September 16th 1915.  DISSATISFIED THE TYRONE DOCTORS.  At the meeting of the Dungannon Guardians on Thursday a letter was read from the County Tyrone Medical Association intimating that the county doctors had resolved to dispense with the old scale of fees for consultation with the Poor Law medical officers, and that in future the fee would be agreed upon prior to the consultation.  The six medical officers of the union also intimated that medical officers when applying in future for vacation would request four weeks leave of absence with payment to their local tentes of £4 4 shillings per week for 4 weeks’ leave with payment of £3 3 shillings per week.

Fermanagh Herald September 18th. 1915.  MANORHAMILTON RECRUITING MEETING.  A TRIBUTE TO CAPTAIN O’DONNELL.  From a correspondent.  I cannot let the occasion pass without offering a few words of congratulations to Captain John O’Donnell, DL, Larkfield on the unprecedented success of the recruiting meeting held in Manorhamilton on last Monday.  Although a fair day – and a very large fair to – almost all the leading merchants of the town attended, thereby showing their sympathy with the object of the meeting, and at the same time paying a special tribute to the popularity of Captain O’Donnell.  It was indeed in a great day and I have no doubt but Captain O’Donnell will be kept busy enrolling recruits for some time to come.

Fermanagh Herald September 18th. 1915.   THE ANTI – VACCINATION CAMPAIGN IN DUNGANNON; PUBLIC MEETING.  On Tuesday night last a public meeting was held in their Square, Dungannon, organized by the National Anti-Vaccination League, London. Mr. R.  Brown, Donaghmore, who occupied the chair, said that he protested against vaccination because he thought that the people of Ireland should not be treated differently in the matter from any of the other British Colonies.  He instanced a number of cities in England where the death rate from smallpox was less than in other parts, were vaccination was compulsory.  In this country if they did not get their children vaccinated they might be fined in £1 and they could beat their wives four times for that.  (Laughter.)

Fermanagh Herald September 18th. 1915.  BELLEEK PETTY SESSIONS.  SERVANT SUED.  Patrick Melly, of Fossa, a farm servant was sued for the sum of £5 damages for leaving his employment without giving notice to his employer.  Mr. Thomas Orr, solicitor, who appeared for the plaintiff, asked the bench to inflict the full penalty as the defendant was well treated by his employer and had no complaints to make for his action in leaving.  The magistrates assessed the damages at a sum of £2 10 shillings with 10 shillings and sixpence cost of court.

The Whealt Creamery Society charged by two men named Thomas and John Campbell, with the larceny of a creamery can which was stated to be value for a sum of £1 17 shillings and sixpence.  The Manager of the Society stated in his evidence that the defendants had no authority to interfere with the property of the Society as they were not milk suppliers to the creamery.  A witness named William Teevan, was examined and stated that he saw the defendants take away the can and put it in their cart.  The defendants said that they took the can in mistake for their old can.  The bench discharged the defendants on their own recognances to come up for judgment when called upon.

Fermanagh Herald September 18th. 1915.  A WOMAN POSTMAN. The Belleek postal officials have appointed Mr. Bridget Gonigle to deliver letters and other postal packets in the Belleek Rural District.

Fermanagh Times September 23rd, 1915.  A SHOCKING FATALITY NEAR ENNISKILLEN.  A YOUNG LADIES SAD DEATH AS A CYCLIST AND A MOTORIST COLLIDE.  A distressing fatality occurred at Drumawill, 1½ mile from Enniskillen on Wednesday morning when a prepossessing young lady named Margaret Hodgins, whose parents reside at Arney, lost her life.  Being employed by Mr. McLean, Draper, High Street, she was cycling from home to business and near the bend in the road at Drumawill, opposite Maria Smith’s licensed premises, she collided with a motor car, driven by Dr. M.  Betty, Enniskillen.  As result of the impact death was almost instantaneous.  The deceased was well known in Enniskillen and was very popular with all who knew her.

Fermanagh Times September 23rd, 1915.  THE WAR.  BRITISH TROOPS TERRIBLE EXPERIENCES AT THE DARDANELLES.  A GREAT ARMY IN A WILDERNESS.  THE 8TH INNISKILLINGS AT SUVLA BAY.

Rhyme From The Trenches.

PILLS FOR FUNKERS.

Air-—Inniskilling Dragoon.

Come all you lazy slackers,

And read this little song;

Think of the boys who’s gone to join

The British fighting throng.

Twelve months ago yon got the chance To shoulder up the gun,

Conscription day is on the way,

And says that—you must come.

There’s lots of funkers yet at home

That’s if they only like

From Drumawill and fair Lisgoole

And on through Belnaleck

Arney, Moybrone, Letterbreen

And Moybane, just the same,

On a Sunday at Rudden’s cross

It is a crying shame.

(Chorus.)

Fare ye well lazy slackers,

We would not with you stay

We have all come to France’s plains,

To join the fighting fray:

And when the war is over,

Sweethearts we’ll have galore,

We’ll take them for a pleasure trip,

Down by old Erne’s shore.

My Second verse I’ve started

As strong as with the first,

And when you’ve read it though and

Through,

You’ll find it not the worst,

Lord Kitchener and Lord Derby,

You know what they require;

But still you, like old women,

Sit round the kitchen fire;

You sit and smoke as happy

As if no war at all.

If all the boys were just like you

Old England’s crown would fall:

Come forward now like soldiers

And let the Kaiser see,

There’s fighting men in thousands

Across the Irish Sea.

Come, rouse ye lazy slackers

And join our manly throng

And if you’ll only do your bit

The war it won’t last long.

And when we’ve beat the Kaiser

How happy we shall be,

We’ll all return to Erin’s shore

And visit old Drummee.

So now my third and last verse

With a puzzle in my mind,

As to why you’re not in khaki?

And stopping yet behind;

Some say the army is too hard,

But I say that is a lie;

When you are one month in it,

For the Union Jack you’d die.

I know you don’t like soldiering

You hate the very name,

You’d take a trip to Yankee land,

If it wasn’t just for shame.

Just one request I may repeat

Before I lay down my pen-

That’s, Come and join the army,

And for goodness sake be men.

So good-bye to every one of you,

I hope you’ll change your mind,

If this makes you scratch your brow,

It shows that you’re inclined,

So now my poem I must conclude,

My point I have made clear.

And Wishing a happy Christmas

And a glorious New Year.

From one of the Service Squadron of the Inniskilling Dragoons.

Fermanagh Times September 23rd, 1915.  MARS OUSTS CUPID ON WEDDING CAKES.  The very latest war fashion is of the military wedding cake.  So largely has this become a feature of weddings associated with military and naval men that the wholesale manufacturers’ are specializing in toy ornaments of a war like character to decorate the cakes.  They are mostly ornamental cannons, guns and rifles, with battleships for naval men, and very well executed models of aeroplanes for bridegrooms connected with the Flying Corps.  Armoured cars and flags of all nations also figure in the lists supplied to the retail trade.  Sugar Cupids and harps are at a discount.  The little ornaments on the cake are distributed as souvenirs to the wedding guests.

Fermanagh Times September 23rd, 1915.  THE TROUBLE AT CAMMELL LAIRD’S.  STARTLING FIGURES AS TO THE LOSS OF TIME. DISGRACEFUL SCENES IN COURT.  A number of platers, drillers, smiths, and apprentice platers appeared before the Munitions Tribunal at Liverpool on Saturday charged by Messrs. Cammell Laird Co., with persistently losing time.  Mr. J. W. P.  Laird said that in 20 weeks 15 per cent of the men employed lost a quarter and 10 per cent did not work at all.  On every day of that period the loss of working hours on ordinary working days was a million and a half and represented a full week’s work for 30,000 men or alternatively the time lost practically represents a complete shutting down of the whole establishment for three working weeks.  Apparently the trade unions concerned were enabled to influence their members in the matter.  Fines varying from five shillings to 50 shillings were imposed, and the decision was followed by disgraceful scenes, both outside and inside Saint George’s Hall.

Fermanagh Times September 23rd, 1915.  ENNISKILLEN’S NEW BOROUGH SURVEYOR.  Mr. James Donnelly, Enniskillen, has been unanimously selected out of 11 applicants for the post of Borough Surveyor of this urban district.  A number of first class men with exceptional credentials applied for the position, but the Council, after hearing the splendid testimonial Mr. Donnelly had received from the County Surveyor of Fermanagh, under whom he has worked for the past two years, had no hesitation in entrusting him with the responsible duties attached to the Surveyorship of the Borough.  Mr. Donnelly as a young man full of energy, and in the various public positions he has held in this County, in Monaghan, and in Dublin has, by his integrity and devotion to duty gained the goodwill and respect not only of his employers in those different places but also of the public.

Impartial Reporter.  September 23rd 1915.  INNISKILLING V.C. KILLED.  Information has been received from the Dardanelles which leaves little doubt that Captain Gerald Robert O’Sullivan, V.C. 1st Batt., Royal Inniskillings previously reported missing, was killed in action on the 21st during the attack on Hill 70 or Burnt Hill at Suvla Bay.  Captain O’Sullivan was seen to advance at the head of his men to the second line of Turkish trenches, where he fell, and it is believed that he was killed, but his body has not been recovered.

Impartial Reporter.  September 23rd 1915. 7830. Sergeant James Carney, 2nd Battalion Royal Inniskillings received the Cross of the Order of Saint Georges, 4th class for gallantry on 28 October, 1914 when he brought in a wounded comrade under heavy machine gun fire, thereby suffering his own wounds.  He served through the South African war, and at the battle of Coenso brought a wounded comrade from the firing line to the field hospital amid a hail of bullets, and was complemented by his commanding officer.  He was specially promoted to Corporal in the Mounted Infantry on which he served two years, first scouting with ability.  He has the Queen’s Medals with five clasps and the King’s Medal with two clasps.  He served three years in Egypt under Major Hessey.  Sergeant Carney, who has a younger brother a sergeant in the Inniskillings, is a son of Edward Carney, Abbey Street Enniskillen.

Fermanagh Herald September 25th. 1915.  THE BUDGET.  SWEEPING NEW TAXATION.  No half penny post.  Duties on sugar, tea and tobacco increased and there is a 40 per cent increase on the income tax.  Substantial additions are made it to the super tax now charged on incomes over £3,000 with the following results: – an income of £5,000 pays £1,029 tax; £10,000 pays £2,529 tax and an income of £100,000 pays   £34,029 tax.  Mr. McKenna imposes the following altogether new taxes: – 50% of all War profits over £100 pounds; a 33⅓% of the value on imported luxuries namely, Motor Cars, Motor Parts, Hats, Watches, Motor Cycles, Kinema (sic) Films, Plate glass, Clocks..  An American car now priced at £150 will cost £200 pounds of which £50 goes to the Exchequer. A Paris hat costing £12 will cost £16, of which £4 goes to the Exchequer.  Tea is increased from 8d to 1s a pound; coffee (roasted) and from 2d to 3d a pound; telegrams 9d for 12 words, and a halfpenny for every extra word; sugar, to the public ½ penny a pound dearer; tobacco from 4s 8d to 7s per pound; cigarettes from 5s 8d to 8s 6d a pound and had no additional beer or whisky duty.  Fifth for

Fermanagh Herald September 25th. 1915.  IN AND AROUND BALLYSHANNON.  Ballyshannon is an old-time place with a past.  It has, for the most part, steep and crooked streets, with houses built over them and along them.  If you tumbled over the door step into the streets it would be something like falling over a precipice.  In more modern times Ballyshannon acquired a sort of local notoriety as being the headquarters of the travelling tinkers of the North-West, no more important section of the community 100 years ago.  The tinker in those days was part and parcel of our National Life, and his periodical visit to the various localities in their turn for the mending of various domestic utensils, was considered absolutely essential for the wellbeing of the community.  His stock of ancient lore and country gossip was inexhaustible, and his prowess in a fight proverbial.  The Harvest Fair in the town was his annual field day, and no tinker with any reputation to save, hesitated engaging in the fight which was an absolutely friendly and fair one, the whole forces first pairing of into two even sections.  It was indeed one of the tinkers many beliefs that if he had not a little of his blood drawn by fists, or more commonly by blackthorn, on the Harvest Fair day, his health during the next twelve months, would suffer greatly as a consequence.  With the passing of the tinker a great deal of the local glory that surrounded Ballyshannon has fled, and the Harvest Fair has been shorn of its greatest charm.

Fermanagh Herald September 25th. 1915.  AT ENNISKILLEN PETTY SESSIONS ON MONDAY, Mary Love, Enniskillen, the wife of a military sergeant, was prosecuted by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children for neglecting her three children, aged 11 years, 9 years, and 11 months, respectively.  For a total of four offences she was sentenced to six months hard labour.  It was stated defendant was entitled to a separation allowance of 25 shillings and six pence per week and that there had been 20 previous convictions against her.

Fermanagh Times September 30th, 1915.  AT CLONELLY.  INVALIDED FROM THE DARDANELLES.  Major Fuller and Captain Fitzpatrick are at present enjoying the hospitality of Mr. Ffolliott Barton, J.P., Clonelly.  Both officers were wounded at the Dardanelles and both belong to the Australian contingent, which during the war have covered with renown both themselves and their great Colony.  We can well believe their statement that no written report could give any adequate the idea of the horrors of the Suvla Bay attack.  It was terrific, indescribable.  On the top of obstacles that, in other circumstances, might have been regarded as impregnable thundered the big guns, burst highly explosive shells, rattled the deadly bullets of the enemies’ rifles.  Not a foot of ground was out of range of some form or other of Turkish and German striking power.  The extraordinary thing is that where the enemy had now gathered in tens of thousands, fortified with all the ingenuity and might of modern armaments not a hostile weapon or individual was in evidence two or three days before.  Where both these gallant gentleman were struck down was a spot they had visited with absolute safely a couple of days before.  The very places which it cost our brave men so much to capture, could have been taken “for the taking” without the loss of a single life any time prior to those couple of days.  These invalided gentlemen specified no grievance, attributed no fault anywhere, but to the lay mind it is inevitable that there was blundering somewhere.  They are both now, we are glad to record, almost fit again for duty.  They laughingly explained that recuperation under Mr. Barton’s roof amid his picturesque grounds is one of the simplest things possible.  Major Fuller returns to the Dardanelles on Monday rejoiced to yet another “rush at the Huns.”  Captain Fitzpatrick will not be able to satisfy his yearnings so soon.  By the way his father was in Enniskillen years ago with the Kents, and it was a matter of pleasure and interest to him to visit the island town about which he had heard personally and a read so much.

Fermanagh Times September 30th, 1915.  PRESBYTERIAN DIFFERENCES IN ENNISKILLEN.  A SERIOUS SITUATION IS CREATED.  Differences of a very serious and unfortunate character have arisen amongst the members of the Enniskillen Presbyterian Church in connection with the appointment of a successor to the Rev.  S. C. Mitchell.  So bitter, indeed, has become the feeling between the two sections that if extreme diplomacy and care are not exercised, lasting, even permanent, injury may be done to the congregation.

The situation is a delicate and awkward one, and as it is an accepted truism that onlookers see most of the game we may be pardoned for expressing the popular opinion of outsiders in Enniskillen, when we state that more careful handling and less violent attempts by one or two members at the outset to force their particular views on all and sundry would have resulted in a more amicable feeling and in practically unanimous settlement of the difficulty.  However, that may be, the harm has now been done and during the past few days serious developments have taken place.

In the first place those who are dissatisfied with the choice of the majority have now definitely engaged the Protestant Hall for the purpose of holding a separate Sunday school there, which they claim will be attended by practically two thirds of all the Presbyterian children in the town.  This in itself is a serious step to take and shows clearly the intensity of feeling that prevails.  But a step of even greater magnitude has been taken in the form of a petition to the Clogher Presbytery, which sets out that the petitioners do not intend to worship again at the Church under present circumstances and requesting the Assembly to make an arrangement for having the gospel preached to them.  The petition is signed by three of the Church’s Committee men and by 25 communicants and, it is alleged, has the support of many adherents in the Church who have not been asked to sign such a request. On the other hand to the majority of the congregation who have succeeded in having a call issued to the man of their choice professed to look upon the defection of the minority as only a passing display of temper, and asserts that in a very short time they will resume their former places in the congregation.

From the very beginning of this regrettable controversy the Fermanagh Times has studiously refrained from taking sides in the matter or expressing any views that might be construed as showing a leaning towards one party or the other.  We think that this is essentially a matter to be settled by the congregation itself, or by the authorities of the church, without outside interference, and this opinion has moulded our action throughout.  Of course as a public newspaper we had to mention the matter, as it was, and is, a matter of considerable local public interest but we did so without bias our favour.

In last Thursday’s edition of the Impartial Reporter, however, there appeared a report of the proceedings in the Presbyterian Church on the preceding Monday evening when a meeting was held for the purpose of appointing a successor to the Rev. S. C. Mitchell.  In the course of this report Mr. George Whaley the ruling Elder of the Church, is stated to have made an outburst against the “untruthful and exaggerated” reports which had appeared in the Fermanagh Times.  Upon seeing this, our representative, at once went and interviewed Mr. Whaley on the subject as we considered we were entitled to some explanation.  Consider our astonishment when Mr. Whaley solemnly assured us so THAT HE HAD NEVER MADE ANY REFERENCE DIRECT OR INDIRECT TO THE FERMANAGH TIMES, but on the other hand he did referred to gossip about the town and statements made by gossipers from which one would think that there were far more serious differences in the Church than really existed, but that the Fermanagh Times was not mentioned by him or in his thoughts at the time.  We have also interviewed a number of gentlemen belonging both to the minority and majority on this point, and they unanimously agree with Mr. Whaley’s version.  Now either the Impartial Reporter or Mr. Whaley in stating what are not facts.  They cannot both be right and our readers must judge for themselves which is wrong.

If, as we fully believe, Mr. Whaley made no reference to us either by direct statement or by innuendo, then another startling proof is afforded the public of the dangerous lengths to which the Reporter is prepared to go in its campaign of virulence and misrepresentation against this journal.  We leave the matter at that for the present.  Further developments in the crisis which has arisen in our local Presbyterian Church will be watched with considerable interest by the public.

Fermanagh Times September 30th, 1915.  THE ISLANDERS WHO DEFY MR. MCKENNA.  About the only people in this country who would view with indifference the war budget of Mr. McKenna will be the inhabitants of Innishmurray, an island off the coast of Sligo.  They have defied rate and tax collectors for a number of years.  There is no direct communication with the mainland, and in a report recently to the Local Government Board it was stated that the rate collector could not get a boatman brave enough to row him across.  Some years ago two collectors tried the experiment, but they were met with a perfect shower of stones.  One of the islanders, an old man, acts as ruler, and all disputes are settled by him, but these are rare.  Every summer a priest visits the island, and remains there for a few weeks to perform marriages.  During the rest of the year says the Glasgow Herald the islanders hold a service among themselves every Sunday.

Fermanagh Times September 30th, 1915.  BRILLIANT ANGLO-FRENCH VICTORY AND SUBSTANTIAL ADVANCE OVER A WIDE FRONT.  OVER 20,000 PRISONERS CAPTURED AND 33 LARGE GUNS TAKEN.  The Anglo-French Army is on Saturday achieved most substantial successes at two important points on the Western front.  Sir John French reports that he attacked the enemy and captured his trenches on a front of over 5 miles penetrating in some places to a distance of 4,000 yards. This accurred south of the La Bassee Canal.

Fermanagh Times September 30th, 1915.  NINE MEN DEAD IN ONE FAMILY.  Private William Clarke, of the East Lancashires, now undergoing treatment in a military hospital at Ormskirk, comes of a Lancashire family from which the war has exacted a terribly heavy toll.  He is one of nine brothers who were mobilised at the outbreak of war, all in the same regiment.  Six have been killed, another is without his right arm as the result of wounds and the youngest is still in the trenches.  Three of Private Clark’s brothers in law, his sister’s husbands have also been killed, making a total of nine killed out of 12.  Seven were killed in France and Flanders and two in the Dardanelles, where Private Clarke was wounded.  The family belonged to Rawtenstall, and the mother is a widow.

Fermanagh Times September 30th, 1915.  FLYING OVER THE WESTERN FRONT. ….  charred bricks, which had once been a French village.  The corn fields were barren except for a heavy crop of wooden crosses marking the last resting place of French and British soldiers fallen on the battlefield of the Marne.  As far as the eye could see to the right and left the ground was torn as if a giant plough had made furrows across the fair land of France.  The trenches meander across the country in an irregular line. Sometimes the line appears to go straight through a village; now and again an isolated farmhouse stands in the middle of a trench. Suddenly and artillery duel began.  A French field-battery began to hurl death into the German trenches.  I could see the sudden spurts of fire and the explosion of the shells but not a sound reached my ears; the roar of our engine shut out the sounds of war.  The only human beings visible during the bombardment were some French peasants, who went on with their work unconcerned as the shells flew over their heads.  Looking to my left I saw what looked like a swarm of grey ants appear in hundreds out of the earth and rush towards the French trenches, and as the sunlight flashed on their bayonets it became manifest that a German infantry attack was in progress.  Sports of flame splattered all along the French line for a distance of a mile or more, and through the field glasses I could see the grey mass plainly.  But as the mitrailleuses did their deadly work the ants fell in little heaps and the attack faded away.

Impartial Reporter.  September 30th 1915.  THE BUDGET AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE HOME AND ON TEA, SUGAR AND TOBACCO.  Income tax on all incomes over £130  with abatement of £120.  The rate is raised from 9d in 1913 to 1 s 9 ½d this year and two shillings and 1d next year.  Super tax has been raised so the rich man pays 1/3 his income.  Farmers are to pay on rent or on clear profits.  Employees with £2 10 shillings a week and more to pay quarterly.  New taxes include a 50 per cent on all war profits and 33⅓% on imported motor cars, films, hats, watches and clocks, plate glass and musical instruments.  Tea is raised one Shilling per pound, cocoa 1 ½ d per pound, petrol 6d per gallon, sugar ½d per pound, tobacco six shillings and a penny halfpenny per pound,.  The half-penny post has been abolished, telegrams will be 9d and there will be dearer telephones and parcels.

Impartial Reporter.  September 30th 1915.  Some examples of the war profits tax.  The tax is ½ war profits.  Some examples – Spillers and the Bakers, Millers last profit £367,000; previous average £140,000: War Profits£ 227,000.  Tredegar Iron and Coal Company £157,000; previous average £113,000; War Profit £44,000.

Impartial Reporter.  September 30th 1915.  THE BRITISH AND FRENCH ACCOMPLISH GREAT ADVANCES.  The British take 5 miles, 3,000 prisoners and 61 guns while the French win 15 miles and captured 20,000 prisoners on a front of 21 miles.

August 1915.

Fermanagh Times August 5th, 1915.  WAR NEWS.  Nearly half a million sterling is said to represent the loss of wages in Wales on account of the strike, and the other losses would also amount to a considerable sum, to say nothing of the loss of the output of a million tons of coal.  It would take a long period of increased wages to compensate the men for their immediate loss.  But they never seem to think of that.

It is wonderful how this old country manages to boggle and blunder through.  Its authorities seldom prepare for any eventuality or exhibit much foresight, so that we begin wars and other things under great disadvantages.  It transpired at a meeting of the Marconi Company that in 1910 the company proposed to the Government a chain of wireless stations throughout the British possessions, but it was rejected.  The Germans took up the idea and carried it out, with the result that some days before the war they were able to warn their ships to make for neutral ports.

As for the stoppage of cotton imports into Germany, the facts are now notorious.  After 12 months of war and a change of Government our Ministers have not yet proclaimed the chief ingredient of the German and Austrian powers contraband (or subject to seizure by the Allies cruisers).  They have proclaimed wool, oil, machine tools and large scale maps contraband, but not this stuff with which Germany kills our men and their comrades among the Allies.  Nothing in the whole history of this war is so inexplicable.

Fermanagh Times August 5th, 1915.  THE MAN WHO SANK THE LUSITANIA.  CONFESSION BY THE U21’S COMMANDER. “The order to sink the Lusitania arrived on May 2 at Heligoland and, and aroused the indignation of all the officers.  More than one was beside himself.  The order was nevertheless carried out by the U21, which left under the command of Lieutenant von Hersing.  The writer of the letter was on board his ship when Von Hersing returned from his expedition and was able to take note of the contempt which all the officers manifested towards him.  Without daring to lift his head he muttered: – “It went against me to act as I did, but I could not do otherwise. “ He was weeping.  He then told how none of his men knew the object of his voyage, and has several times he was on the point of letting them into the secret in the hope of seeing the crew mutiny.  On its arrival at the spot where it was to surprise the Lusitania, the submarine had a long wait.  At one moment the idea of making off enter the commander’s head, but he found that another submarine had stopped a short distance away.  The Lusitania meanwhile was approaching.  She could not escape her doom.  “I saw people gathered on deck” continued Von Hersing, “the ship was crammed with human beings.  I caused the submarine to plunge and the torpedo was discharged.  I do not know whether it was this torpedo or the one discharged by the other submarine that struck the liner, but the latter’s hull was ripped open.  I had tried to avoid witnessing the ghastly scene which followed, and made away from the torpedoed liner at full speed.  Then I came to the surface.  The sea was crowded with struggling wretches, and even at that distance I could hear the shouts of the drowning.  I had become a man of stone, incapable of moving or giving an order.”

Fermanagh Times August 5th, 1915.  BALLYSHANNON VICTIM IN THE LUSITANIA.  A PROBATE APPLICATION.  In the matter of the goods of Michael Ward, deceased an application was made in the Probate Court, Dublin on behalf of Mrs. Margaret Ward, Greenhall, Ballyshannon, mother of the deceased, for liberty to state death on belief and to obtain letters of administration.  It appeared that Michael Ward had emigrated to America many years ago, and up to April last had resided in Pittsburgh.  Having amassed a small fortune there, he decided to return to Ireland.  He had purchased a farm near Ballyshannon last year.  He sailed from New York in the Lusitania, and when the vessel was torpedoed he was seen helping women and children into the boats, and he undoubtedly sacrificed his life in saving others.  Mr. Justice Madden said it was clear beyond doubt that the deceased was another victim of the outrage.  It was, indeed, a sad case.  He would grant the application.

Impartial Reporter.  August 5th 1915.  A WOUNDED INNISKILLING BACK FROM THE FRONT.  Private Maguire of the 2nd Inniskillings who was wounded on the retreat from Mons has reached the military hospital at Enniskillen for care.  His brother Francis, also in the 2nd Inniskillings was killed in the war and the wounded soldier at the old Redoubt had a narrow escape as a shrapnel bullet tore one shoulder while another bullet tore the other shoulder, as he lay with his comrades in a turnip field on the defence.  He tells how he became unconscious and was found by the stretcher parties and conveyed for first aid before he was sent to the base.  The bullets were probed for and extracted; the parts were burned to guard against blood poisoning and gradually consciousness returned to the parts affected.  Maguire was for some time at Rouen in the hospital in which Miss Stuart of Enniskillen was the sister in the operating theatre; he was subsequently transferred to Brighton where local ladies took convalescent soldiers out in their cars for an airing and he liked the place well.  He has nothing but praise for the care he received at the Redoubt.  He says he is not in want of anything.

Maguire is confined to bed with pains perhaps from rheumatism contracted during some nights of exposure; but he is near Lisnaskea, and hopes to have friends from home as visitors on the fair and other days.  He had a year’s boy service in the old militia in which he served for six years and then entered the line battalions and served abroad for 11 years in both the 1st and 2nd battalion.

Impartial Reporter.  August 5th 1915.  COMFORTS FOR INNISKILLINGS.  I had several gross of fly papers dispatched to the 1st, 5th and 6th battalions of the Inniskillings last week to the Dardanelles where the fly nuisance is described as unbearable.  Severe as the strain is for myriad of flies to light on one’s food and ones face, so that even much desired sleep became a time for torture, it is worse for the wounded.  Many years ago when I was at Montreal I had a very mild experience of what our men have to endure at the Dardanelles in this respect so that I had to leave my food almost untasted.  The flies were in droves on the dinner plate, on the knife and fork, on my face, and the only way to obtain relief was to flee.  But our men cannot fly; they must endure.  (W. C. Trimble)

Impartial Reporter.  August 5th 1915.  YOUTHS OF 19 CALLED UP.  ABOUT 1,200,000 MORE RUSSIANS FOR THE COLOURS.  An imperial ukase has been issued calling to the colours all men born in 1896 i.e. youths of 19 of whom there are about 1,200,000.  The lowest age at which Russians have been called up hitherto is 20.

Impartial Reporter.  August 5th 1915.  NEXT SUNDAY A DAY OF INTERSESSION.  The Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of Ireland have appointed Sunday, August 8 to be observed throughout our church as a day of prayer and supplication for our church and country.  The cruel war forced on the world by German perfidy and greed will have lasted for 12 months during which time blood and treasure have been freely poured forth that the nation may live.  Our own Church is the poorer for the loss of hundreds of our most gallant sons and is the richer for their noble faithfulness and for the example of their unselfish sacrifice.

Impartial Reporter.  August 5th 1915.  AN INNISKILLING RECOMMENDED FOR THE VICTORIA CROSS.  We are unofficially informed that Sergeant Somers of the 1st Inniskillings, at the Dardanelles has been recommended for the Victoria Cross.

Impartial Reporter.  August 5th 1915.  THE DEATH OF LIEUTENANT COLONEL JONES AT GALLIPOLI.  He was severely wounded by a shrapnel shell while sitting writing out orders.  It struck him in the thigh and part of the abdomen.  An immediate operation was found necessary and he survived the ordeal.  He was sent to Alexandria but while on the journey complications arose which necessitated a second operation from which he never regained consciousness and he passed away before the boat arrived at Alexandria.  His body was buried at sea.

Impartial Reporter.  August 5th 1915.  ARIGNA MINING. PAST AND FUTURE.  A question and reply was recently given in the House of Commons relative to the Arigna Mining Company.  The district abounds in coal of good quality and is rich in ore, fireclay and other valuable minerals.  Some 80 years ago a large Company was formed to work the coal and iron and extensive smelting works where the most excellent iron ware including rails grates, mantle registers, pots etc. were manufactured.  After working with a fair measure of success for some years in those days in which rail communication was entirely absent, the company, owing to intrigue and fraud in which one gentleman lost £80,000 and culminated in the shooting of the manager, the iron works closed down, and  today the great and extensive ironworks are a heap of ruins.  From time to time small companies were established to work to coal which was so much needed in the locality but each company failed after a short existence.

Fermanagh Herald August 7th 1915.  JOTTINGS.  The 8th Inniskillings 10th Irish Division arrived in Enniskillen on Monday night by special train.

Mrs. Bussell, of Tooliss, Lisnaskea he, has been notified by the Canadian Record Office that her son, Private Frank Bussell (27778), F.  Company 15th Battalion, 48th Highlanders, 1st Canadian Contingent, has been missing since the battle of Ypres.

Fermanagh Herald August 7th 1915.  A LIQUID FIRE FIGHT IS DESCRIBED BY MR. PHILIP GIBBS, the special correspondent of the Daily Chronicle in a telegram dated July 31.  For the first time, he says the British troops have had to face the ordeal of liquid fire squirted upon them by an enemy which has adopted every diabolical means to gain a temporary success.

They have gained something, it is true – 500 yards of trenches which we had previously held at Hooge –but they lose still more by a further slur upon their name as fighting men.  It will be remembered that we destroyed a German redoubt of considerable size and strength to the North of the Menin road by a successful mine explosion.  Infuriated by this, the enemy has been furiously shelling our trenches, and using every form of bomb and shell.  He began with a heavy cannonade against our trenches, and hurled large numbers of bombs from trench mortars, damaging part of our trenches, but not dislodging the men.  During a lull however, says Mr. Gibbs, the new horror made its appearance.  A flame – either of gas or liquid fire – was projected upon our advanced trenches.

Our men were taken by surprise at this new means of destruction; but in spite of the shock many leapt to their feet firing repeatedly at the flames.  Finally the trenches reached by the burning jets became untenable and the men were compelled to fall back.

Fermanagh Times August 12th, 1915.  BOOTS FOR WINTER WARFARE.  The Army Clothing Department is said to be engaged in the production of a new boot designed to meet the special necessities of winter wear.  The terrible ordeal of our men in the trenches last winter has set the experts thinking out designs of boots which will afford an altogether better protection to the leg than puttees gave under war conditions.  It must be remembered that the puttee was intended more especially for wear in tropical countries, where it was, indeed, found to give excellent protection against the bites of snakes and insects, but in the trenches puttees held the damp and contributed to frostbite.  Hence our soldiers demand for leggings to replace the puttees, the comfort and support of which they had appreciated so much before going into the flooded trenches.

But what became of that eager young chemist, Fritz Haber, whose table-top experiment first solved the world’s nitrogen crisis? A fervent German nationalist, he not only helped, as we have seen, supply Germany with explosives during World War One- he went on to develop chemical weapons. This was too much for his wife, Clara, herself a chemist. Just after his new poison gases were first put to work in the trenches, she took his service revolver and shot herself. Fritz left the very next morning to oversee the gas’s use on the Eastern Front. The Nobel Prize judges weren’t as critical of his wartime work as his wife. In 1918 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on nitrogen. And after the war, he used his know-how to develop pesticides – including that notorious group of nitrogen-based toxins, the cyanides. His work then came to an abrupt end in 1933. Although he had converted to Lutheranism, Fritz Haber had been born Jewish, and as far as the Nazis were concerned he had no place in the new Reich. He fled to England, only to be rejected by his fellow chemists because of his wartime record. A year later he headed for Israel, but died of a heart attack en route. And perhaps it was for the best. Had he lived, Fritz Haber would have seen most of his extended family in Germany wiped out by Zyklon B, a poison gas whose development he had overseen, and whose manufacture depended on the process of nitrogen fixation that he had pioneered.

Fermanagh Times August 12th, 1915.  A RECRUITING MEETING IN LISNASKEA.  A recruiting party composed of a number of officers and men accompanied by the band of the eighth Inniskilling Fusiliers now stationed in Enniskillen visited Lisnaskea on Saturday, the fair day when an open air meeting was held in the centre of the town and was attended by a fairly large crowd.  Rev. R. C. Lapham presided and delivered a brief but incisive address in an appeal for men to join the colours.  Rev. Father Benedict, who is on a visit to the district, and who described himself as a London Irish Catholic priest, also made a strong appeal “so that Fermanagh should take its rightful place in the Irish Brigade”.  Major Johnston also spoke and mentioned that they had obtained 40 recruits in Enniskillen last week.

Impartial Reporter.  August 12th 1915.  ANOTHER PERSON KEPT THE FLEET TOGETHER.  The well-known naval expert Mr. F. T. Jane, disputes the claim that has been put forward on behalf of Mr. Winston Churchill that before the outbreak of war he did a great service to the nation by keeping the Fleet together ready for action instead of allowing its demobilisation after the manoeuvres and that he achieved this bold stroke of policy on his own responsibility.  Mr. Jane says no one expected war, and Mr. Churchill was he believes week ending with his wife at Cromer on the East Coast – Cromer which years ago give birth to “The Garden of Sleep”.  It was all “The garden of sleep.”  No one, adds Mr. Jane’, worried except one man and that man was the First Sea Lord of those days – Admiral Prince Louis of Battenberg.  He is the one who kept the fleet together and saved them from the horrors of Belgium.  Prince Louis of Battenberg it may be recalled was driven into retirement from the post of First Sea Lord in response to clamour from the sensational press on the ostensible grounds of his family association with Germany.  Mr. Jane asserts that Prince Louis is half Russian and the other half just exactly as much French as he is German.  In well informed circles however it may be added that it has been asserted that the reasons why Prince Louis continuance at the Admiralty was objectionable to certain influential wire-pullers behind the scenes was concerned with acute political developments shortly before the war.

(From Norfolkcoast.co.uk) THE GARDEN OF SLEEP. The drama critic of the Daily Telegraph and the Morning Post Clement Scott arrived in Norfolk in August 1883. Unable to find himself accommodation he was put up in the Miller’s House in Sidestrand. He was so taken with the area that he wrote a number of articles in the newspapers expounding the virtues of Norfolk, which eventually resulted in Cromer and the surrounding area becoming a fashionable place for holidays for the rich and famous. He named his articles and, subsequent book Poppy-land. The book was dedicated to the Miller’s daughter.

The term Poppy-Land was due to the vast quantities of poppies which grew in, and around, the area which he so loved. One of his favourite places and for which he wrote a poem entitled ‘The Garden of Sleep’, was the church tower of St. Michael and All Angels at Sidestrand.

The church and churchyard stood right on the cliffs and as the land around it was gradually eroded the locals decided to re-locate their community church further inland. They dismantled the church stone by stone and rebuilt it on its current site. However, they left the church tower on the cliffs and also the old graveyard. Every New Year’s Eve for 15 years Scott walked along Tower Lane to the old church tower and churchyard and spent the last few moments of the old year on the cliffs in the place he called his Garden of Sleep.

As the sea continued to claim the land, the locals had the disconcerting sight of seeing the coffins and the remains of those who had been buried in the church since the 15th Century, tumbling one by one, piece by piece into the crashing waves below. Clement Scott died in 1904 and some say that in later life he regretted that he had made Norfolk famous and that he commented that it was no longer the lovely rural landscape he had first visited in 1883.

The Church tower eventually fell over the cliffs in 1915/16, though its image continued to be used on postcards right up to the 1930’s.The new church St. Michael and All Angels at Sidestrand used the headstones from the old churchyard to line the wall by the road.

The Garden of Sleep by Clement Scott

On the grass of the cliff, at the edge of the steep,

God planted a garden – a garden of sleep!

‘Neath the blue of the sky, in the green of the corn,

It is there that the regal red poppies are born!

Brief days of desire, and long dreams of delight,

They are mine when my Poppy-Land cometh in sight.

In music of distance, with eyes that are wet,

it is there I remember, and there I forget!

0! heart of my heart! Where the poppies are born,

I am waiting for thee, in the hush of the corn.

Sleep! Sleep!

From the Cliff to the Deep!

Sleep, my Poppy-Land,

Sleep!

In my garden of sleep, where red poppies are spread,

I wait for the living, along with the dead!

For a tower in ruins stands guard o’er the deep,

At whose feet are green graves of dear women asleep!

Did they love as I love, when they lived by the sea?

Did they wait, as I wait, for the days that may be?

Was it hope or fulfilling that entered each breast,

Ere death gave release, and the poppies gave rest?

0! Life of my life! On the cliffs by the sea,

By the graves in the grass, I am waiting for thee! Sleep! Sleep!

In the dews by the deep!

Sleep, my Poppy-Land,

Sleep!

Fermanagh Herald August 14th 1915.  NEWS HAS JUST BEEN RECEIVED from the War Office by ex-Sergeant Wilkinson, R.I.C., that his younger son, Bernard Joseph has been killed in action in France on the 22nd of July when serving with his regiment the 2nd Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.  Deceased was only 20 years of age, and had only been at the front a few months.  He was one of three sons serving with the colours.  One of them fought under General Botha in German South West Africa.  We deeply sympathise with his parents in their sad bereavement.

Fermanagh Times August 19th, 1915.  SMITH EXECUTED.  MURDERER PROTESTS HIS INNOCENCE TO THE LAST.  George Joseph Smith, the murderer in the Brides in the Baths case, paid the penalty of his crime with his life on Friday morning.  Up to the very last he protested his innocence.  He wrote several letters from Pentonville and Maidstone Prisons, and, robbed of their very extensive verbiage, his cry off “I am an innocent man his repeated through every epistle.” His last letter was written to Miss Pegler, “the woman to whom he always returned.”  He left his property to her.

Fermanagh Times August 19th, 1915.  ESCAPED GERMAN PRISONERS CAUGHT STAYING IN A HOTEL IN CAVAN.  Two German officers who made their escape from the Oldcastle Internment Camp on Wednesday night were arrested at Cavan on Friday.  They engaged rooms in the Farnham Hotel, where they stopped for the night.  One of the officers, Carol Morlang, who was disguises a clergyman, was arrested by Constable Goldrick in the hotel, the other, Alfans Griem, being detained on the Railway Road while on his way, presumably to the station.  Immediately after their escape being discovered their description was circulated all over the countryside, and the police and military authorities were on the lookout for anyone answering their description. It is stated that they affected their escape about 12.00 on Wednesday night through the wire around the camp, and having previously obtained the clothing which they wore as a disguise, threw their own attire away on escaping.

Fermanagh Times August 19th, 1915.  OBSTRUCTING RECRUITING.  A CASE AT MANORHAMILTON.  At a special court of petty sessions James Kerrigan of Drummonds was brought up in custody charged that he obstructed, molested and hindered Captain John O’Donnell, D. L., His Majesties recruiting officer, in the discharge of his duty.  Constable John Rogers deposed that the accused was present at a recruiting meeting, and endeavoured to interrupt Captain O’Donnell.  Accused said – “We have nothing to thank England for, remember O’Donovan Rossa, you are an idiot, a blithering idiot.”  Accused on cross examination said that he did not use the words charged against him.  Captain O’Donnell deposed that when he was speaking there were shouts of “shut up you idiot.”  Witness denied he was an idiot, and said if he was, God help the rest of them.  He found the crowd very hostile.  As a matter of fact he did not get a single recruit until 8.30 that evening.  The court imposed a fine of one guinea and two shillings and six pence costs or in default of payment five weeks in prison with hard labour.  The accused intimated his intention of appealing, but subsequently paid the fine.

Fermanagh Times August 19th, 1915.  BELLEEK DISTRICT COUNCIL.  A meeting of the above council held on Saturday, at which the chairman, Mr. P. Scott, J. P. presided.  The Council decided, after some discussion, the rent of the labourers’ cottages under the new scheme in the Belleek rural district, at the sum of six shillings a month.  Applications for cottages being considered, which was the principal business, the meeting concluded.

Fermanagh Times August 19th, 1915.  SMITH’S WIDOW WEDS.  ECHO OF BRIDES IN BATH CASE.  The marriage took place on Saturday afternoon of Caroline Beatrice Love, nee Thornhill, a native of Leicester and of Thomas John Davies, of New Westminster, British Columbia, who came from Canada to enlist in the Army, and is a sapper in the Royal Engineers.  The bride was the widow of George Smith who is executed on Friday and the special licence for the marriage was actually taken out on that day.

Fermanagh Times August 19th, 1915.  THE ROYAL EDWARD.  According to information at present available the transport sunk by an enemy submarine in the Aegean Sea last Saturday morning had on board 32 military officers and 1350 troops in addition to the ship’s crew of 220 officers and men.  The troops consisted mainly of reinforcements for the 29th Division and details of the Royal Army Medical Corps.  It is known that about 600 have been saved.  The 29th Division contains at least three Irish regiments – 1st Royal Dublin Fusiliers, 1st Inniskilling Fusiliers, and 1st Munster Fusiliers.

Fermanagh Times August 19th, 1915.  THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL EDWARD.  It is with very special sorrow we learn of the sinking of the British transport in the Aegean Sea, and the loss of presumably of 1,000 lives.  It is the first disaster in the magnificent transport service of which we have all been so proud since the start of the war.  The loss of so many fine fellows is most deplorable.  In the finest health, after a long spell of training and discipline, and eager to try themselves against the enemy and strike a blow for their country it is distressingly painful to think of them sinking hopelessly and helplessly in the deep waters just as their anticipation of landing and usefulness were on the point of culmination.  Very many of them were loyal Irishmen.  We do not get know yet what homes near to us here may be plunged into sorrow and mourning, but too many families, no matter where located must suffer irreparable grief from the grim tragedy.

Fermanagh Times August 19th, 1915.  THE WONDERS OF THE TELEGRAPH SYSTEM.  No doubt it is a war at time of war.  Many of our public arrangements are out of gear.  The needs of the country must have priority over private ones.  But why should these affect us locally so that a telegram requires three hours to travel a distance of four miles from Ballyshannon Post Office to Rossnowlagh.  The fault lies in the thorough backwardness and crass stupidity of the telegraphic authorities.  The message in question, will it be credited, instead of being dispatched directly over the four mile wire that connects Ballyshannon and Rossnowlagh had to be sent away to Derry where it was reconveyed back to Donegal, we understand, and thence to Rossnowlagh.  Any private firm adopting a similar way of carrying on its business would find itself very shortly in the bankruptcy court, if not in a lunatic asylum.  Every divergence from medieval methods, every alteration towards up-to-date ness must have its origin in pressure from outside.

Fermanagh Times August 19th, 1915.  MILITARY NOTES.  The recreation room opened in the Minor Hall of the Townhall on Wednesday week has proved a very popular resort for the men of the Battalion.  Evening after evening men have taken advantage of the facilities offered to them there for writing, reading, games and social intercourse.  The fact that tea and refreshments may be obtained at almost a nominal price no doubt has added immensely to the attractiveness of the rendezvous.  A large number of local ladies have very willingly given their services each evening and the place is conducted on the most economical lines possible.  A good supply of magazines and papers has been given to the room by people in both town and country.  There is a piano, too, and on this instrument many of the soldiers have shown themselves to be capable musicians and songs and choruses help to pass the time very pleasantly.

A telegram has been received from the War Office intimating that Captain John Cecil Parke, of Clones, 6th Leicester Regiment, the well-known international footballer, was wounded at the Dardanelles on the 10th Inst.  Captain Parke is the well-known Irish rugby football and lawn tennis International.  He represented Ireland in the three-quarter line in all her internationals for many seasons, frequently captaining the fifteen.  As a tennis player he was perhaps the most brilliant player in the three Kingdoms.  He was a member of the British team that won the few who of the Davies Cup in Australia, and subsequently captained the British team, that went to America.  He is a brother of Mr. W. A. Parke, solicitor, Clones.

Fermanagh Times August 19th, 1915.  WHY WE GAINED AT HOOGE.  FOR THE FIRST TIME THE GERMANS MET THEIR MATCH IN ARTILLERY.  The Daily Mail special correspondent with the British Army in the field, Mr. G.  A Valentine Williams states that our men were successful east of Ypres last week because “for the first time the Germans met their match in artillery.  Our guns had the ammunition required.” “Our artillery was magnificent.  As our men saw our shells crashing in a never ending roar into the German positions and wreathing all the German lines in the mist and smoke they were related to think that at length the Germans were getting what our fellows have so often had to endure.  We all realized that this time at any rate, our guns had the ammunition required to deal with the immense battery which is what the German army really is.  Our advance resulted in the capture of 1,200 yards of trenches and 164 prisoners, including three officers, two machine guns, and a trench mortar as well as a large stock of German ammunition, notably bombs.

Fermanagh Times August 19th, 1915.  DONEGAL LABOURERS’ FLEEING SCOTLAND.  There was a falling off in the number of Nationalist labourers’ arriving at Londonderry from Scotland on Saturday to escape registration.  Between200 and 300 came.  On Saturday there were almost 600 arrivals by boat and 200 by a train.  Practically all are Donegal men.  They were objects of derision, and soldiers could be seen ironically saluting them.  Half a dozen of Sunday’s arrivals were breakfasting in a lodging house, when the proprietor presented an alien registration form, and the party took fright and left the house without finishing the breakfast.

In Mayo two trains with very nearly 200 able bodied men arrived in the island of Achill from England and Scotland and were fine strong men all heading out to the west from England.  They admit they have left good jobs with good pay and that there is no work for them at home.  The hay is saved and the potatoes would not be fit to dig for a long time yet.

Fermanagh Times August 19th, 1915.  AMERICANS AEROPLANES FOR FRANCE.  A PROPOSED GIFT OF 1000 MACHINES.  One thousand American aeroplanes, purchased with American money and officered by American aviators, are to be offered by an American organisation to France for the use of the French Army in the present war, according to a cable dispatch from the Paris correspondent of the New York World.  Circulars are to be issued to the graduates of Yale, Harvard, and Princeton, inviting them on patriotic grounds to aid in the defence of their country.  They will be asked to join the French Aviation Corps for the duration of the war, after which their military experience we’ll qualify them to become reserve aviators in the United States.  They will be formed into a special corps in France, under their own officers, and will receive an additional £10 a month over and above the regular French flying man’s pay.

Fermanagh Times August 19th, 1915. THE GERMAN’S NEW AIRCRAFT.  The Germans super warplane or battle aeroplane has been designed to carry out the same tactics which the cruisers of the notorious Emden type were built to pursue on the ocean.  These aerial craft are essentially raiders, and they be launched against towns, villages, cities, strategic military centres, artillery fortresses or other defences.  Their outstanding features are an extensive carrying capacity of both men and ammunition in the form of bombs, while they are also powerfully armed with machine guns. The Germans have solved one or two perplexing problems in connection with the arming of aeroplanes in their new aerial machine gun. A new system allows the gun to be moved through the requisite firing arches and the gun can be swung from side to side and brought into the firing position with a minimum of effort and so the fire may be directed from either broadside as desired.  The new warplane is able to carry a larger crew in order to protect the aeroplane.  This is achieved by means of what has already become known as the aerial sniper.  Like his colleagues working in the trenches he is a crack quick shot and adept with the automatic arm.  His specific duty is to pick off the marksmen in any enemy machines.  These aerial snipers are selected men who have passed through a special course of aeronautical training.  When not engaged in sniping duties the rifleman is free to pursue bomb throwing activities.  Owing to the comparatively slow speed at which these large battle aeroplanes can travel the task of bomb throwing is appreciably facilitated, and great accuracy of aim is assured.  The steady platform which the aeroplane offers enables the machine gun fire to be concentrated far more effectively than is the case with the average aeroplane.  Steadiness and low velocity in flight are a decided assistance to the sniper because he is an able to take his aim with greater deliberation.

Fermanagh Times August 19th, 1915.  BELLEEK.  A man named James William Elliott, belonging to the town land of Killymore, was admitted on Wednesday to the workhouse infirmary, Ballyshannon, suffering from concussion of the brain and other injuries, the result of accidentally falling off a horse near Belleek.

When two men were working in a bog in the townland of Corry, near Belleek, they discovered a firkin of butter, weighing about 56 lbs, buried to a depth of 8 feet, and in a good state of preservation.  It is supposed to have been deposited in the bog for a considerable time.

Impartial Reporter.  August 19th 1915.  DISPUTE ABOUT A PRIEST’S BURIAL.  The remains of the Rev. J.  O’Toole, P.  P., which were interned in the church grounds of Kilmeena, West Mayo, were taken up and reinterred during the night, it is presumed by some parishioners in a grave dug within the church itself.  The ecclesiastical authorities having given direction as to the place of burial within a few feet of the church, which is a small one, a deputation to the Most Rev. Dr. Higgins auxiliary Bishop of Tuam, requested that the dead priests should be buried in a spot which the deceased had indicated within the sacred edifice. Dr. Higgins said he could not depart from the directions of the Archbishop. Accordingly after Office and High Mass the internment took place outside the church. Although there were murmurs of dissatisfaction the people separated quietly. It is said about 35 men took part in the retransfer but none of the relatives of the deceased participated in it.

Impartial Reporter.  August 19th 1915.  A SERIOUS FRACAS IN ENNISKILLEN BARRACKS AND TWO MEN IN HOSPITAL.  On Tuesday night last a serious affray took place in the main barracks Enniskillen. A detachment numbering about 50 men arrived from the Dublin fusiliers and this party since they arrived do not seem to have been particularly happy in their new surroundings. It is a well-known fact that the north cannot get on very well with the south and vice versa and the Dublin men since their arrival in the north have shown their antipathy to the transfer. It seems that the party of Dublin men had some trouble among themselves and eventually a section barricaded a room against all comers.  The men on duty battered at the door and eventually succeeded in breaking an open.  So fierce was the opposition that the fire hose had to be turned upon the recalcitrant who seeing the position was hopeless surrendered.  Some 20 panes of glass were broken and two men had to be removed to hospital suffering from bayonet wounds and two others had minor wounds, principally cuts.  Seven men were arrested and put in the guardroom to await a court martial.  After their arrest the Dublin men cursed the Inniskillings and acted in rowdy manner while  being conveyed to the cells.

Impartial Reporter.  August 19th 1915.  CAN ENNISKILLEN HELP?  While Enniskillen has already nobly responded to the call for recruits and has given over 600 of its inhabitants to the fighting forces might it not also be the site for a proposed munitions factory.

Impartial Reporter.  August 26th 1915.  MORE GERMAN MURDERS.  The White Star liner Arabic outward bound for New York from Liverpool was torpedoed and sunk off the Cork Coast on Thursday morning.  The pirates gave no warning of the outrage and the vessel disappeared in 11 minutes, her side being torn out.  There were about to 426 persons aboard and of these 50 are missing, including six passengers and 44 of the crew.  This latest submarine outrage took place close to the scene of that which resulted in the sinking of the Lusitania with its awful death toll.

Impartial Reporter.  August 26th 1915.  PERSONAL.  The death of Captain James C.  Johnston, adjutant of the 6th Royal Irish Fusiliers was announced on Saturday and received with all the more regret as the last male in the direct line of the Johnston family of Magheramena Castle.  Captain Johnston was High Sheriff for the county in 1910 and during the last three years of the Aberdeen regime in the Irish Viceroyalty was Private Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant.  He was a fine soldier, and had served through the Boer campaign with the 14th Hussars.  The late Captain Johnston who was educated at Charterhouse and Sandhurst was a Resident Magistrate for County Meath. The deceased was a cousin to Major Johnston, Recruiting Officer, Enniskillen.

Rev. W. H. Massy recently Methodist Minister in Enniskillen, while riding a motor cycle was severely injured in a collision with a large motor car driven by a Belfast lad, and has been conveyed to the Cottage Hospital, Coleraine.

Second lieutenant Reg.  S.  Trimble, 6th Royal Irish Fusiliers, wounded and suffering from shock at the Dardanelles has been removed to the Military Hospital, the Citadel, Cairo.  Second lieutenant L.  Falls is in the same hospital suffering from wounds in the leg.

Impartial Reporter.  August 26th 1915.  SINN FEINERS IN TYRONE.  PRIEST ON THE PLATFORM.  On Sunday afternoon a mobilisation of several companies of the Irish Volunteers (the Sinn Fein section) took place at Carrickmore, County Tyrone when some 200 members, about 1/3 of who carried rifles, paraded under the command of Mr. McCrory, Clogher, the county instructor. A crowd of about 700-800 also assembled.  A police note taker was present, and a considerable force of constabulary drawn from a number of stations in the county was in attendance under the command of District Inspector Barrington, Dungannon and Head Constable Fallon.  At a public meeting, Rev. C Shortt, CC, Carrickmore presided.  The chairman said Mr. Redmond had slippery English politicians to deal with who would try to make them swallow the exclusion of Ulster but if he had control of the Volunteers he could say, I can’t oblige you for I have obstinate fellows behind me who are driving me on.  (Cheers.)

Fermanagh Herald August 21st 1915.  A telegram has been received from the War Office intimating that captain John Cecil Parke, of Clones, 6th Leinster Regiment, the well-known International footballer, was wounded at the Dardanelles on the 10th Inst..  Captain Parke is the well-known Irish rugby football and lawn tennis International.  He represented Ireland in the three-quarter line in all her Internationals for many seasons, frequently captaining the 15.  As a tennis player, he was perhaps the most brilliant player in the Three Kingdoms.  He was a member of the British team that won the Davis Cup in Australia, and subsequently captained the British team that went to America.

The relatives of Private Alex Armstrong, of Maguiresbridge, have learned from the War Office that he died of wounds in France.  He belonged to the 2nd Inniskillings.

Fermanagh Times August 26th, 1915.  IN MEMORY OF GALLANT INNISKILLING S.  DROWNED AT PORT ELIZABETH 60 YEARS AGO.  We are indebted to Mr. Arthur Rice, brother of our townsman, Mr. Edward Rice, for the following very interesting account of the unveiling of a memorial tablet recalling a pathetically tragic event in the career of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers so far back as three score years ago.  On the 11th of July in St. Mary’s Church, Port Elizabeth, the tablet erected by the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in memory of the members of the regiment who were lost in the wreck of the troopship, Charlotte, in 1854, was unveiled.  The prayer of dedication was recited by the Venerable Archdeacon Wirgman, after which the tablet was uncovered by Mrs. Dowsett, as the oldest parishioner of Saint Mary’s who remembers the wreck.  The tablet is erected close to the door and its inscription is as follows: In memory of 62 rank and file, 11 women and 26 children of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers who perished in the wreck of the Troopship Charlotte on the rocks at the end of Jesse Street, on September 20th, 1854.  This Tablet was placed here by the regiment, A.D. 1914.  R. I. P.

Fermanagh Times August 26th, 1915.  CATTLE DRIVING IN IRELAND.  Violent outbreaks of cattle driving have taken place in various northern parts of King’s County the occasion being the annual grass lettings.  The drivers wanted the lands let to them, which the owners refused.  200 extra police have been drafted into the affected districts.  58 of the drivers were yesterday returned for trial to the county assizes.

Fermanagh Times August 26th, 1915.  THE VALUE OF HORSES.  Owing to the stoppage of buying horses for the army, prices have fallen of greatly during the past month.  In many fairs recently, though the show of animals of all kinds on offer was considerable, very few business transactions took place.  Owners holding out for the high rates of three months ago when army purchasers were active failed to realise that the demand has slackened off.  Buyers in the trade are as anxious as ever to take horses at the normal prices.

Fermanagh Times August 26th, 1915.  THE EVIL OF SEPARATION ALLOWANCE.  Alice Harren, Head street, had three summonses, one for disorderly conduct and two for simple drunkenness, Acting–Sergeant McGowan and Constable Cryan were complainants.  Defendant said two of her sons had been killed and another son had come home wounded last week.  The R.M.  Are you in receipt of separation allowance?  Defendant – Yes18 shillings and four pence a week.  My two sons have been killed.  The R.M. – Is that the manner in which you pay respect to their memory by getting drunk.  A months imprisonment in the first case was ordered, and a fine of 40 shillings and costs in each of the other cases, the  Chairman remarking that defendant had been repeatedly warned.  Mary Love, Enniskillen was fined 20 shillings for drunkenness.  She was also in receipt of separation allowance and she was warned that if she came back there a recommendation would be made by the Bench to have the separation allowance stopped.

Fermanagh Times August 26th, 1915.  ANOTHER ATLANTIC LINER TORPEDOED.  THE WHITE STAR “ARABIC” SUNK WITH NO WARNING GIVEN.  The White Star Liner Arabic fell a victim to a German submarine on Thursday morning of the Fastnet.  She was torpedoed without warning, and foundered in 10 minutes.  The liner was on her way from Liverpool to New York, with a crew of 243 and 180 passengers.  Eleven of the ship’s boats were launched, and the occupants were picked up by another vessel.  Three hundred and ninety one persons are known to have been saved, leaving only 32 to be accounted for.  The Arabic is the first White Star Liner to have been sunk by a submarine.

Fermanagh Times August 26th, 1915.  ROLL OF HONOUR.  A FERMANAGH OFFICER KILLED.  CAPTAIN J. C. JOHNSTON, MAGHERAMENA.  A telegram has been received from the War Office to say that Captain J. C. Johnston, adjutant of the6th Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers, has been killed in action in the he Dardanelles.  Captain Johnston served through their Boer War with the 14thHussars, and was Private Secretary to the Earl of Aberdeen during the last three years of his Viceroyalty.  He was educated at Charterhouse and Sandhurst, and was recently appointed Resident Magistrates for the County of Meath.  His family residence was Magheramena Castle, County Fermanagh, of which county he was High Sheriff in the year 1910.

Second–Lieutenant R. S. Trimble, 6th Irish Fusiliers, wounded at the Dardanelles, is a son of Mr. W. C. Trimble, Enniskillen.  He was engaged with Messrs. Guinness, and was a member of the Wanderers Football Club.

Fermanagh Times August 26th, 1915.  THE HIDDEN DEATH.  HOW I SANK THE MAJESTIC AND TRIUMPH.  The New York Globe publishes the following description of the sinking of the British warships Triumph and Majestic off the Dardanelles given to its correspondent by Captain Otto Herzing, the commander of the German submarine, whom the correspondent describes as “a maker of world history.”

“In the early morning light we saw the Triumph and Majestic lying off the coast constantly encircled by destroyers.  Through the periscope I saw a destroyer coming directly for us.  We dived and the destroyer passed immediately over us with a sound like that of a motor car.  We came up immediately.  I took aim through the periscope at the Triumph, pressed the button automatically firing the torpedo, and the projectiles slipped noiselessly into the water.  We dived again.  The explosion which followed was as terrific as though it had been in the forepart of the submarine itself.

Then we lay hidden for two days and a half after which we came up again in the midst of the British ships.  Just before noon looking through the periscope, I saw the Majestic surrounded by 10 ships steaming around her in a constant circle for her protection.  I could see the Majestic Sailors on the deck taking their noonday nap.  Shall I disturb them?  I thought.  Then seeing a welcome space between the circling ships I pressed the electric button and the torpedo was going.  It caught the Majestic a little to the rear of amidships.  We dived again in silence.  It is remarkably quiet in a submarine when underwater, and we hear sounds, being able to distinguish various propellers by the different rumblings.  We noticed that the bombardment from the ships had ceased, for they had been shelling the Turkish land positions.  We remain submerged for several hours and then came to the surface to find that the British had disappeared, and all search for them was in vain.  We came to Constantinople, arriving yesterday morning having spent 42 days in the submarine without rest or let up. Captain Herzing’s record, declares the Globe correspondent is unique.  Aside from firing the first torpedo sinking a ship and sinking two more warships in the Dardanelles, he sank five English and French freighter ships which were in Havre last November.  The torpedo tube from which was fired the torpedo which sank the Pathfinder has been engraved with that name. Now the name Triumph has been added, while the name Majestic is engraved on the second tube.

Fermanagh Times August 26th, 1915.

THE HARVEST MEN OF DONEGAL.

The war has brought its humours; it has brought its horrors too,

Its horrors which have held the world in thrall;

But there is nothing more distressing to the Irishman who’s true,

Than the Harvestmen’s return to Donegal.

They were only asked to Register upon a certain date,

Their age and occupation – that was all;

Perhaps they might consent to earn good wages from the State,

These sturdy Harvestmen of Donegal.

Sure, the form wasn’t binding; it was well within their choice –

They were told – to still ignore the trumpets call;

But they were perverse to reason, they listened to no voice –

But the impulse to return to Donegal.

From Scotland’s fertile Lothians, from Ayrshire’s grainlands bright,

From Lancashire to Southern Cornwall;

They cleared off like silent Arabs, some in the dead of night,

Back to their little homes in Donegal.

Reviled and jeered and scorned by all who saw their flight,

At Greenock little kiddies tried to maul

These gallant Irish “Exiles” rushing on with all their might

To catch the boat en route for Donegal.

Their homes they reached in safely, though they gained ignoble fame;

Meanwhile they are free from any prying Paul,

For liberty’s a jewel oft known by another name

From the Police point of view – in Donegal.

The Huns may strangled Belgium, they made devastate fair France,

Our great empire may either stand or fall;

Such wrongs inspire no Harvestmen to take up gun or lance,

He’ll squat behind the hills of Donegal.

At Demonstrations he’ll be out arrayed in war paint green,

For freedoms glorious cause he’ll loudly bawl;

But Britain in the future should ignore his petty spleen,

For serfdom’s good enough for Donegal.

Fermanagh Times August 26th, 1915.  LISNASKEA CHILD’S DEATH.  The inquest was resumed by Mr. James Mulligan, J.P., coroner, on Monday night touching the death of the nine days old male child of Martha Burnes, a domestic servant.  The child, it seems, was left by the mother with a Mrs. Donaghy, at Derryadd, and on Mrs. Donaghy, junior, putting it into the cradle she found it was dead.  Medical evidence of the post-mortem examination showed that the body was emaciated and 2lb lighter than the average baby.  There was an extravasation of blood on the outside of the skull and a corresponding effusion on the brain, probably the result of a fall or a blow.  The viscera and other organs were forwarded to Mr. Patten, public analyst, Belfast, and he reported that he found no poisonous substance.  The Coroner commented on the action of the Lisnaskea Workhouse officials in refusing admission to the mother and child five days before its death.  The foreman Mr. McMahon said that if the mother and child had been admitted to the workhouse the child might have been alive yet.  The jury found that the deceased died from the effect of a blow or a fall on the skull, but how or by whom this was inflicted they had no evidence.  Private P.  McCormick, who at the outbreak of the war was porter in Lisnaskea Workhouse, has been wounded in the foot at the Dardanelles and now lies in hospital in Cairo.

Impartial Reporter.  August 26th 1915.  DARDANELLES.  THE LANDING AT SUVLA BAY.  The landing at Suvla Bay was a complete and staggering surprise for the Turks who had been expecting a new attack on the Asiatic side.  Never in military operations have any enemy been so hoodwinked.  On the appointed night warships, transports, destroyers and trawlers arrived at Suvla Bay and disembarked the troops when the Turks were all waiting feverishly for an attack on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles.  Every soldier carried three days’ rations as well as trenching tools.  As the men landed they advanced 6 miles inland.  Daylight came and still the work was proceeding with the greatest possible speed.  Artillery and supplies and vast quantities were put on shore and still no opposition was experienced.  The warships were silent and for 24 hours the operation was carried out without a single shot from big gun or rifle being fired. The Turks rushed forces to the spot and on the second night both sides dug themselves in, fought for position in groups with bayonets and even with entrenching tools.  It is estimated that 700,000 were brought up by the enemy.  In the morning light a terrific battle began.  Strong bodies of troops thrown against several points of the British lines were hurled back.  All day long the lines of the fighting men turned and twisted turned and twisted again but never broke.

(From Wikipedia) The landing at Suvla Bay was an amphibious landing made at Suvla on the Aegean coast of Gallipoli peninsula in the Ottoman Empire as part of the August Offensive, the final British attempt to break the deadlock of the Battle of Gallipoli. The landing, which commenced on the night of 6 August 1915, was intended to support a breakout from the Anzac sector, five miles (8 km) to the south. Despite facing light opposition, the landing at Suvla was mismanaged from the outset and quickly reached the same stalemate conditions that prevailed on the Anzac and Helles fronts. On 15 August, after a week of indecision and inactivity, the British commander at Suvla, Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Stopford was dismissed. His performance in command was one of the most incompetent feats of generalship of the First World War.

The Suvla landing was to be made by the newly formed British IX Corps, initially comprising two brigades of the 10th (Irish) Division and the entire 11th (Northern) Division. Command of IX Corps was given to Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Stopford. British military historian J.F.C. Fuller said of Stopford that he had “no conception of what generalship meant” and indeed he was appointed not on his experience (he had seen little combat and had never commanded men in battle) or his energy and enthusiasm (he was aged 61 and had retired in 1909) but because of his position on the list of seniority. Hamilton had requested either Lieutenant-General Julian Byng or Lieutenant-General Henry Rawlinson, both experienced Western Front corps commanders, but both were junior to Lieutenant-General Sir Bryan Mahon, commander of the 10th Division and so, by a process of elimination, Stopford was selected.