The Little Book of Antrim E-Book

Barry Flynn

• Herausgeber: THP Ireland
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 214

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Did You Know? - Overlooking Ballymena, Slemish Mountain was believed to be the first home of St Patrick in Ireland. His footprint is said to be indented in a stone close to Skerry churchyard. - The 'sport' of rat racing thrived on the shores of Lough Neagh in the 1960s, with the annual championships taking place in Norman Wilson's bar in the main street of Crumlin. - In January 1998, a 16-year-old Glengormley schoolgirl became one of the youngest National Lottery millionaires when she picked up £1,055,101 for choosing the six winning numbers. The Little Book of Antrim is a compendium of fascinating, obscure, strange and entertaining facts about County Antrim. Here you will find out about Antrim's people and places, its business and industry, its spectacular coasts and glens and its proud sporting heritage. Across quaint villages and bustling towns, this book takes the reader on a journey through County Antrim and its vibrant past. A reliable reference book and a quirky guide, this can be dipped into time and again to reveal something new about the people, the heritage and the secrets of this ancient county.

Leseprobe

To Katrina, Meabh and Deirbhile

First published 2016

This edition 2024

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Text © Barry Flynn, 2016

Illustrations © Conor McClure, 2016

The right of Barry Flynn to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 75096 972 7

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Introduction

  1. People and Places of Note

  2. Strange Happenings in County Antrim

  3. Politics, Skulduggery and Intrigue

  4. Crime and Punishment

  5. A Sporting County

  6. An Entertaining Heritage

  7. A Religious and Pious Legacy

  8. Famine, Hunger and Hardship

  9. Along Coast and Glens

10. Culture and History Galore

11. A Past of Tragedy and Disaster

12. Business, Industry and Engineering

13. Miscellaneous Musings from the North East

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank Tourism NI for permission to reproduce a number of its images within this book.

INTRODUCTION

County Antrim is a thing of beauty. From Rathlin Island to the Cave Hill and from the glorious glens to the shores of Lough Neagh, the county is blessed with epic scenery, history and folklore. Scratch the surface and you will find a rich tapestry of stories and this book hopefully has uncovered a hidden tale or two.

Physically Antrim can be breath-taking. At its northern tip lies the UNESCO-recognised world heritage site of the Giant’s Causeway. Famously, Dr Samuel Johnson declared that the causeway was, ‘Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see’, yet many tens of thousands of tourists each year would beg to differ.

The famous Antrim Coast Road, built by hand by the ‘men of the Glynnes’, is considered one of the great tourist routes of the world. Overlooking the road, the nine green glens exude splendour as they sweep down dramatically to the sea.

Inland, Slemish Mountain remains synonymous with St Patrick and the origins of Christianity in Ireland. While despite Antrim’s outward beauty, its many castles and forts remind us of a fraught history of warfare and division.

Within the county lies also the world’s oldest licenced whiskey distillery, the superb Gobbins Cliff Path and, of course, a large tract of the Victorian city of Belfast. Indeed, did you know that the only bridge to span the Atlantic Ocean can be found at Carrick-a-Rede? It was famously described by William Hamilton as, ‘A whimsical little fishing rock, connected to the mainland by a flying bridge.’

At Ballycastle, the Auld Lammas Fair, Ireland’s oldest traditional fair, still takes place on the last Monday and Tuesday in August. It is an event celebrated famously in song, while the local delicacies of dulse and ‘yella man’ still do a roaring trade.

However, this book is also about the people who have brought fame to the county. Antrim has produced men and women who have changed the world; people who have excelled in business, sport, politics, the arts and sciences.

At another level, there are thousands of stories seldom told of people who have contributed to the diverse chronicle of the county. Stories of strange and mysterious occurrences, witchcraft, misfortune, poverty, hunger and skulduggery – some good, some bad and some eye-opening anecdotes in the extreme. There are stories of rebels, rodents, rogues and robbers; chancers, convicts and champions. They have all contributed to the rich tapestry that tells the story of Ireland’s green gem of the North East.

1

PEOPLE AND PLACES OF NOTE

LOUGH NEAGH AND RAM’S ISLAND

Lough Neagh washes the shores of Antrim’s inner coastline and covers an expanse of 100,000 acres, making it the largest lake in the British Isles. It remains in the ownership of the Earl of Shaftesbury, who, in 2012, indicated that he was hoping to meet with a Stormont working group to assess the possibility of bringing the lough into public ownership. The origin of the lough is surrounded by fable. The most popular of the legends centres around giant Finn McCool, who is said to have lifted a chunk of Ulster and sent it flying into the Irish Sea. The clod became the Isle of Man, while the huge hole left behind became Lough Neagh.

Ram’s Island, which lies a mile off the shore near Glenavy, was originally a monastic settlement and its ruined tower is testament to that period. The tower itself is just over 40ft high and is similar to those found throughout Ireland. In the winter of 1879, Charles Kingsley, the distinguished naturalist and author of The Water Babies, visited the island. His visit coincided with one of the coldest winters on record and he was able to skate across the lough to Ram’s Island. He recalled, ‘Ram’s Island reached and the round tower explored, we returned again to the Antrim shore, where games of various kinds and skating were indulged.’ It is believed that 1879 was the third time during that century that the lough had frozen over.

During Victorian times, a summer house was constructed by Lord O’Neill and was set in an exotic garden. During the Second World War, the island was a favourite haunt for soldiers of the US Army at Langford Lodge. However, vandalism was rife and one night during the war arsonists visited the island and burned down the summer house.

HILDEN’S WORLD-FAMOUS THREAD MILL

The world-renowned Barbour linen thread works were established in Lisburn in 1784 by John Barbour, who was originally from Scotland. In 1817, his son, William, bought a bleaching green at nearby Hilden and the workforce expanded rapidly. The family built a model village for the workers, which consisted of 350 houses, two schools, a community hall and a village sports ground. However, despite its tranquil setting on the banks of the River Lagan, all was not as peaceful as it seemed.

The arrival of a strolling fiddler in Hilden on Monday 10 August 1858 was to have devastating consequences for local millworkers Owen Hughes and James Kelly. Being in a cheerful mood, the two men asked the fiddler to perform at a local house and the musical entertainment lasted until eleven that evening when two neighbours, father and son, John and Alexander Martin, arrived to complain about the noise. On threatening to fetch Mr Barbour, the mill owner, a fight ensued in the street during which Hughes and Kelly were stabbed and died. At court, Alexander Martin was found guilty of manslaughter, while his father John was acquitted.

THE ‘FORT OF THE GAMBLERS’

The town of Lisburn, together with Newry, was afforded city status in 2002 by Queen Elizabeth II as part of her Golden Jubilee celebrations. Lisburn’s name derives from the Irish Lios na gCearrbhach, meaning ‘ring fort of the gamblers’. It became known as Lisnagarvey, and eventually Lisburn. The original ring fort of the gamblers was thought to have been located on the northern side of the city’s Wallace Park. The name Lisnagarvey is preserved in the name of the local hockey club and high school.

ARMOY ROUND TOWER

A classic example of an Irish round tower is situated in Armoy, 6 miles south of Ballycastle, and dates back to the eleventh century when Viking raids were frequent in the area. Its door, at 5ft 9in high and merely 19in wide, is claimed to be the narrowest round-tower door in Ireland. It stands 5ft off the ground, but would have been higher when constructed since the surrounding land has ‘risen’ due to the thousands of burials that have taken place in the adjoining graveyard. The tower was excavated in the 1840s by Edmund Getty, who discovered a skull still attached to its spinal column, which is thought to have belonged to an ancient chieftain killed in battle. The tower today is a ruined stump, standing currently at 36ft in height; the original tower was estimated to have been over 60ft high. In 1997, excavations under the existing church uncovered the feet of a medieval leper – he must have been a powerful figure since he was permitted a burial on consecrated land. The neighbouring St Patrick’s Church of Ireland parish church was built in 1820 and is on the site of the original church founded in AD 460 by St Olcan, a disciple of Patrick.

DR GRAHAM’S LUNATIC ASYLUM

In December 1825, an advertisement appeared in the Belfast News Letter seeking a site for the Antrim and Down Lunatic Asylum. The advert stressed that the grounds ‘should be within a mile of Belfast, not containing less than six acres, and having the command of a plentiful supply of spring water’. Within a year, the Commissioners of Lunatic Asylums in Ireland had secured a site which was formerly the home of Joseph Stevenson at Springfield, on the Falls Road in Belfast. The site, which was at the junction of the modern-day Falls and Grosvenor roads, was opened in May 1829. A notice appeared in local papers informing that, ‘The Directors will consider applications for admission on the first Monday of every month by form of application which may be had from the Manager, Mr Cummings, either personally any day, between the hours of ten and four o’clock, or by letter, post-paid’. The entry criteria was quite strict, confining admissions to those cases which come strictly under the denomination of ‘lunatics or the class of idiots’, with persons suffering from epilepsy ‘under no circumstances being received’.

By the late 1890s, the asylum had become known as ‘Graham’s Home’, named after Dr William Graham, who was superintendent at the facility during that period. Graham had studied mental health in London and in 1896 he succeeded Dr Merrick as resident medical superintendent. He developed a humanitarian reputation as a man who had deep sympathy for his patients. Graham was obliged to present a yearly report on the asylum which was published in most of the Irish daily papers. In local folklore in Belfast, the name of ‘Graham’s Home’ is immortalised in the phrase uttered by many a distressed mother to her troublesome children: ‘You’ll have me ready for Graham’s home.’

The home was succeeded by a newer development on the outskirts of south Belfast at Purdysburn, while the site of ‘Graham’s Home’ is now incorporated within the Royal Victoria Hospital. In 1949, the estate known as The Abbey, Muckamore, near Antrim town, was purchased by the Northern Ireland Hospitals’ Authority for use as a ‘colony for treatment of mentally-retarded persons’. Over the next twenty years, over £1 million was spent developing the settlement, which had room for 1,000 persons. Planned on the ‘villa’ system, Muckamore contained a farm, workshops and a cinema.

KILLEAD’S APACHE HUNTER

Born in Killead in 1793, James Kirker emigrated from Ireland to New York in 1810 and soon found work as a fur trader in New Mexico. Despite working closely with members of the local Apache tribe, he took up a position as a bounty hunter with the Mexican government, who employed him to track down members of the Apache tribe who were involved in cattle raids. Kirker led a paramilitary force with gusto against the ‘troublesome’ Apaches during the mid-1840s and claimed the scalps of 500 warriors at a dividend of $200 a head – the bounty for a woman’s scalp was $50 and for a child’s scalp it was $25.

BILLY THE KID – ALIAS ‘KID ANTRIM’

Apart from the infamous nickname ‘Billy the Kid’, William H. Bonney was known as Henry McCarty and by the nickname ‘Kid Antrim’. His mother, Catherine McCarty, was born in County Antrim in 1829 and emigrated to New York during the Great Famine in 1846. In the United States, she married William Harrison Bonney and ‘The Kid’ was born in New York in 1859. Billy’s natural father died in 1862 and his mother then moved to New Mexico where, ironically, she married a William Antrim.

TEMPLEPATRICK’S CYCLING STAR

The name Edward ‘Teddy’ Hale may not be widely remembered in the cycling world, but in 1896 he was simply untouchable in the sport. That year he won the world-famous ‘Garden Six’ endurance race in New York, which was considered at that time to be the toughest endurance race in the world. Said to have been born in Templepatrick in 1864, Hale, who competed for the Lainsborough Bicycle Club, had become the unofficial European champion earlier that year when he won the Continental Endurance Race in Berlin. He was then invited to enter the world-famous American Madison Square Garden six-day cycle race in December 1896.

The race, which took place between 7 and 13 December, saw the cream of world cycling battle it out for the ultimate prize in the sport, with the winner being the rider who covered the longest distance over the oval course. At 10 p.m. on 13 December, as the band struck up ‘The Wearin’ of the Green’, 10,000 spectators cheered wildly as Hale was declared the winner, having completed 1,911 miles over the course. He had beaten the runner-up, Albert Schock of the United States, by over 300 miles and claimed the $1,300 prize with ease. The race itself was characterised by riders pushing themselves to the limit, often suffering from hallucinations and delusions. Hale, who had smoked countless cigarettes throughout the event to relieve the boredom, was feted for his achievements by many Irish-American societies. He continued to compete in endurance races, but his physical exertions were thought to have contributed to his untimely death at the age of 47 in 1911.

KENNETH MCARTHUR –HERO FROM DERVOCK

Born in County Antrim in 1881, Kennedy Kane (Kenneth) McArthur’s greatest sporting triumph came on 14 July 1912, when he won gold in the marathon at the Stockholm Olympic Games. He grew up in Dervock and attended the local national school before becoming a postman, known affectionately in the area as ‘Big Ken’. In 1899, he joined the Irish Rifles and served in South Africa and, after the Boer War, decided to stay, joining the Baden Powell police constabulary.

Standing at 6ft 3in, McArthur took up running at a late age and became a successful cross-country competitor, being chosen to represent South Africa at the 1912 Olympics. The marathon that year was run in sweltering conditions, but the big Antrim man took the lead towards the end of the race and beat his fellow countryman Christian Gitsham for the gold medal. As he ran towards the finishing line, a northern accent in the crowd was said to have shouted, ‘Come on, Antrim! Come on, ye boy ye!’

On his way back to South Africa, McArthur stopped off to see his father at Dervock, where huge crowds gathered to salute their hero. In Ballymoney, he was carried on the shoulders of the crowd to the town hall where a large bronze plaque was unveiled in McArthur’s honour. He was an exceptional character, who battled constantly against weight problems and had a love of pipe-smoking. He died in South Africa in June 1960 and his name is preserved by the athletics stadium in the town of Potchefstroom.

In his honour, the Olympic torch was paraded through Dervock in 2012 in the run-up to the London Olympic Games. A blue plaque was erected in his memory by the Ulster History Circle in Dervock in 2011.

PADDY BREAKSTHE CYCLING RECORD

The month of August 1952 was one of the wettest on record. However, the inclement weather did not deter Ballycastle cyclist Paddy McNeilly from breaking an Irish record by cycling from Mizen Head in Cork to Ballycastle in 21 hours, 2 minutes and 30 seconds. The plumber set off on the 384-mile journey on the afternoon of 16 August and rode through a stormy night to break the previous record by 1 hour and 12 minutes. Cheered on by crowds along the way, 33-year‑old Paddy was even afforded free passage by customs men who shouted encouragement as he crossed the border near Newry. He arrived in Ballycastle on Sunday afternoon. Hundreds of locals and holidaymakers greeted him with roars of approval. One observer noted when Paddy’s new record time was declared, ‘Why that is faster than we could have come by train.’

CHARLESTOWN HIBERNIAN HALL

A little piece of County Antrim is preserved outside the Hibernian Hall in Charlestown, South Carolina, where a pillar from the Giant’s Causeway greets visitors. The pillar was brought to Charlestown in 1851 and sits behind the fence on the porch and is inscribed, ‘A section from one of the pillars of the Giants Causeway, County Antrim, Ireland – 1851’. The hall was built in 1801 and contains a panel adorned with a harp over its doorway. The Hibernian Society of Charlestown is still active and meets regularly, electing a president every two years, alternating between a representative of the city’s Catholic and Protestant residents.

2

STRANGE HAPPENINGS IN COUNTY ANTRIM

THE CRUMLIN METEORITE – 1902

Situated 12 miles to the west of Belfast, the relative tranquillity of the town of Crumlin was disturbed on the morning of 13 September 1902, when a large meteorite landed on the farm of Mr William Walker.

Situated at Crosshill to the north of the town, Walker’s farmhands were reaping the harvest when a loud explosion occurred 20 yards from where John Adams was picking apples. The noise of the explosion was heard 13 miles away in Lurgan. Adams, after composing himself, no doubt, began digging out the large smoking and hissing stone, which had embedded itself a foot deep in the soil. The 9.5lb meteorite was still warm an hour after it had been recovered and was described as being the size of a football. It was the largest meteorite to have fallen on the British Isles since 1795. Most of its associated debris is believed to have landed in nearby Lough Neagh. A resident of the village, Mrs Ethel Walker, told the press that the noise the meteorite had created on landing persuaded many locals that ‘Judgement Day’ had arrived. The meteorite soon came to the attention of collectors and, despite being keen to hold onto the artefact, William Walker was persuaded to sell it to Mr L. Fletcher of the British Natural History Museum and it has been on exhibition since then, in its central hall in London.

UNPRODUCTIVE SEARCH FORTHE JEWELS OF AN EMPEROR

Treasure-hunting expeditions do not spring to mind when considering the coastal town of Cushendall. However, in 1933, six men from the area set sail as part of an expedition on the Salvor in an attempt to find the missing ship, the Merida, which lay 200ft underwater 60 miles off Cape Charles, Virginia. The ship sank in 1911, with a loss of $2 million worth of Mexican gold, silver, copper and the jewels of the Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlotta of Mexico. The crew of the Salvor had invested their life savings to be part of the expedition; they had been promised a twentyfold return should the treasure be recovered. The County Antrim men were Malcolm and Charles McCambridge, John McElheron, John and James McKeegan, all from Cushendall, and John Hyndman from Glenariffe.

The search for the lost ship began in late 1932 under the command of Captain Harry L. Bowdein, who had secured financial backing for his project from Wall Street bankers, including Percy Rockefeller and Vincent Astor. Owing to the risk of attack by pirates, the crew were heavily armed and prohibited from writing detailed letters home. Hopes were high that the treasure had been found and, in August 1933, it was reported that the ship’s safe had been uncovered. However, nothing was found and the expedition ended in failure. The men returned to a humble life in the Glens in November, with their dreams of riches shattered. It was discovered that the ship had already been plundered and the journey had been in vain.

A HIGH-SOCIETY SCANDAL

The whiff of high-society scandal was in the air at the Dundarave Estate, near Bushmills, in December 1882, when Sir Francis Edmund Workman Macnaghten filed for divorce due to his wife’s infidelity. Sir Francis, 3rd Baronet and Chief of the Clan Macnaghten, was a Conservative-Unionist politician with a fine military career. He had married Alice Mary Russell in 1868 and they had four children. Lady Macnaghten was twenty years her husband’s junior and they were very much part of the Irish aristocracy. Their marriage was an unhappy one.

In December 1882, Sir Frederick arrived home early from a shooting expedition to discover that a local land agent, Frederick Thornhill, was present in his wife’s bedroom. A row ensued and Macnaghten ordered Thornhill to leave the house, only for Lady Macnaghten to beg her husband to let him stay for dinner; otherwise the servants would ‘gossip’. Sir Francis relented, but the following day he returned home to find that he wife had left for Dublin with Thornhill. Travelling post-haste to Dublin, Francis traced the couple a week later to the Royal Hotel in Bray. He begged his wife to come home. However, she was not keen on reconciliation and refused to read letters he had brought from her children begging her to return. The divorce case was heard at the High Court in London in February 1883, where Sir Francis was granted a decree nisi due to his wife’s infidelity – or, as it was reported in the papers, ‘her misconduct’.

ANTRIM TOWN LEFTWITHOUT WATER

While August 1952 was one of the wettest in recent decades, July that year was one of the driest. In Antrim town, the 15-million-gallon-capacity reservoir which supplied the town ran dry for the first time in living memory. A majority of houses were left without water, forcing men and women to queue with buckets at the pumps. Not even the oldest inhabitant could remember the last such shortage. The irony of the situation, of course, was that the town lay less than 2 miles from Lough Neagh, the largest expanse of fresh water in the British Isles. Hasty arrangements were made by Antrim Rural Council and the Ministry of Health to connect a pipe from the lough to a main to alleviate the situation.

DID NAZI BOMBERS VISIT ANTRIM?

Belfast was the subject of a devastating Nazi bombing blitz in April and May 1941, but there is also evidence that German bombs fell over County Antrim during March that year. On the nights of 13 and 14 March 1941, German bombers, which had travelled from northern France up the Irish Sea to Scotland, attacked the factories and shipyards of Clydeside. Approximately 270 bombers were involved in the raids, dropping high explosives, incendiary bombs and landmines over a nine-hour period during which 528 people were killed.

The firestorm created was visible over large areas of north Antrim and as the bombers escaped they jettisoned munitions over a wide area. On 14 March, three children, James Turner, Ivan and Claire Milliken, were injured at Ballyduff, near Glengormley. It is believed that one of them disturbed a bomb that had been lying in a field, causing it to explode. After receiving medical attention, they were removed to the Belfast Children’s Hospital.

Three bombs fell in Aghagallon and were discovered close to a farm and subsequently removed by a British Air Force bomb disposal unit. Two other bombs that fell in a field within a mile radius exploded, leaving cavities of about 3ft in diameter in each case.

ANTRIM MAN ANNOUNCESDISCOVERY OF PLUTO

County Antrim-born astronomer, Dr Andrew Crommelin, a descendant of Louis de Crommelin of Lisburn linen fame, was noted as the man who announced to the world the discovery of Pluto in 1930. The Cushendall native, who was of Huguenot stock and a former president of the Royal Astronomical Society, published an article which claimed that a celestial body first noticed by Belgian astronomers was not a comet, but in fact a planet. The Crommelin name is commemorated in the village of Newtown Crommelin, 8 miles from Ballymena, work on which was commenced in 1824 by Nicholas Crommelin.

While many believe that Pluto was named after Goofy’s pet dog, it was, in fact, named after the Roman god of the underworld. Crommelin’s claim to have discovered a ‘planet’ was rebutted in 2006, when Pluto was re-classified to ‘dwarf-planet’ status by the International Astronomical Union.

OUTRAGE IN APORTGLENONE GRAVEYARD

The easing of the Penal Laws in Ireland enabled Catholics to lease land, build churches and establish their own graveyards. In 1774, Father John Cassidy, parish priest of Ahoghill and Portglenone, acquired property at Aughnahoy for that purpose and was buried there in early January 1819. However, his grave was disturbed in one of the most shocking acts ever witnessed in County Antrim. The outrageous action was even more peculiar as, despite the fact that grave robbing was rife in the Ireland at that time, no attempt was made to steal the body. The sight which greeted Father Peter McNally, the newly installed parish priest, in the graveyard on the morning of 19 January was truly horrific. Such was the outrage that the following notice was published in the Belfast News Letter in February and March 1819. Despite the appeal, the graveyard ghouls were never apprehended:

OUTRAGE AND REWARD