Roamer: Remembering local writer who travelled the world for yarns

A selection of Mitchell’s stories will be reprinted here periodically, starting today, but first, some memories of Mitchell from an erstwhile colleague (and Roamer-contributor) - author and former Coleraine Chronicle editor, Hugh McGrattan:

In the course of some 40 years working in newspapers, it was my privilege to get to know many fine journalists. One or two I would describe as outstanding. Mitchell Smyth belonged to that rare breed.

He was a natural journalist of huge ability and with an unwavering dedication to a profession he loved.

I first met Mitchell in the late 1950s when I was a trainee journalist with the Northern Constitution, a much-respected broadsheet based in Coleraine. He was one of my first mentors and I learned much from him.

I was able to observe first-hand Mitchell’s uncanny ability to recognise a news story almost before it happened and to admire the skill with which he translated facts into readable news stories.

He was always at the forefront of the local press, always the first to recognise a story.

He knew of the discovery of the Armada wreck Girona weeks before the rest of us - one of many ‘exclusives’ that he won for the Constitution. In the true essence of journalism, with Mitchell the story always came first, but though the printed word might be hard-won, it came with a strong sense of fact and responsibility.

One memory stands out for me - the night in 1966 when Mitchell disappeared!

We got a phone call from him the next day. He was in Aberfan, helping to dig, sometimes with his bare hands, for the children trapped under hundreds of tons of coal dust.

Hearing of the disaster on the radio, Mitchell immediately took off, travelling overnight and toiling for the next five days. He came home much moved by an experience that changed his life - and with a powerful story of grief and heroism, touchingly told.

Mitchell loved his native Ballycastle. His knowledge of the town and its people was incredible and he himself was one of the town’s best-known residents.

He had many opportunities to move to Belfast in the furtherance of his career but chose to go to Canada.

In Toronto his genius was recognised and a distinguished career in the Canadian press culminated with his appointment as travel editor of the Toronto Star. Mitchell maintained his links with his many friends in the Ulster press and his annual visit home is an event which will be much missed. But he has left us a remarkable collection of stories of his many assignments with the Star.

Thanks Hugh for your wonderful tribute.

One of Mitchell’s assignments was in Kolonia, the main town on Pohnpei island in Micronesia where he discovered a bar and restaurant called The Tattooed Irishman.

It’s named after Tyrone-man James O’Connell who was sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay in Australia.

Mitchell shared the story here in 2017. Let’s remember him now - ‘telling a yarn or two’:

It’s not known if O’Connell was freed or escaped, but around 1830 he was aboard a ship that was wrecked off Pohnpei.

Captured by the islanders, he assumed - incorrectly as it turned out - that they were cannibals and were heating the cooking pot for him!

Thinking quickly, O’Connell tore off his shirt and danced an Irish jig, the Garryowen. His dancing impressed his captors and the tribal chief gave James his 14-year-old daughter as his wife, and made him a ‘junior chief.’

O’Connell heartily embraced the local tradition of tattooing and got his entire body and face tattooed. But around 1835 he deserted his teenage wife and boarded a passing American ship.

He landed in New York where his tattoos created a sensation. Newspapers reported that women and children were terrified and clergymen preached that O’Connell’s tattoos were contagious!

However, the showman P. T. Barnum contracted O’Connell to his aptly-named Freak Show. The Tyrone-man enthralled his audiences with his South Sea adventures, including his eight-day-long tattooing process, illustrated with performances of the Garryowen! O’Connell remained with Barnum till he died in 1845 and by his instructions, the Garryowen was danced on his grave.