Roamer column: Everything you need to know about Clare’s three ‘P’s

The book’s title ‘The History of Clare’ is summarised with three ‘P’s - ‘the People, the Place and the Presbyterians’ – and sales are in aid of the Clare Presbyterian Church building fund, Jennifer’s family church, a few miles from Ballymore near Tandragee.

“Given the volume of stories,” she admits, “the balance of the book tipped very much more in the direction of Clare and its quirky characters.”

She introduces the village as “a little place, but it does boast the most colourful history” - an impressive 626 pages of it, with numerous maps, old documents, newspaper cuttings and abundant photographs in faded sepia, evocative black and white and digital multi-coloured.

When she sent me a copy the postman joked about needing a forklift truck as he handed me a package substantially larger than my letterbox!

“There’s everything from crime to schooling, women and romance, mysteries and the impact of world events like war, famine and the 1918 ‘flu” Jennifer enthused, adding, “and funny stories, and heart-breaking ones, never mind the downright bizarre.”

It's about “a fairly unremarkable little corner of County Armagh” Jennifer candidly concedes on the book’s cover, “most people do not even know of Clare’s existence...to the passing stranger it is little more than a crossroads leading down to two lovely old bridges.”

Beginning with two of her three ‘P’s today - the Place and the Presbyterians - and keeping the People for another page in the near future, Clare is located just off the Markethill-Tandragee Road, on the River Cusher, thus the pair of 18th century bridges.

Jennifer covers the Stone Age via the Scots planters to today, with almost everything in between.

“This stretch of Cusher had one of the few bridging points…probably the main reason for the growth of the village,” she reckons, “especially in the early 17th century when soldiers walked between Newry and Armagh, via Clare.”

The area “is littered with forts”, she adds, which provided “protection from unfriendly strangers and ravenous wolves.”

She authenticates Clare’s ancient lineage with some artefacts discovered nearby “a flint knife dated c3,000BC found near Tandragee; the wonderful little Tandragee Man believed to represent an ancient Irish King (1,000BC) and the Bell of Ballinabeck, dating from the early Celtic Christian period (AD 908).”

The book highlights historic events, from King James I granting 1,000 acres in 1610 to Sir Francis Cooke who called it ‘The Manor of Clare’; the building of a mill on the river, and a bawn known as ‘Clare Castle’; the construction of a mud-walled meeting-house and the destruction of the castle and meeting-house during the 1641 uprising.

Moving on from Place to Presbyterians Jennifer verifies Clare as “one of the oldest Presbyterian congregations in Ireland.”

The present plain, ‘barn-style’ building, Clare’s 4th Presbyterian church, reflects its rural congregation and was constructed in 1828 for £750.

The book includes a “long and varied list of Ministers” who served there, including a father and son; a Lieutenant in the Clare Volunteers; a “dyed in the wool” Orangeman; a Minister whose “colourful life led to his resignation” and Rev. Marshall McCreery, who became a missionary in Manchuria and was imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp during WWII.

Rev McCreery regularly exercised Paddy, his pet dog, on Clare’s country roads.

The poor pooch was often seen “running furiously alongside” Rev McCreery’s Austin 7 with the cleric’s arm “sticking out of the window holding onto Paddy’s leash.”

Other clergymen were more athletic - a News Letter cutting from 26 February 1760 recounts 60-year-old Rev. George Cherry leading 101 men on a 25-mile march to defend Belfast against a possible French invasion.

And like history everywhere, wars have taken their toll “especially on a small community like Clare” writes Jennifer.

Amongst numerous wartime stories and accounts she has compiled all the names of those who served, right back to the Boer War, and “being Ireland” she adds “politics was never far away - our grandparents and great grandparents also lived through Home Rule, Partition and the early Troubles.”

To purchase Jennifer’s book email [email protected] or [email protected]