I fell asleep with the wireless on and had the most terrible dream, a nightmare of rare proportions.
Donald Trump was spouting off about his epic decision to bomb Iran. What a speech: Mass precision strikes carried out by American bombers on a trio of Iranian nuclear facilities has been successful, he said and he warned that more of the same could be on the table if Tehran does not return to negotiations.
What a frightening dream. But then as commentators took up the story it became all too real. The fear that this man has his finger on the read button has become that bit closer. I can’t bear seeing Trump with his pompous side kicks standing there looking so self righteous. A can of worms seems an appropriate thought this morning.
Jim Clancy and Sean McDermott
TEN DAYS AGO I was strutting my stuff in the Ballroom of Romance, Co. Leitrim, just one of the hi-lights of visiting this part of Ireland. I’d been invited to visit the Glenfarne Demesne by Sean McDermott to hear about plans to develop this beautiful area of forestry on the shores of Lake Maclean. We began our day in Clancys where Jim Clancy told us about his grandparents, specifically his grandmother who knocked down a bedroom wall in the house to establish the only shop in the village in order to make enough money to send her sons through college and into the priesthood. The same house is now a hotel and restaurant and the supermarket is still the only shop in the village.
They are hard working people in Glenfarne with a vision to the future. Jim, Sean, my daughter and myself sat over coffee and discussed what was ahead and it’s exciting. We also talked of another local man who is a national figure, footballer Andy Robertson Scottish captain and Liverpool player whose granny, just like mine, was born in the village, Glenfarne grannies are something else!
The Music Plays On
The heart of Glenfarne is The Rainbow Ballroom an iconic building that has played host to every showband in the land. Th sprung floor is built on a foundation of steel girders taken from the railway that once ran from Glenfarne through Sligo to Enniskillen and on to Belfast. Until the 50s this was transport not only for passengers but timber from the forest and stone from the quarries, wood used in building the Titanic and some of the stone flags are laid on the ship’s slipway in Belfast and some used in the Crown Bar in the city.
In more recent times the ballroom has developed into a community hub with concerts and dances, sporting events, a heritage museum and most especially providing a valuable meals-on-wheels service for older people.
Across the road is the little gate house standing guard to the entrance of Glenfarne estate, important to me as, over 150 years ago, my grandmother,Mary Edith, would have passed it everyday on her way to school, probably in a donkey and cart.
Mary Edith (neeCampbell) de Winter
The big house has long gone by the side of Lough Maclean where she often spoke of swimming and playing with her brothers in those far off days when the estate was owned by Sir Edward Harland of Harland and Wolff shipyard. Here my great grandfather Frank Campbell, kept the grounds, looked after Sir Edward and played fiddle for the titled ladies and gentlemen visiting from London and Dublin. Frank’s fiddle now hangs by my fireplace in Belfast and it plays memories in my mind. The Hall came into the ownership of Harland after Arthur Tottenham became insolvent when building the railway and gained financial support from Harland. Tottenham was the fourth generation in the ‘big house’ but was unable to replay the loan and the debt was settled in the form of Glenfarne Hall and estate. Harland only lived in his hunting mansion for around ten years, he died in the hall two days before Christmas in 1895 after a raucous evening of partying.
When the hall was eventually ransacked and demolished, the remaining walls were used to lay walks through the forest where I was walking with my daughter Susie, the fifth generation with an attachment to Glenfarne and it was emotional to lean up against the last wall standing, that of an outhouse beside the foundations of the Hall.
Watch This Space
Today the estate is a public forestry park with tall stately pines many tossed in the Eowyn storm and you can just see the fairies watching from the tangled of roots, they’ve seen it all down through the centuries and what story they could tell, about why the massive man known as Horse of Black Island had to carry Harland’s dead body out of the Hall or the huge mirror plundered from the Hall too big for a small cottage so set up against the byre outside only to be smashed to smithereens by a jealous cow who didn’t like the look of the intruder. And what happened to the white piano?
As Sean explained, working with the Coillte (the state owned commercial forestry business) and Leitrim County Council this area is to be developed into a tourist centre which will bring visitors flooding in. The main attraction will be a greenway following the line of the old railway, starting in Sligo, looping through Manorhamilton, Glenfarne, Belcoo and onto to Enniskillen, 45 miles of nature at its most beautiful. At Glenfarne people will enjoy canoeing on the lake, safe cycling paths, facilities for e-scooters, areas for wedding photographs, nature trails, a paradise for children and fishermen alike. There will be an holistic centre to study yoga and mindfulness in silence under the canopy of trees only birdsong to help relaxation. Phase One will be complete by next year and then it’s ever onwards.
Be careful if this stifling weather if it lasts, however, whether the sun shines or the rain rains take it as easy as possible. Live in hope of wise heads sorting out the state of the world if not for us for our children and grandchildren.