Roamer: Continued A to Z of mysteries, myths and Ulster history
Continued from last Saturday’s page, here’s the second half of the ‘The A-Z of Curious Northern Ireland’, Banbridge author Doreen McBride’s latest book.
Starting with ‘N’ and consistent with the book’s subtitle - Strange Stories of Mysteries, Crimes and Eccentrics - is the Nomadic, Titanic’s little tender ship, restored and drydocked in Belfast.
Doreen tells a spooky story about several of Titanic’s doomed passengers, chatting while their pet dogs barked “in the bowels of” Nomadic - during her restoration! (Titanic had 12 canine passengers.)
Next comes ‘O’, about the many famous writers (and infamous smugglers) who sojourned in Crawfordsburn’s Old Inn. Oscar Wilde wasn’t a guest, but he’s mentioned in the Other Writers category.
Onwards to ‘P’ for Paddy Monaghan, also known as Paddy Ali, and Poteen, Ireland’s famous illicit brew, also known as poitín, potcheen, poiteen and Mountain Dew.
Paddy Ali (1944-2017) was a world class ‘bare knuckle boxer’ from Country Fermanagh, which “as far as I can ascertain,” writes Doreen, “is the ‘capital’ of poteen making.” As it was distilled “surreptitiously, hidden well away from revenue men” Fermanagh’s abundant bogs made excellent hideaways for poteen stills.
‘Q’ is the Queen of London’s Courtesans, Dublin-born Laura Bell, who grew up in Glenavy, worked in a Belfast draper’s shop and was “very pretty and used her attributes to begin a lucrative career as a prostitute.”
She moved to London around 1849, made a fortune, married a wealthy army officer and when Laura and her husband “experienced a religious conversion she referred to herself as ‘God’s Ambassadress’”
‘R’ stands for Ruperts (plural), the name given to cloth dummies “made by women in Carrickfergus” writes Doreen.Many thousands of Ruperts were into Normandy on D-Day.
Doreen’s friend Adrian Hack’s mother-in-law helped assemble them, with little explosives inside that detonated on impact, making the Germans think a “large paratrooper assault” had begun.
‘S’ stands for four awesomely contrasting topics - Saint Patrick, Sheela-Na-Gigs (and Janus figures), industrially historic Sion Mills and The Star-Spangled Banner, based on a tune, some say, composed by the blind Irish harper Turlough O’Carolan.
The book includes some evocative photos - of Saul Church, on the site of St Patrick’s original church, and several ancient, stone-carved Janus figures.
Titanic returns under ‘T’, with a short history of Belfast’s most famous ship (Doreen’s joiner-grandfather worked on her first-class cabins), a roundup of the Lagan’s unique shipbuilding past and the Titanic Quarter today.
‘U’ begins ominously with a WWI German U-boat which sank around a dozen of our fishing boats in 1915, without the loss of single life. ‘U’ ends with the action-packed history of Strabane’s huge Urney Bell outside St Mary’s Church - stolen, buried and exhumed.
‘V’ is for Vampire Tree and Van Morrison (not related!) - the former, felled by Ireland’s Big Wind of 1839, has its roots in folklore and the latter has his roots in East Belfast and “he still lives in the land of his birth” writes Doreen.
Back in folklore with ‘W’, denoting White Cows, of which there were many - “perhaps the most famous is the magic one that came out of Lough Neagh” Doreen recounts.
This is a curious tale (remember the book’s title!) linking the name Ardboe to an ancient church, a Celtic Cross, the builders of the church and the magic cow’s milk that reinforced the mortar! Doreen’s two accounts of Xenophobia under ‘X’ are gripping and frightening in very different ways but both have happy endings and are unforgettable. One is about a German teacher, imprisoned here as a POW during WWII, in case she was a spy.
The other involved a crashed Allied flying boat’s crew, miraculously uninjured, imprisoned on the Isle of Man “until their identities had been confirmed.”
The multi-talented Yeats family’s unique role in Irish history, culture and religion is summarised under ‘Y’, beginning with Rev William Butler Yeats, Rector of Tullylish from 1834 to 1862; his son John, an artist, and John’s two sons - poet and author William Butler Yeats and artist Jack Butler Yeats.
The legendary Yeats family is followed by Ballycastle’s legendry Yellow Man before ‘Z’ for Zoo brings Doreen’s remarkably varied alphabet of curiosities to an end with numerous tales and tails from Belfast’s “home to more than 500 animals.”
l The A-Z of Curious Northern Ireland, published by The History Press, is available from all good bookshops including Carrickfergus’s Secret Bookshelf.