Living in the Past: A Northern Irish Memoir

by Arthur Magennis

  My cousin Joe and myself used to go shooting ducks and rabbits etc. on a regular basis. We had a flat-bottomed boat – I think it was called a cot – and one day we were down along the river looking for wildfowl, but there was nothing.

  Then Joe had a brain wave. “Why not take the boat and row out to Scady Island in Lough Neagh,” said Joe.

  I was much younger than Joe and didn’t appreciate the danger of a flat-bottomed boat in a storm and readily agreed. It was quite a long way from the Brilla; first, down the river to the lough, which was a few miles, then I don’t know how far out to Scady Island. I’m not sure if it was visible. I only know that it seemed some distance from us. No matter how fast we rowed we didn’t seem to get any nearer.

  We patrolled the island keeping quiet and covered much of it, but not a duck in sight. We could see ducks flying past, all well out of range. So, after a rest, we decided to go back. No sooner were we in the boat than the wind started to blow and the next minute we were in a storm. We were heading straight into the wind to get back to Mahery, which was on the mouth of the river, but we were being blown back in our flat-bottomed boat and making no headway.

  Joe was rowing and he said, “We can’t make it to Mahery. We’ll go with the wind to Roskeen Point,” which we could see jutting out in the distance. Once we turned with the wind we began to make good speed. As the cot bounced up and down like a cork over the waves, Joe gave one of his big laughs and said, “I wouldn’t like to be grabbing for the rushes now.”

  If he thought he was frightening me, he was right, but with the help of the gale behind us, we made Roskeen, tied up the boat, took our guns and walked all the way back. Next morning we walked back to get the boat and then rowed back again. What a catastrophe – all that and never got a shot.

  I kept saying to Joe, “Who was the bright boy who said go to Scady Island?”

  Lough Neagh was home to a freshwater trout called pullen. Fishermen’s lads used come round with a bucket selling them and we didn’t appreciate how lucky we were to have them, as they were delicious, and, as usual, familiarity breeds contempt. I wish I could get one now. There was a big eel fishing industry, as well. I remember being down at a house owned by a man called Johnny McIlkenny, down near the river one night having a drink or two, and about one o’clock in the morning he said to me, “Come down to the river and help me get some eels.”

  There was a path across the meadow to the river nearby and Johnny lifted a rope that was tied to a large wire tank in the river and pulled it into the bank. As he raised it up there seemed to be fifty to a hundred eels thrashing about. Johnny took one or two out, I forget how many, and we brought them to the house. I think maybe he had about half a dozen, as it was quite a party that night.

  Johnny had a cement floor in the kitchen and he said, “Now, Arthur, I’ll show you how to kill an eel.” He killed the first one by lifting it out by the head, with thumb and fingers tightly holding, then throwing it hard against the cement floor and the eel was knocked unconscious. I managed to do it first time and was quite proud.

  When Johnny and I were going out to get the eels, he had said to his wife, “Have that pan spitting hot, Cassie,” and, sure enough, the pan was spitting. The eels were skinned and cooked and I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything so beautiful.

  Chapter Fourteen

  If I wanted to know anything important I always asked Kathleen. She used to say, “Arthur and I are twins – we’ve got the same noses.” So, after I left the Academy and was working on the farm, I gradually began to think that perhaps I should have taken a chance on being educated.

  We were joined with Tom Gartland and we started the ploughing in springtime. This must have been the second year as I was home for two years altogether. Anyway, this particular day I went over to plough Tom’s top field but I found that he had dug deep trenches down the field and, as it was clay soil and had been a very dry spring, the spadefuls of soil had just dried like bricks and adhered to each other.

  Tom handed me a spade and told me to fill in the trenches. I tried all right, but it would have taken the rest of the spring to fill those trenches, and only then with the aid of a pickaxe. In the afternoon I stood there, thinking about farming, and I realised I wasn’t as fond of it as before and I should have taken the chance of being educated when I had it.

  The treatment by Tom had just tipped the balance so I consulted Kathleen, my mentor, and she consulted my father, and like the good man he was he let me go back to college. This was very good of him as we had to get a man in to replace me and my father was getting on a bit at the time.

  I wouldn’t go back to the Academy, though, because I knew I would never work enough to pass exams unless I was imprisoned in a boarding school, because I still hated school. So I told Kathleen I wanted to go to Armagh, where I couldn’t get out and would have to study. She wrote off to Armagh for me and I was allowed to go.

  So back I went and did my three years porridge and was ready for the next stage of my life.

  Being at Armagh wasn’t all bad. I loved Gaelic football and played it every day after class. I was lucky in that I was there the year Armagh won the All Ireland College’s football at Croke Park. Players like Iggy Jones, Jim Devlin, Eddy Devlin, Gerry O’Neill from Armagh, Pat O’Neill from Keady, lads from Derry and Louth – I can’t remember their names but all very good footballers.

  Iggy Jones, the footballer

  Iggy Jones was, of course, the one who impressed me most. When he got the ball he’d run toe to hand along the sideline for about twenty yards, stop suddenly, which would mean his marker would have to put the brakes on as well, then he would take off again, then he would stop suddenly again. This was stamina-sapping for whoever was marking. When he finally made the last burst he would cut in across the field and shoot over the bar.

  When I left Armagh college, I started playing football for Derryloughin Kevin Barries. The team had only been formed a couple of years earlier and hadn’t really got a permanent football pitch, but the lads were all keen and willing and that meant a lot. I had played a couple of games for Derrytresk previously, but I was persuaded by Matt’s Paddy, our goalkeeper, to join Derryloughin and I thought there would be more craic there.

  Paddy was Matt’s eldest son and was a very funny man. The whole family were comedians, except they wrote their own stuff, as it were. We had a full back called James who was a good experienced back and didn’t mind dishing out a bit of punishment to the opposing forwards if they presumed to take liberties with his person. James was known by the nickname ‘Pocket Legs’. I think it was because his legs were slightly bowed but I don’t know where it originated.

  He was a sincere, innocent sort of fellow who would ask you, “How did I play?” and, “Was there many bragging me on the touchline?” He really lived for the game. I think over the years he was our best player. He took great pleasure in telling me how high up he jumped for the ball and what a catch he made.

  One day we happened to be all together on the high bridge, myself, James and Matt’s Paddy. I had a camera with me and we decided to take a picture of James jumping for the ball. Paddy threw the ball up in the air and I took the photograph. We had to wait to develop it, of course, and I brought the picture down to the clubhouse for James to see. Imagine his surprise when all that was on the photograph was James’ legs hanging down from the top of the photograph, just above the knee. I’m afraid I had made a bloomer.

  Then we showed it to Paddy and right away he came to the rescue.

  “You’ve jumped too high, James. You’ve jumped out of the photograph.”

  That pleased James. “I jumped out of the photo,” he announced proudly. “I jumped too high.”

  That black and white photograph of Pocket Legs’ legs became well known in folklore after that. I think everyone in the district knew of Pocket Legs’ legs.

  The standard of football played in Tyrone and, indeed in Northern Ireland, was very low. All the good teams were down sou
th and the championship was always won by teams like Kerry or Cavan. Compared to the Tyrone team of today we were not in the same league; we didn’t have any Peter Canavans then, well, perhaps, one. I imagine the Tyrone team of the forties wouldn’t have beaten a good club team in Kerry. But the “Barries” didn’t mind and we all enjoyed ourselves.

  At that time, toe to hand football as exemplified by Iggy Jones, was in its infancy. It improved the game immensely. Brocagh had a seven-a-side team which were very successful because they were all exponents of the art. Kevin Tague, Kevin Canavan, Peter O’Neill, Hairy Dan, as we called him – I think his name was also Canavan – and Joe Scullion, their full back, among others, made up the Brocagh team and they were great to watch.

  Discipline was not very good and some teams preferred to fight instead of play football. One of these was the Windmill and there was sure to be a fight if you went there.

  One Sunday we had to go to the Windmill and we knew for sure that a fight would start, so we took our curate, Father Murphy, with us as insurance. But they took no notice of the priest and started the fight early in the match. It was like little fires breaking out all over the pitch. I was standing, wondering about what was going on, when someone grabbed my arms from behind and another started to batter me on the face. Next thing Father Murphy ordered us all back to the bus, but getting through the gate was another matter.

  In front of me I saw one of our footballers, Jimmy Taggart, being beaten over the head by a woman with an umbrella, and our chairman, James McAliskey, laying about him with a bicycle pump. But we managed to get to the coach, which was hit by a couple of bricks before we got away.

  In my time we didn’t win anything, but I enjoyed every minute of it. We kept the team alive for future teams to win honours, which they duly did. They also serve who only stand and wait.

  The first day that I went to see Derrytresk, or the Hill, as it was called, play the team consisted of James and Pat O’Neill (Ned’s), Barney O’Neill (Fat) the three Campbells and two Fitzgeralds (Red boys), among others.

  Like Derryloughin, very often the team would be short of players, so an unsuspecting man would be commandeered from the sideline, who just took off his jacket and maybe even played in a pair of boots. Ned O’Neill, the father of Pat and James, was a keen supporter but he kicked every ball himself as he watched from the sidelines – anyone who stood in front of him did so at their peril. Sometimes a chap called Colm Murray who came down from Dungannon at weekends to visit his aunt would be pressed into service. But Colm taught Irish dancing to the girls in Dungannon and he wasn’t what one would call a robust character and consequently got many a blessing showered on him from Ned.

  “Bad luck to Colm,” he would say, as he aimed another kick at nothing.

  One day they pressed into service Paddy McCann (Scotch), who had learned to play soccer on the streets of Glasgow. When Paddy got the ball he dropped it on the ground and tried to dribble it towards the goal, which is fine in soccer but certainly not Gaelic football. Old Ned nearly had a fit.

  The team changed into their strip along the sideline beside a hedge and dressed afterward at the same spot. Not much privacy there. At half time they would congregate there for a smoke and sometimes a Woodbine would be shared between two or three. At that time smoking was really supposed to be good for you and a woodbine at half time would help the players’ breathing.

  My cousin Joe played midfield and I noticed that he had very long legs, not knowing that I had the same legs myself.

  The team was called Derrytresk, Fir Na Cnuic, Gaelic for men of the hill. Recently the Derrytresk team got into a national final and would probably have won it only the game ended in a fight. Nothing has changed.

  One Sunday, a few years after I had left Armagh College, Derryloughin had to play Dungannon in the cup in Coalisland. We had no preparations or plans to deal with the phenomenon that was Iggy Jones and when I saw him appear on the field and take over his right three-quarter spot, I looked around to see who was marking him. There was nobody so I had to mark him myself.

  Well, he immediately started his caper of streaking up the sideline with me keeping just inside him. Then he’d stop dead, then away he sprinted again, but when he got to the other end I was still there and he had to centre the ball, and that’s how it went all through the first half.

  In the second half it was the same again. Only once did he get close enough to shoot. I was in front of him with my hands held high – he put a drop shot between my legs and Joe Donnelly made a great save.

  The final whistle went, but he never scored. That night I couldn’t sleep a wink. I had called on such reserves of stamina that it took a long time for me to recover.

  Incidentally, we lost the game – someone else did the scoring. I was so engrossed in my private battle with Jones that I had no idea what the score was. I wonder if one had a choice between Peter Canavan and Iggy Jones, who would play?

  As the song says, “Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end.” But they do.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When I passed all my exams and left Armagh College aged nineteen I still had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I ended up becoming a pharmacist, simply because a friend of Kathleen’s who was working as a pharmacist in Portadown, told her about an apprenticeship that was going in one of the chemists there and suggested I apply for the position.

  So I served my apprenticeship in McAnallen’s in Thomas Street. This had a good dispensary business but as it had a lady proprietor it specialised in cosmetics and, being a farmer’s son, I would have been much better in a chemist specialising in the veterinary business. I was very interested in cattle and horses and well used to them but, at the time, that was all that was available and I sort of drifted into it.

  We were next door to the Queen’s Hotel and we had a storeroom/workroom on its top floor. At that time the pharmacist made everything up from scratch, not like today, when it’s just packets of tablets. Everything was made on the premises and sometimes it could take some time to do, so usually customers were asked to call back for their prescriptions. However, if it was something easy I would tell the customer to wait for a minute and hand it out to him. But most customers would call back and, if they couldn’t, we would deliver the prescriptions, which were wrapped in white paper and sealed with sealing wax.

  There were a few chemists in Portadown. Pedlow’s in the Square, Davy Row on Woodhouse Street, Hendron’s on West Street and another opposite Marley’s in the Square was called, I think, the Medical Hall, where there was a bevy of glamorous girls working.

  In the mornings we would visit Thoms café just across the road for a coffee and a doughnut. Also across the street from us was a record shop where they played all the latest hits. I can remember one day listening to Howard Keel singing “The girl that I marry” like it was yesterday. Next door to us was a music shop where I used buy strings for my banjo mandolin.

  Arthur, 19, sitting on the hedge in front of the house, playing the banjo.

  During the war we made our own leg tan, as nylons were no longer available. Our leg tan was very popular and I would go up to the room above the Queen’s and spend an afternoon making the leg tan and bottling it.

  We had a very good formula, because it didn’t streak, it stayed on and it didn’t soil clothing. Golden brown was our most popular shade. Customers used to call some products and colours by the queerest of names in different places I worked. In one shop a hair colour we sold was called Belle Colour, and I was asked for a bottle of Belly Colour. Probably the best one was when a lady came in and asked for a colour called Golden Squint and when I looked I found it was Gold Sequins. Another lady asked for a bottle of Helter Skelters meaning Alka Seltzer and, on one occasion, a man asked me for something for his wife’s cystitis. I made him up a bottle of potassium citrate mixture. I put the direction on it which, at that time, was all written by hand and at the bottom of the label I wrote Mist Pot Cit which was shor
thand Latin and purely for my own benefit lest he wanted a repeat. A short time later he returned and said I had given him the wrong bottle because it was for a Miss Pat Cit. It did look a bit like that but I have never heard of anybody yet called Cit.

  After I qualified as a pharmacist, I worked in Belfast in the summer doing locums. A friend from Tyrone called Brendan Fee was also working in a chemist in the city and, as we both liked a bet, we would go down to the dog races at Dunmore Park on Thursday evenings.

  We never won much, I remember, but if we lost we probably thought that the entertainment made it worthwhile. We would study the card and weigh up form and talk to somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew the owner or trainer, but we never showed much profit.

  One night Brendan was studying the card when he said, “Well, look who’s here. It’s my old friend, we’ll have to go and see him.”

  Then he explained how he came to meet an oldish chap who owned a dog called ‘On the Level’. “He will be over near the kennels,” he said, and sure enough, there he was sitting by himself on a wall.

  Brendan had explained to me that this man had, at first, trained the dog himself without success and, finally, he had given it to a trainer to have it done professionally. His pet name for the dog was Darkie and, having left him with the trainer for about a month, he had a call asking him to come down to see the dog having his first race. When he arrived he told Brendan he was shocked to find his little fat dog was now, what he called, skin and bones and his first words were, “That’s not my wee Darkie.”