The Little Book of Fermanagh (eBook)

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FASCINATING FACTS
ABOUT FERMANAGH

Local historian Seamus McCanny says Van Morrison wrote ‘Brown Eyed Girl’on a piano in Derrygonnelly. A recording of it was released while he was 22 and his solo career was still in its infancy. The original title was ‘Brown Skinned Girl’, but Morrison said he made a mistake and changed the name when he’d finished recording in June 1967. It became his first American top ten single and has become a standard that gets frequent airplay, although Morrison is on record as saying, ‘I’ve got about 300 songs I think are better.’ It was listed at 109 on the Rolling Stone magazine list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in November 2004, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2007.

I visited Derrygonnelly to see if I could find out more about the ‘Brown Eyed Girl’. I started by visiting the Leginn Cornmill and Miller’s Cottage; it’s a quaint place but nobody could give me any information. I began questioning people in the main street and drew blanks until a man with an English accent said: ‘I think you’ll find it was written in a bar.’ The main street in Derrygonnelly has several, with the Old Pal’s Bar a likely-looking place to start. It is full of character, not gentrified or updated, and it had a helpful barman, Stephen Donaldson.

When asked if Van Morrison had written ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ in Derrygonnelly, Stephen replied:

After showing me the photograph, Stephen added: ‘I believe that photo was taken by Gerald Flanagan and used on the dust cover of the original recording of “Brown Eyed Girl”.’

According to Stephen, shortly afterwards Van and Gerald went to America and struck up a deal with a record company. The rest is history. ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ topped the American hit parade. Unfortunately, Van and Gerald had some kind of serious disagreement and are no longer friends. As for the identity of the brown eyed girl? Natives of Derrygonnelly suspect they know who she is! She’s still alive and well and living there!

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Local tradition states that the blind harper, Turlough O’Carolan (1688–1738), composed America’s national anthem, the ‘Star Spangled Banner’.

O’Carolan was born near Nobber in County Meath. He was the son of a local farmer and blacksmith who went to work with the MacDermott Roe family. Mrs MacDermott befriended the young lad and gave him an education. When he was 18 years old he contracted smallpox, which destroyed his sight so he couldn’t earn a living by farming. He had a gift for writing poetry and for music, so it was decided the best thing he could do was earn a living by using his talents.

MacDermott Roe taught him to play a harp. Mrs MacDermott gave him a horse, a harp and some money and he began a career as an itinerant musician. He quickly became well known and travelled the length and breadth of Ireland. He entertained guests in the ‘big houses’ because music was a way for the Anglo–Irish to keep connected with the Gaelic world after ‘the flight of the earls’ in 1607.

O’Carolan loved Fermanagh and spent many happy days there. It was there, while visiting Tempo Manor, he met Mary Maguire. The couple fell in love, married and produced six daughters and one son. O’Carolan was heartbroken when Mary died in 1733. He died in 1738.

O’Carolan was a gifted composer as well as a superb harper. He wrote variations on many old tunes, including Scottish songs such as ‘Cock up your Beaver’ and ‘When She Cam Ben’ as well as composing new tunes, such as ‘Planxty Maguire’, written for Cuchonnacht Maguire, the son of Brian Maguire who swore allegiance to James I of England after the ‘flight of the earls’ and was granted 2,000 acres of land around Tempo.

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Australian author Andrew Barton ‘Banjo’ Patterson wrote the most recognisable of Australian songs, ‘Waltzing Matilda’. He was the great-grandson of General Barton from Pettigo.

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Roslea Hero won the All-Ireland Donkey Derby three times. This achievement is remarkable because donkeys have a reputation for being stubborn and unpredictable. That fact is emphasised by a story a young girl once told me about entering a donkey derby. She was very excited; she loved horses and wanted to become a famous jockey so she entered her pet donkey into an old nags’ race to get experience. She and her donkey were doing well until disaster struck. She recalled:

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Meredith Frank Maguire, a Member of Parliament, changed the course of British history when his casting vote led to Margaret Thatcher coming to power in 1979.

Frank was an Irish Republican and an Independent Member of the British Parliament at Westminster. Born into a Republican family, he was interned during his youth for Irish Republican activities. In later life he opposed violence but remained close to the Republican movement. He ran a public house, called Frank’s Bar, in Lisnaskea and in October 1974 he was elected, as a unity candidate, to represent Fermanagh and Tyrone.

Sinn Fein Members of Parliament do not recognise the British Parliament and refuse to take up seats in Westminster. Frank was an independent and took up his seat but his attendances were infrequent. He never made a full speech but he did cast some crucial votes supporting the Labour government during the 1970s. However, he is famous for ‘abstaining in person’, which brought the Labour government of James Callaghan down. The government lost by a single vote (311 votes to 310). This forced a general election, which was won by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party.

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Paddy Monaghan from Ederney, Fermanagh, befriended Muhammad Ali and became known as Paddy-Ali.

At the time Paddylived in Saxton Road, (one of the worst streets) in Abingdon, near Oxford in England. Paddy was a bare-knuckle boxing champion. He thought the American Government’s action of stripping Ali of his world heavyweight boxing title in 1967 because he refused to fight in the Vietnam War was outrageous. He coined the phrase ‘people’s champion’ to describe Ali, organised a petition that eventually contained 22,024 signatures and wrote to President Nixon to object.

Ali was so grateful he visited Paddy at his home in Abingdon, which was a tiny terraced house. He caused a sensation; the police couldn’t hold the crowds back and the army had to be called in.

Ali entertained local children by doing magic tricks. He signed autographs, sparred with local boys, including Paddy-Ali’s 16-year-old son, and had tea with the Monaghans. The two men struck up a close friendship during which Ali suggested Paddy-Ali move to the US, but Paddy-Ali declined because of family ties. He eventually left England and moved back to Ireland.

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Folklore says Noah had a grandson called Beith. After the great flood Beith landed on Carnmore Point in County Fermanagh in an ark filled with the world’s most beautiful women. Local tradition says the women fell in love with local men, resulting in the legendary beauty of Irish women.

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Neil Armstrong (5 August 1930–12 August 2012), the first man to step on the moon, had ancestors who came from County Fermanagh. Robert Armstrong, from Lisnaskea, was Neil Armstrong’s grandfather’s brother. Neil Armstrong also had ancestors from Irvinestown. The Armstrongs were among the border reivers evicted from Scotland and planted in County Fermanagh during the early seventeenth century. (Reivers caused mayhem by conducting raids along the border between England and Scotland.)

Armstrong, when he took his first step on the moon, is supposed to have said, ‘That was one small step for a man and one giant leap for mankind.’ Years later he confessed his first words were ‘Good luck Mr Jones!’ because when he was a child he had an arrangement with his next-door neighbours, the Joneses, that if his ball landed in their garden he was allowed to go and collect it without asking for permission.

One evening he went to retrieve his ball and heard the Joneses shouting at each other through an open window. Mr Jones wanted sex and Mrs Jones didn’t! She yelled, ‘I won’t have sex with you until a man walks on the Moon!’ Armstrong didn’t want to embarrass his old neighbours so kept...