Grave Visitations

Over the past month I have accompanied my father to two church graveyards. On the first occasion he wanted to visit the grave of paternal great grandparents who had died in the middle of the nineteenth century. The headstone is made of Welsh slate and originally rested on four squat stone legs. The two at the front of the grave have been removed or disintegrated with the result that the stone now lies at a slight angle. The term for this style of headstone is I think, "table."

Neither great grandparent lived to a great age passing away when aged thirty seven years and forty two years respectively. Their daughter and only child Anne, (my father's grandmother) and who was born in 1842 was made a ward of court and was subsequently brought up by a distant relative who resided in the vicinity of Ballyshannon, Co Donegal. Family history would have it that her guardian somehow managed to get her funds mixed up with his funds but that any unpleasantness was resolved by a house being built for her and her husband.

Our second cemetery outing was to St Columb's Parish Church, Moville, (Moville Lower).This time my father wished to visit the grave of a youth by the name of Jack Bennett who had died on 1st August 1941 aged fifteen as the result of a swimming accident. His father William Bennett was the local chemist. My father had attended the funeral almost seventy six years ago. He and Jack were both pupils at Foyle, Jack a boarder and my father, two years his junior, a day boy.

Winter Sunshine Run

It may be mid winter but occasionally, just occasionally the fourth season of the year provides a bright and dry day even if the temperature is tending towards negative territory. Yesterday was one of those rare pet days. Having crossed the international border to avail of the twenty pence per litre saving in the price of diesel I decided to continue my journey into the South in a northerly direction towards Moville. It calls itself a town but in terms of population it is really a village. I prefer villages to towns. Cities are even further down my like list.

I parked at Montgomery Terrace overlooking Lough Foyle. When he was a young man my grandfather spent the summer months in Moville travelling to his work in Londonderry every morning by streamboat and taking the same route back in the early evening. It is strange to think that that was some one hundred and fifteen years ago. I suspect that it was the S S Seamore that he travelled on. It was one of the tenders that met the American liners just off Moville.

I have walked a portion of the shore walk from Moville to Greencastle on several occasions but never the full distance. It isn't that far perhaps two and a half miles. I decided to run along the path as part of my training run. It takes one past several Victorian villas. Up until seven or eight years ago the owners of the largest of these shoreside residences had a small herd of deer in their fields. I was able to make good time over the first half of the route but thereafter I had to cross various small beaches and traverse rather rocky portions. Rather than retrace my steps I ran through Greencastle up onto the top road and from thence back to Moville completing my 10k at the harbour. A strange sculpture has been erected at the end of the pier. I'm not sure what it is meant to represent but it looks a bit like a fishing float. I have probably misinterpreted the symbolism!

 

 

Sunday Morning on the Road

Not for me a lazy Sunday morning under the duvet no matter how attractive that might have seemed when the alarm went off at 6.50am. This was not to be a day of rest but rather a race day. Thankfully I had cadged a lift from a team mate who lives about fifteen miles distant so I didn't have to drive the whole way to the race venue.

I should probably have allowed myself another ten or so minutes but 6.50am seemed to be very early. The hens certainly thought it early. They weren't exactly champing at the beak to toddle down the ladder from their coop when I opened the door to the great outside for them. By the time I had filled their drinker and consumed two of their eggs for my breakfast I was running a few minutes late. Still I got to the pick up point more or less on time.

The locus for the race was in Co Donegal. The distance five kilometres. Three hundred and five individuals traipsed around the course. A bit early in the day for a fast run and the near freezing temperatures didn't help. I can't say that I had a great race but I didn't make an idiot of myself so a sort of result. Two hundred and seventy eight individuals finished behind me. The age category results haven't been published as yet but I would be reasonably confident that I have managed to hold off my contemporaries. Here's hoping!

 

 

A Beach and a Moment.

I ventured a few miles up the east coast of the Innishowen peninsula yesterday. There was no real reason for this excursion save the perennial ache for solitude and a desire to be outside, free from the stultifying gloop of people and the nagging worry of reality.

I walked along the shingle beach picking my way through the seaweed thrown up by the last high tide. The day was sunny. You could feel the spring warmth on your skin but there was also a freshness in the air. The light breeze was blowing on shore pushing away any noise from the coastal road and easing back that close fitting skull casing of tension. A solitary oyster catcher paddled vigorously across the mud and silt uncovered by the receding tide. At the junction of mud and water rows of gaunt fence like structures stretched into the Lough. The features of the coastline opposite to me were indistinct, slightly blurred by haze, the view that greets the myope every day.

I see someone else lurch down onto the shingle. Solitude is shattered. The moment is gone. The tension returns.

 

A Swilly Visit.

 

 

I spent today visiting a haunt that was a place of regular visitation in my childhood. My maternal grandparents took me there many times in the early 1960's. The locus for these halcyon days out was Fahan beach on the shores of Lough Swilly.

 

It is nearly fifty years since my grandfather drove me down the side road from the main arterial route to Buncrana in his spanking new Hillman Minx. Time has not been kind to the old wooden pier. It is now a decaying wooden skeleton. I remember the smell of freshly caught fish and consuming them back at my grandparents' home. There was a large rowing boat which ferried passengers across to Rathmullan. Long gone.

 

The sands that I remember have been much altered by the creation of what is called the Lough Swilly Marina. It is operational but money must have run out during the construction. There is a skeletal building which echoes the state of the old wooden pier and the surrounding lands are an unkempt building site. Not a pretty sight.

 

 

 

 

Culdaff in the Sun

 

 

With the spell of good weather continuing I shoehorned the aged parents into my horseless carriage on Thursday and headed off into the heat. They had expressed a preference for a coastal destination so I determined upon Cudaff in County Donegal as an appropriate venue.

 

The temperature was more akin to the Mediterranean than the most northerly county of what is now the Republic of Ireland. We parked at Bunagee Pier which overlooks the beach. A fishing boat was unloading a catch of lobsters swiftly followed by the now empty, "pots." A youngish papa circled the bay on a jet ski accompanied by his slightly terrified children. He was enjoying himself and his offspring were dam well going to enjoy themselves!

 

Overlooking the pier is a now disused RNLI station. The funds to erect the station were provided by a Mrs Montgomery of the Views, Littleover, Derby in memory of her only son, William Arthur Patrick who died on 12th April 1891. In view of the relative proximity to Moville, it strikes me that the deceased may have been related to the Field Marshall's family.

 

Inishowen in the Sun

A spell of good weather does seem to invigorate people. It certainly has pepped up the aged parents. They were sufficiently energised by the present mild spell to indicate that they would quite like to sally forth from their abode. Accordingly I collected them in my horseless charabanc yesterday afternoon and we headed off into the sun kissed afternoon. They had expressed a preference for the delights of the Inishowen peninsula and I accordingly set forth in that direction.

 

Here and there an occasional thin strand of cirrus cloud drifted across the sky but that apart its bright blueness stretched towards the hazy horizon. The waters of the Lough were contentedly flat save where the wake from a small trawler disturbed the meniscus. The traffic was light, the temperature on the comfortable side of fresh, a comfortable day for car travel.

 

The route taken was familiar to both myself and my parents although not one that they have been on for some years. They recalled previous trips and the frequent visits to an elderly cousin of my father's who lived in Greencastle until his death in the early nineteen seventies. I was regaled,(and not for the first time), about how my grandfather had spent his summers in Moville and travelled to and from work in Londonderry on the paddle steamer the SS Seamore. It does seem a long time ago, - a different world with a different pace of life, - and it was. The Great War was still fourteen years in the future.