Local poems from the mid Ulster region of Northern Ireland.
A local Cullybackey man, named Calderwood, in the 1920s, wrote a poem about the essential contribution of the local farmer. The poem was published in a local newspaper (sadly long since gone). Discovering the prose, inspired me to go look through mum’s old photos. She took the following photograph of dad while he was taking a break from kicking hay on the family farm, at Eden, near...
During the second half of the 1800s, ploughing matches became a common event in the North of Ireland. In a search of old newspapers, reports of annual ploughing matches appear frequently across the 1860s, 70s and 80s. [su_note note_color=”#ffc066″]I’m starting to conduct some research into local farming societies, from the second half of the 1800s, and their annual ploughing...
From time to time, one comes across a little gem when searching old newspapers. Here is a beautiful poem from the last century, called Spring, by Ballymena lady, Joyce Montgomery. Enjoy! Spring With a ray of golden sunshine. With the song of a bird on the wing. With the gently-blowing Comes tne first breath of Spring. One day in the heart of the country Far away from the noisy throng. I realised...
In the 1497 book by Caxton called “History of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland” there is the following quotation: [su_quote]There is a Lake in Ulster and much fish therein, which is 30 miles in length and 15 in breadth. The River Bann runneth out of the Lake into the North Ocean, and men say that this Lake began in this manner — there were men in this country that were of evil living...
I was looking across old newspapers, last year, when I came across this old poem about the River Bann. I’d saved it, but never got around to putting it on the website. It’s a tad unusual, in that nearly all of the Bann-related poems encountered to date, tend to be from further down the river (i.e. the villages south of Coleraine). But here was a delightful poem from August 1881...
Recently, while researching a different topic linked to the River Bann, I happened upon two old poems written in the late 1800s about this beautiful stretch of water. This late 1875 poem called “To the River Bann” appeared in one of the north coast newspapers at the time. It apparently was originally published in a Belfast newspaper. Unfortunately, the author preferred not to...
In recent months, I have been working a fair bit on the photographs taken at the graveyards in and around Cullybackey. The research has also taken in very old newspapers and photo archives. This has thrown up some very interesting old stories and topics (more of those to come in future posts). It has also involved a fair bit of photoshop work, in trying to clean up old photos of the village. ...
Last weekend, while researching an article on those times across recorded history, that the River Bann was frozen over, I chanced upon two old poems related to the river, from the late 1800s. Here’s the first of them, a melancholy poem written on 28 December 1882, by a Ballycastle person, that labels him/herself as S.M. The poem, Beside the Silvery Bann, recounts a long lost love, and...
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. Yeats 1899 short poem, Aedh (He) Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, is a favourite of many.
In perusing old newspapers, one occasionally encounters some locally written poetry (which will often bring to life an era, and and the people of that time). Here’s a delightful example of such a poem by a Portglenone man, Robert Kidd, from 1874. Robert, from Connaughtliggar in Portglenone, was an elder in First Portglenone Presbyterian Church (and also a member of it’s building...
Irish Famine and the Migration to the New World The first mass migration of Irish people to the United States was caused by the famine. The failure in 1850 of Ireland’s potato crop, wiped out by a devastating fungus, spurred a mass migration to the New World. The Irish famine, and disease, resulted in some one million people losing their lives, between 1845 and 1850. On looking through...
Hamilton Dickson Martin, 1789-1855, was a teacher from Craigmore in Randalstown. In 1810, his 21st year, he left for the New World. But before leaving, he penned the following poem. There had clearly been a parting of the ways with his girlfriend and he was upset. [su_note note_color=”#ffc066″ radius=”4″]Many thanks to Valerie Kerr, who tells me that the poem was...