Roamer: Remembering Mitchell Smyth’s best of times: ‘telling a yarn or two’

“I'm writing to inform you of my father's passing on Wednesday morning, peacefully at home. As per his wishes, and he was adamant about this, we are foregoing any formal services. Remember him in his best of times, telling a yarn or two.”

He told dozens here, beginning in 2017 by explaining “the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies has sparked interest in life under the Jolly Roger.”

He said his favourite place was “anywhere in the South Pacific” and offered to share a story about “a buccaneer from Maghera who sailed with Captain William Kidd.”

When the story appeared here, Mitchell was introduced as “a journalist from Northern Ireland who wrote for the News Letter but devoted the bulk of his career to the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper, where he was a reporter, columnist, news editor and, before he retired, travel editor.”

He said he was reminded of Maghera’s buccaneer at the Pirates and Treasure Museum in St. Augustine, Florida, which displayed a wooden sea-chest, allegedly Captain Kidd’s.

Mitchell’s delightful story featured Darby Mullan, born on a Maghera farm around 1665, who went to sea and was captured by Kidd who offered him an ultimatum - ‘Join me or die!’

Darby chose the former “and was very likely there when Captain Kidd buried his stolen treasure,” Mitchell surmised, “possibly on Oak Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia, the site of numerous excavations over the past 200 years.”

Kidd was hanged in London for murder and piracy in 1701 but Mullan “disappeared from the records, so we’re left to wonder,” Mitchell pondered delectably, “did he maybe return to Ireland? Perhaps the mystery of Captain Kidd’s treasure will one day be solved with an ancient, faded map discovered in an old farmhouse in south Derry. Maybe Maghera will attract treasure hunters!”

Since his debut here we’ve thoroughly enjoyed every one of Mitchell’s dozens of exquisitely written stories; as his son Norman confirmed in his email, “nobody could spin a yarn like Mitchell, so please remember him that way, telling an outrageous but TRUE story.”

He started early “when he decided at age 12 he wanted to be a reporter,” the Toronto Star’s obituary recounts, “and by 18 he began honing his craft in Coleraine for its local weekly, the Northern Constitution.”

He described the paper’s old typewriters as “big enough to serve as boat anchors!”

Mitchell emigrated with his wife Vilma to Canada in 1970 and after four year’s reporting for the Hamilton Spectator he became a copy editor and then assistant foreign editor of the Toronto Star.

He loved travel writing and became the Star’s associate travel editor and then, in 1989, travel section editor.

The paper’s obituary continues: “Mitchell endeared himself to readers and colleagues alike with his irreverent humour, keen sense of the absurd and tales from his journeys across six of seven continents - during which he amassed a collection of more than 100 hats.”

He drew on 40 years in journalism, particularly travel writing, for his vast array of stories on this page.

He recalled the old gun-runner Clyde Valley’s voyage from Nova Scotia back to Northern Ireland in 1967-68.

He traced the Irish roots of numerous New York gangsters and once told Roamer that on his travels he was “fascinated to find stories of Irish people here, there and everywhere.”

He was intrigued with cowboy lore and the Wild West, and reported from the O.K. Corral in Arizona; the Alamo in San Antonio; the site of Custer’s Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana, and El Paso.

He traced the history of the song ‘When You and I Were Young, Maggie’. “It’s as Irish as Guinness, the Blarney Stone or Tara,” he explained, adding “except it isn't. No connection whatsoever with the oul’ sod!”

And his story was heartbreakingly sad.

Mitchell’s last contribution to this page, last September, was about Irishman Martin (Marty) Lahart of ‘The Untouchables’ who dethroned Al Capone.

Born on July 16 1936 in Ballycastle, Mitchell died aged 88, at home in Ontario, on July 31 2024.

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