Local History: Richard Roche unearths local lore about Co Wexford, Ulster ways, hanging, holy wells and Co Kildare.
As with some other notable aspects of life in Ulster, the province's farm practices between 1930 and 1960 differed in certain ways from farming in other parts of Ireland. Farms in Ulster's nine counties were generally smaller than those in Leinster and Munster. They relied more on manual labour for some years after the introduction of mechanisation elsewhere in the country. Hiring fairs were held more extensively and later than in other parts of Ireland. Flax was grown more widely in Ulster and was an important cash crop.
Apart from these and a few other farm practices of the area, rural readers generally will easily identify with the descriptions and photographs of farm life depicted in Jonathan Bell's Ulster Farming Families 1930-1960. The book depends largely on the oral and written testimony of farm folk and illustrates in detail how drastic changes in farming impacted on family life and rural customs. There is one wonderful photograph taken in Co Down in 1933 showing Robert Abernathy ploughing with a horse and a bullock.
Ploughing with oxen, comments Bell, had almost disappeared from Ireland by the early 20th century but farmers sometimes used a cow or a bullock if a second horse was not available. The book is a valuable record of such changes as well as of a way of life that has almost entirely disappeared.
Local history journals, besides recording the history and lore of townlands, parishes, villages and towns, also fulfil another important function - the "discovery" and encouragement of local people who surprise with their enterprise, knowledge, wit and writing skills. The Taghmon (Co Wexford) Historical Society, through its annual journal, has discovered several hitherto "mute Miltons" whose contributions to the publication deserve commendation. Among them in the current Journal of the Taghmon Historical Society no. 6 are Des Waters; Seamus, Gerard and Joe Seery; and Tom Mc Donald. Their lively articles, and those of several other local historians, make this one of the best Taghmon journals yet. It is ably edited by Hilary Murphy. There are many illustrations but hardly anything to beat the description, by Des Waters, in his study of the RIC in Taghmon, of the four constables caught bathing naked in a quarry by a local IRA unit. The unit stole the policemen's uniforms with the expected outcome - an embarrassing retreat to their barracks, hiding their blushes with ferns and "buachaláns".
Local history has its villains as well as it heroes and heroines, as Hanging Crimes vividly and sometimes gruesomely records. This collection consists of 10 accounts of crimes committed when Ireland still used the gallows in the 19th century. But what Raymond Gillespie describes in his scholarly introduction as the "golden age of hanging" was then drawing to a close. Public hanging in Ireland was abolished only as late as 1868. The 10 crimes and subsequent trials recorded in detail in this book occurred in counties Dublin (2), Roscommon, and Sligo, Wexford, Wicklow, Tyrone, Galway, Kildare and Cavan, so there is much here to interest readers in those counties.
The stories are fascinating accounts of various crimes, including murder and rape, and the collection is edited by Frank Sweeney who himself contributes one account. Don't be put off by Gillespie's description of what happened to a victim of hanging before a Trinity College Dublin professor of anatomy, Samuel Haughton, introduced both the knot on the rope and the calculation of the ratio of body weight and distance dropped. It can safely be assumed that this was not at all pleasant.
"Holy wells are important examples of Ireland's religious and vernacular heritage and should be treated with due respect," writes Petra Skyvova in the conclusion to Fingallian Holy Wells, and this book, detailed and illustrated, should do much to foster such respect.
It is a comprehensive and interesting guide to the remaining holy wells in Fingal. Sadly, many holy wells in the region have been lost, despoiled or vandalised, and Petra Skyvova's attractively produced publication is timely and should engender renewed interest in the remaining 60 or so - and at least ensure that there will be no repetition of acts such as Cromwell's alleged misdeed in washing his feet in St Brigid's Well at Tobersool, outside Balbriggan. The well, according to local lore, promptly dried up but was restored later by the prayers of a priest. An appendix to the book contains a Fingal County Council list of 64 protected wells within its jurisdiction. It would be reassuring to know that local residents and community groups are aware of the existence of these holy wells and work to preserve them.
John Colgan's Leixlip, Co Kildare is not a chronological narrative history of the place and its people but rather a compendium of all known facts about events, characters, families and buildings (in all 95 different subjects) arranged in alphabetical order and running to 268 pages, almost half a million words and 350 colour illustrations - the whole beautifully produced on art paper with hard cover and dust jacket. The author, who has lived in Leixlip's old Toll House since 1991 and who calls this work his magnum opus, has performed a gargantuan task in assembling this collection, running from Aderrig to The Wonderful Barn and taking in churches; castles; fun and frolics; the great frost of 1740-1741; and local families and personalities including the Whytes; Sir Samuel Cook MP (and other members of parliament); James O'Neill, head of the Irish Citizen Army; the Glascocks and other notables, among whom can now be counted John Colgan himself for having produced this huge, detailed and lavishly referenced history. A second volume is in production.
Richard Roche is a local historian, author and journalist.
Ulster Farming Families 1930-1960. By Jonathan Bell, Ulster Historical Foundation in association with the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, €9.99
Journal of the Taghmon Historical Society no 6. Edited by Hilary Murphy Camross, Co Wexford, €15
Hanging Crimes - When Ireland Used the Gallows. Edited by Frank Sweeney, Mercier Press, €12.95
Fingallian Holy wells. by Petra Skyvova. Fingal Public Libraries, €15
Leixlip, Co Kildare. By John Colgan. Privately published at the Toll House, Leixlip, 269pp, €55 (post paid).