A Landmark of Old Ballyshannon.

The roofless Old Distillery building visible across the river Erne from the Mall Quay as   locals enjoy an ice cream and a bit of fishing in the May sunshine.

If you are able to go for a walk or a drive you might like to have a look at an iconic landmark in Ballyshannon as you pass along. This is also a good opportunity to help young people learn a little about their local area. If you are away from Ballyshannon hopefully you can see one of the great memories of Ballyshannon industry on your next visit. The ruins of the distillery where whiskey was made can still be seen from the Mall Quay or if you stand on the footbridge which is reachable from the Bundoran road opposite “The Limit” or from the Mall down the lane beside “Nirvana”.  

Ballyshannon Distillery was constructed on the site of a manor mill where tenants used to bring their grain in former days. That is why the area on the Bundoran road behind the distillery is known as Milltown today. The large stone distillery building has been roofless for well over a century. 

This distillery was opened in 1827 and was originally called Thomas Bennison, Andrew Hamilton and Company but this partnership dissolved in 1833. The distillery was then called the Ballyshannon Distillery Company. It re-opened in 1839 with new equipment installed by Mr. Craig of Derry. This re-opening had an unusual benefit for the poor as they depended on burn-beer and grains at a cheap price from the distillery to feed their cattle.

In the year ended 10^th October 1828; 501,939 gallons of cornwash were distilled and 48,462 gallons of whiskey produced. A big business in Ballyshannon.

In February 1846 the first ever steamer “The Unity” arrived at Ballyshannon harbour with barley for the distillery. The port of Ballyshannon was within sight of the distillery and this meant that alcohol could be easily transported by ship.The growth of the temperance movement in Ireland, from the 1840s, saw a decline in alcohol consumption, for a period, as many people took the pledge to abstain from drink.

A Fishy Tale:  In the early days of the Distillery the lessee of the Fisheries sued the Ballyshannon Distillery Company for damages. It was stated, that on the fish becoming intoxicated with the “wash” discharged from the distillery, they flounderd and flounced about the river, in a mad abandon, and some of them were seen to jump the Falls at unprecedented heights! Ballyshannon Distillery closed in 1852.

Limited edition quality hardback with dust jacket as above available in A Novel Idea and Local Hands Ballyshannon and Four Masters Bookshop Donegal Town. Also available for postage from anthonyrbegley@hotmail.com

Topics include: How to go about Tracing your Roots/The first settlers in the area/ Newly researched history of the town of Ballyshannon and the townlands in Kilbarron and Mágh Éne parishes/ Records of the first travellers and tourists to Ballyshannon, Bundoran, Belleek, Rossnowlagh and Ballintra/An aerial guide to place names along the Erne from Ballyshannon to the Bar/Flora and Fauna of the area/ A history of buildings and housing estates in the locality/Graveyard Inscriptions from the Abbey graveyard, St. Joseph’s and St. Anne’s /Rolling back the years with many memories of the Great Famine, Independence struggle, hydro-electric scheme, Gaelic games, boxing, handball, Boy Scouts, soccer, mummers, characters, organisations, folklore and lots more.

A Memorable Day in Ballyshannon 75 Years Ago and Some Familiar Faces

Where did the time go Tommy? 

Tommy Gallagher formerly of Bishop Street and in 2020 living in Cluain Barron  with his wife and family sang a duet with his sister at the Garden Fete and Fancy Dress in 1945 close to the town clock. (photo Brian Doyle)

Saturday 23rd May 2020. Check out one of the great annual days in Ballyshannon until modern times. In 1945 Ballyshannon's best known character today, sang a duet with his sister and he is living in Cluain Barron in 2020. Can you identify any of the three brothers in the photo of  The Big 3 world leaders of Stalin (Russia), Truman (U.S.A.) and Churchill (G.B.) who were in Ballyshannon 75 years ago? Who played the part of  the President of Ireland ( Uachtarán) and who was Lady Pompadour both are still out and about in town? Lots of other blasts from the past in this trip down memory lane. 

Saturday 30th May 2020. A Forgotten Ballyshannon Landmark and a Fishy Story.

The Garden Fete and Fancy Dress Parade 75 Years Ago

The Fancy Dress and Garden Fete was one of the  highlights of the social life of Ballyshannon in the not too distant past. Keep a close eye on the results of the Fancy Dress below,  including Ballyshannon's best known personality today singing duets with his sister. Note the President of Ireland ( Uachtarán) now living in Chapel Street and the prettiest tiny tot now living on the Bundoran road.  
Can you name any of the three brothers in the photo below? One was very well-known in the musical and business life of the town until recent times. Clue he is Stalin  the one with the moustache. Also check the choir members, dancers and actors who performed in Ballyshannon in 1945, as  some are still very well known in the town in 2020. Others you will  recall with affection.

l.to r. Stalin, Churchill and Truman pictured on Main Street where Saimer Court is today. Do you recognise Stalin? Answer at bottom of blog.

The Garden Fete and Fancy Dress Parade was an annual occasion when the community came together, dressed up, performed, enjoyed the fun and raised  needed funds for local charities. Over 600 people attended the Fancy Dress and Garden Fete at the rear of P.J. Stephen’s premises on Wednesday 25th of July 1945. (The site is occupied by the Saimer Court Shopping Centre today.) The parade commenced at the Courthouse  and led by the Ballyshannon Brass and Reed Band  under Eddie Lynch bandmaster, made a circuit of the town. The Courthouse mentioned  is now  the Tyrhugh Centre on the Mall.

• On arrival at the venue the large crowd were entertained to an open-air concert. Members of Frank O’ Donovan’s troupe opened the concert,  
• Followed by choruses from the pupils of the Convent schools who sang “ A-Hunting We Will Go” and “Away to the Woods”. Those participating were: Misses M. Lawn, K. Liddy, B. McGovern, D. Stewart, B. Cooney, M. Slevin, C. Lynn, H. Gallagher, C. Lawn, N. Curran and A. McGovern. 
• Ms. Rose Daly, Erne Street, recited, “Biddy’s Trip to Cork” and “ Biddy at the Pictures.” 
• The pupils of Finner School, under Mrs. Dundas, their teacher, performed a sketch entitled, “Heads and Heels” The cast were: Misses Joan White, Doreen Regan, Hazel Barr, H. Hamilton, and Masters Noel Hamilton and Ronnie Moorehead. Finner School also performed a Maypole Dance with; J. White, D. Regan, H. Barr, H. Hamilton, Sally McClelland and Peggy Hunter. 
• Ms. Maureen Slevin (later Maureen Kane), West Port, performed  song and tap-dancing numbers. 
• Thomas and Margaret Gallagher from Bishop Street sang, “ If you ever go to Ireland” and “The Rose of Arranmore”
  

• • Prizewinners in the Fancy Dress 1945

  
  

  Adults: Most Topical- Tyrolean Pair- Maureen Slevin and Blaithnaid Stephens.

  Most Original- Curly Wee, Polly Parrot and Cuthbert Colt- B. McGill O.S., P. Maguire O.S. and R. Grehan.

  Funniest- “Summer 1945” Patrick and John Stephens.

  Special award to “Modern Transport”- Michael McDonagh, Rose Daly, Annie Breslin, Dympna Duffy, Teresa Bromley.

  Children: Prettiest Costume- “Hawaiian Pair”- Anton and Eugene Noonan.

  Most original- An tUachtaran agus a Bhean- Helena Gallagher and Herbert Bromley.

  Funniest- “ A Dutch Pair”- Sean and Kathleen Tiernan.

  Firms- “The House of Stephens 1834-1945”- L.McGrath, B.McIntyre, K.McShea, L.Kerrigan, J.McDonnell. H.Campbell, G.McCarville, M.McCloskey, B.Loughlin and B.Stephens.

  Best Decorated Bicycle- Celine Kennedy.

  Tiny Tots- Prettiest- Margaret McShea as “Lady Pompadour”

  Most Original- John Holmes as “An Erne Schemer.”

  Funniest- Cecil, Aidan and Liam Stephens as “The Big Three".

  
  

  

  l.to r. Truman (Liam Stephens), Churchill ( Aiden Stephens)  and Stalin ( Cecil Stephens) in the parade for the fancy dress and garden fete in 1945. ( Paul Stephens)

  

  Limited edition quality hardback with dust jacket as above available in A Novel Idea and Local Hands Ballyshannon and Four Masters Bookshop Donegal Town. Also available for postage from anthonyrbegley@hotmail.com

  Topics include: How to go about Tracing your Roots/The first settlers in the area/ Newly researched history of the town of Ballyshannon and the townlands in Kilbarron and Mágh Éne parishes/ Records of the first travellers and tourists to Ballyshannon, Bundoran, Belleek, Rossnowlagh and Ballintra/An aerial guide to place names along the Erne from Ballyshannon to the Bar/Flora and Fauna of the area/ A history of buildings and housing estates in the locality/Graveyard Inscriptions from the Abbey graveyard, St. Joseph’s and St. Anne’s /Rolling back the years with many memories of the Great Famine, Independence struggle, hydro-electric scheme, Gaelic games, boxing, handball, Boy Scouts, soccer, mummers, characters, organisations, folklore and lots more.

  
  

  
  

Ballyshannon Woman Nursed with Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War

Florence Nightingale and Ballyshannon Link

Saturday 16th May 2020. This blog remembers  a forgotten Ballyshannon woman, in the caring profession, who worked with Florence Nightingale the founder of modern nursing who  was born 200 years ago. She  lived in East Port  in the town and was with Florence Nightingale during her humanitarian work, tending to the sick and the dying in the Crimean War. It is also of interest that a Ballyshannon man won the Victoria Cross in the same war.  This local history blog is dedicated to all the health care workers locally who are doing a magnificent job in caring for our communities.
Saturday 23rd May. Next week's blog remembers a huge annual social event and Ballyshannon's best known character today  who sang duets with his sister 75 years ago.

Local Links to Florence Nightingale

A Ballyshannon lady Mrs. Margaret Coane was one of those who volunteered and went with Florence Nightingale to the front in the Crimean War (1853-1856). She was married to William Coane a tailor on East Port and was the mother of Ms. Mary Coane who also lived on East Port in the town. She lived in the far end of East Port just past where the Vincent Shop was until recent times. 
By the time of the 1901 Census Margaret Coane had died and her husband William was aged 62 and still lived in East Port  with his daughter Mary who was aged 26 and was a tailor's machinist. A regular occurrence is recorded in the 1911 census when William is now aged 77 and his daughter Mary is aged 39 and is listed as a seamstress. Ages in the 1901 and 1911 census  for many families are not too accurate at times! Anecdotal evidence is that because the old age pension came between the 2 census that ages increased by 1911!

Florence Nightingale- "The Lady with the Lamp"

 In 1938 Ms. Mary Coane had letters and photos in her home on East Port, received from Florence Nightingale “The Lady with the Lamp.” Whatever became of those valuable memorabilia one may never know? Perhaps they are still in an attic somewhere in the area? There are people still living in the area who remember Mary Coane as an elderly lady shopping in Morgan's shop in East Port. This Coane family were Catholics.

A Coane family lived on the Port as far back as 1786 when there were was an atrocity committed by the army from the Barracks at the bridge, resulting in the shooting dead of two innocent women named as Elinor Madden and Mary Mountain. One was shot adjacent to the barracks and the other near the Diamond in the town. These random shootings followed on from an army raid for poteen at the tavern of Denis McGowan on the Port. The soldiers were chased back across the bridge from the Port and the soldiers opened fire killing both women in what was a crowded Ballyshannon with the Fair Day in progress. In the shootings which followed a bullet lodged in a chest of drawers in Coane’s house in the Port.

There was also a very well known Coane family who were extensive landowners at Higginstown House, the ruins of which stand on the high ground overlooking the town of Ballyshannon about a mile or so above the Fr. Tierney Gaelic football park.They belonged to the Church of Ireland religion. There are also members of a Coane family who were Catholics  from Parkhill Ballyshannon and who are buried in the Abbey graveyard

Mary Coane of East Port remembered her mother who had worked with Florence Nightingale in the Crimea,talking about pilgrimages she made in the 19th century to Tobarshannon a holy well which was rediscovered recently during the  By-Pass excavations at Ballyhanna. Holy wells like St. Patrick's Well in the Abbey were once very popular places of devotion. The Abbey Well  is in a scenic location which is well worth a visit as the grotto and stations are still intact.

Lieutenant John Augustus Conolly born at Cliff Ballyshannon fought in the Crimean War and 

won the Victoria Cross. This was the same war in which Florence Nightingale came to prominence.

Second Ballyshannon person in the Crimea at the same period as Florence Nightingale

The Conolly family were the major landowners in the Ballyshannon area as they had bought the Folliott Estate for £52,000 in 1718. In 1831 Colonel Thomas Conolly commenced work on building Cliff House overlooking the Erne.  By August 1832 he had moved into his new house. The Conolly’s had resided at Cliff  prior to the building of Cliff House in 1831-1832, and John Augustus Conolly was born at Cliff, on the 30th May 1829. He joined the 49th Princess of Wales’s Hertfordshire Regiment and fought in the Crimean War, where on the 26th October, 1854,  the day after the charge of the  Light Brigade, he  won the Victoria Cross.

Lieutenant John Augustus Conolly, was commanding a company engaged in piquet duty that morning. During a surprise attack by the Russians,outside Sebastopol during the ‘great sortie’, on October 26, 1854:

                       Lieutenant Conolly was in command of his company on outlying picket.The Russians hurled themselves on the Second Division. They were met, in the first instance, by the 49th, resolutely led by Conolly, in frequent short, sharp charges, he himself engaging several of them in hand-to-hand fight,one after another, till at length, from loss of blood, he fell insensible, and had to be borne off the field. His gallant behaviour, no less than that of his men, elicited a General Order, in which all were deservedly praised. Soon afterwards he was promoted Captain into the Coldstream Guards as part reward for his bravery and devotion.

Conolly’s courage was observed by Lord Raglan and resulted in the award of the Victoria Cross in 1857. After his military service, Connolly served in the Dublin Metropolitan Police.He died at the  Magistrate’s House, Curragh, County Kildare, on the 23rd  December 1888 and is buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Harold’s Cross, Dublin. 

Limited edition quality hardback with dust jacket as above available when things return to normal in A Novel Idea and Local Hands Ballyshannon and Four Masters Bookshop Donegal Town. Also available for postage from anthonyrbegley@hotmail.com

Topics include: How to go about Tracing your Roots/The first settlers in the area/ Newly researched history of the town of Ballyshannon and the townlands in Kilbarron and Mágh Éne parishes/ Records of the first travellers and tourists to Ballyshannon, Bundoran, Belleek, Rossnowlagh and Ballintra/An aerial guide to place names along the Erne from Ballyshannon to the Bar/Flora and Fauna of the area/ A history of buildings and housing estates in the locality/Graveyard Inscriptions from the Abbey graveyard, St. Joseph’s and St. Anne’s /Rolling back the years with many memories of the Great Famine, Independence struggle, hydro-electric scheme, Gaelic games, boxing, handball, Boy Scouts, soccer, mummers, characters, organisations, folklore and lots more.

Ballyshannon Musings from Easter to May Bank Holiday

This collection of local history blogs was posted from Easter to the May Bank Holiday. A chance for you to look back at any that you missed or to share them with people at home and away who may be interested. Also an opportunity for new friends to read the short blogs many of which have a fun quiz attached. They can be found on this site  on the dates listed. Also  on Ballyshannon Genealogy and History Facebook pages where they  are freely available to everyone. The blogs can also be found on ballyshannon-musings.blogspot.com by any of your friends who are not on Facebook.

Saturday 16th May Next blog.  Read about  Florence Nightingale  the founder of modern nursing who was born 200 years ago  and about a Ballyshannon lady who  was with her during her humanitarian work, tending to the sick and the dying in the Crimean War.


16th April 2020. "Ballyshannon 130 years Ago"

17th April 2020. "The most photographed site in Ballyshannon Rory Gallagher's image"

18th April 2020. "Questions about Ballyshannon Never Asked Before"

19th April 2020. "The Wild Irish Girl and a Famous Ballyshannon Duel"

20th April 2020. "A Woman in Ballyshannon in Dublin Easter 1916, The Spanish Flu, Michael                                        Collins and attending the First Dáil"

21st April 2020. "Letters to Mothers in Erne Street and Sheegus from the Trenches of World War                                     One"

22nd April 2020. "Remembering the Most Successful Peaceful Protest in Ballyshannon

23rd April 2020. "Last train from Rossnowlagh to Ballyshannon a Nostalgic Trip"

24th April 2020. "The Mystery of Munday's Field in Ballyshannon"

25th April 2020. "The Man who Bought Ballyshannon"

27th April 2020. "Remembering a Ballyshannon Character, An unusual Claim and a Famous Remark"

28th April 2020. "The Great Fire of Ballyshannon and More"

29th April 2020. " Cures From Bygone Days in the Ballyshannon Area"

30th April 2020. " A Curious Court Case and Other Strange Tales in Ballyshannon"

1st May 2020.     " Local Customs for Special Days in the Ballyshannon Area"

2nd  May 2020.   " Ten Local Visitor Attractions in  Bygone Days"

3rd May 2020.    " A Ballyshannon Woman's Diary of Happy and Sad Events during the Great                                           Famine"

4th May 2020.     " Farewell to Ballyshannon"

Farewell to Ballyshannon

Monday 4th May 2020. Today  is a memorable story of emigration from the Great Northern Railway station in Ballyshannon.

Farewell to Ballyshannon

 “Farewell to Ballyshannon” is a story which tells of a young local boy called Johnny being accompanied to the Great Northern Railway station in Ballyshannon, by his mother and his sister Susy, on the first stage of his emigration to America. The following is an extract from the story which reveals a continuous process of emigration from the Ballyshannon area and the sadness of those leaving and those left behind. The narrator and a friend were also on the cart to the railway station.

Johnny’s mother accompanied her twelve year old son on the horse and cart from the Main Street to the railway station on Station Road:

“He’s but a little chap to take the green fields to Amerikay alone. Ay surely!” said our carman, musingly. By this time we were rattling down the street, and over the bridge, from which we could see the silver spray of the falls below and hear the dull thunder. The other car was close behind, all the ragged retainers trotting cheerfully in its wake. “Is there much emigration from here?” one of us asked. “Ay surely”, said the man, “what else is there for them? Sure there isn’t enough to keep the life in the old bodies, unless the young goes away to Amerikay, and sends home the money. Och, sure, it’s the sorrowful place. If you was here last Wednesday you’d have seen a trainful starting for Derry. An’ the same every Wednesday since March. I don’t like to be about the station myself them times. It’s terrible hard for them to go.

We asked one or two sympathetic questions. He answered us flicking his whip. “There’s some,” he said, “tht’ll hold up strong and silent; and there’s others again, keenin’ worse than the old women at the wakes. There’s a girl now,” he broke off, pointing at a straight, handsome creature, who was just stepping across the street. “There’s a girl started for Amerikay, an’ kem home the next day. Ay, faith, it was the shortest voyage yet known in the town. She turned back from Derry. She said she didn’t give a thraneen for the passage money. She’d work her fingers to the bone to earn enough to keep the oul’ woman out of the workhouse, without lavin’ her childless. “ He said it with a certain admiration and added immediately afterwards, “ There’s not a handsomer nor cleverer girl than Nancy Goligher in the three baronies.”

Then he planted his feet firmly, as if he had talked enough, and began to sing in a deep baritone:

Farewell to Ballyshanny! where I was bred and born;

Go where I may, I’ll think of you, as sure as night or morn.

The kindly spot, the friendly town, where every one is known,

And not a face in all the place but partly seems my own;

There’s not a house or window, there’s not a field or hill,

But, east or west, in foreign lands, I’ll recollect them still.

I’ll leave my warm heart with you, Tho my back I’m forced to turn-

So adieu to Ballyashanny, and the winding banks of Erne!

It was the song of a townsman who had won the delightful immortality of being the ballad maker to his birthplace. Under the circumstances the song sounded curiously mournful. William Allingham’s ballad “Adieu To Ballyshanny” must rank as one of the finest and saddest emigration songs of all times.

On arrival at the railway station some of Johnny’s friends came to see him off. The mother explained that he was setting out for Florida to join his father who had been there eleven years. He had been unable to secure work in Ballyshannon. Each year one of the children emigrated to join him in America. Only her self and Susy remained and they would follow on next year, when they could get the fare together. The story concluded with the train ready to pull out and the strains of Allingham’s famous emigrant ballad, “Adieu to Ballyshanny”, are whistled by the young boy who was joining the many people from the locality forced to emigrate by economic necessity.

In 1894 Katherine Tynan, well known novelist and poet, wrote the original story, “Farewell to Ballyshannon” about this young boy’s departure from Ballyshannon.

Limited edition quality hardback with dust jacket as above available when things return to normal in A Novel Idea and Local Hands Ballyshannon and Four Masters Bookshop Donegal Town. Also available for postage from anthonyrbegley@hotmail.com

Topics include: How to go about Tracing your Roots/The first settlers in the area/ Newly researched history of the town of Ballyshannon and the townlands in Kilbarron and Mágh Éne parishes/ Records of the first travellers and tourists to Ballyshannon, Bundoran, Belleek, Rossnowlagh and Ballintra/An aerial guide to place names along the Erne from Ballyshannon to the Bar/Flora and Fauna of the area/ A history of buildings and housing estates in the locality/Graveyard Inscriptions from the Abbey graveyard, St. Joseph’s and St. Anne’s /Rolling back the years with many memories of the Great Famine, Independence struggle, hydro-electric scheme, Gaelic games, boxing, handball, Boy Scouts, soccer, mummers, characters, organisations, folklore and lots more.

A Ballyshannon Woman's Diary of Happy and Sad Events during the Great Famine

People from the area emigrated from the Mall Quay in Famine Times.

Sunday 3rd May This blog  is based on a Ballyshannon Woman's Diary in the 1840s  and has both happy and sad memories of a period of great distress in the Ballyshannon area and in the country. It was broadcast by me on Sunday Miscellany on RTE national radio about ten years ago. ago. Credit to Soinbhe Lally for her help at the time.

Monday 4th May 2020. Tomorrow's blog  is a memorable story of emigration from the Great Northern Railway station in Ballyshannon which replaced the Mall Quay as the place of emigration for local people.

Some years ago, in Ballyshannon, a dusty bundle of papers was discovered inside an old piano. It was a diary, written by a young Ballyshannon woman, Mary Anne Sheil, during the years 1844 to 1848, a diary that, today, opens a window on to Ballyshannon’s living past.

Mary Anne was a daughter of Doctor Simon Sheil, land agent for the Conolly estates and holder of fishing rights on the river Erne. Her mother, Alicia O’Conor, was sister of the O’Conor Don, and lineal descendant of Roderic, last high king of Ireland. 

Sheil House College Street home of diarist  Mary Anne Sheil

Life in the Big House

The diary begins in 1844 when both parents are already deceased. Mary Anne and her sisters have assumed housekeeping duties for their brother Simon who, like his father, is a doctor. The girls take turns to supervise domestic staff, keep accounts and receive visitors. However life is not all duty and so there are piano lessons with Mr. Walton Roberts from London who also teaches them to dance the polka and the waltz. Old Halloween on the 11^th of November, sees the family playing parlour games. Mary Anne records: “Julia, Catherine and I put apple peels over the door. Thady Carmichael came under the first, Owen Kean, the second, and the Rev. Coyle under mine, as if to prove its veracity.”

The Circus in Ballyshannon in Famine times.

The Circus arrives in Ballyshannon 1844

The arrival of the circus on the 1^st of July 1844 throws Ballyshannon into a state of excitement. There is a circus parade and Mary Anne finds the scene in front of Sheil House “equal to Donnybrook Fair” with jugglers, tumblers, people riding on stilts, dancers,” and seven pairs of beautiful horses. An announcement that Hughes’s Modern Roman Amphitheatre of Arts is to perform next day at the circus ring on the Mall, and that the largest elephant in the world will be there, prompts Mary Anne and her sisters to bring a small boy for a sneak preview. The diary records “a peep through a keyhole” and a glimpse of the elephant which the small boy “particularly enjoys.” 

Ballyshannon Workhouse entrance building still standing.

Poverty and Emigration  from the Mall Quay

However the 1840s are not only a time for circuses. A visit to the workhouse fills Mary Anne with dismay and she writes, “To the poorhouse we went. Oh! What a misery is in this world. I would pray never to die in a Poorhouse.” She is saddened too by the departure of emigrants and records:

We went to the Dungravin Hills to see the ship sailing off to America with 90 passengers from this town and neighbourhood for the Land of Liberty. They had music, which in some degrees removed the sadness of the scene, as they only played merry airs. Anne Rogers has been in floods of tears all this day after Susan Magrath who is gone.

This is Dungravenen promontory fort from  where people waved farewell to their family and neighbours 

on their journey to the New World. On the left of the photograph is the well-known Buaile Bawns.

Two Wedding Ceremonies

When a suitor enters Mary Anne’s life, she is reluctant to confide in her diary, telling us only that she “forgot to mention a remarkable event of yesterday, which was that Mr. John Allingham of Willybrook House sent us his picture to look at. Mr. J. Allingham surprised me in the garden, where we had a long walk. He said a great deal. I listened and said nothing.”

Mr. Allingham proposed marriage and Mary Anne accepted. He gave his betrothed a present of a starling in a cage and shortly afterwards they were married with two wedding ceremonies, one Catholic and one Protestant because theirs was a mixed marriage. Their four children were born during the terrible Famine years that followed and the young parents were fearful for the health of their babies, especially Alice, the youngest, who had to be vaccinated three times. 

A Window on Life in Ballyshannon in the 19th Century

Mary Anne writes less often in her diary now as family cares take precedence and eventually it comes to an end with the lines:

I should be very fond of this Journal, for often when I have set to it with a heavy heart, I have risen from it quite consoled.

And so our window on mid-nineteenth century Ballyshannon closes. 

I am ever for dear sweet Ireland in general, but Ballyshannon in particular

Mary Anne once wrote, leaving us to wonder whether she had any inkling, as she put pen to paper, that she was bequeathing a valuable historical legacy to her beloved town.

Limited edition quality hardback with dust jacket as above available when things return to normal in A Novel Idea and Local Hands Ballyshannon and Four Masters Bookshop Donegal Town. Also available for postage from anthonyrbegley@hotmail.com

Topics include: How to go about Tracing your Roots/The first settlers in the area/ Newly researched history of the town of Ballyshannon and the townlands in Kilbarron and Mágh Éne parishes/ Records of the first travellers and tourists to Ballyshannon, Bundoran, Belleek, Rossnowlagh and Ballintra/An aerial guide to place names along the Erne from Ballyshannon to the Bar/Flora and Fauna of the area/ A history of buildings and housing estates in the locality/Graveyard Inscriptions from the Abbey graveyard, St. Joseph’s and St. Anne’s /Rolling back the years with many memories of the Great Famine, Independence struggle, hydro-electric scheme, Gaelic games, boxing, handball, Boy Scouts, soccer, mummers, characters, organisations, folklore and lots more.