Kilty

Regularly, I am reminded that knowledge is merely connecting the bits of information received from many different sources.

A month ago, I would not have any idea as to where Kiltyclogher is located.

Connection 1

While off sick a month or so ago, I was listening to radio documentaries from RTE Radio 1. When I came across Seen From a Distance, I was reminded of a feature I had heard previously where an Irish emigrant to England returned to the family home many years after his parents’ deaths. The house still had very many personal belongings – the door was just pulled out and the house stood idle for many years.

I found it strange that such properties were not sold, especially ten years ago. From driving around, there do appear to be very many idle cottages in varying state of repair – each probably with their own story as to why they now lie forgotten and unloved.

The house in the documentary still had so many personal belongings – so much personal history.

Connection 2

We were in Co. Cavan for the weekend and while out and about, the sign for Kiltyclogher had a magnetic effect.

I have now seen the birthplace of Sean McDermott – and photographed another War of Independence Memorial for the website.

The rolling hills on the approach road where I met seven hares, the warm weather, and the general stillness and absence of movement at 7a.m. did conspire to leave a positive impression.

Connection 3

I am currently reading Colm Tóibín - the third of his books that I have read - all non-fiction. On Sunday morning, I was reading Bad Blood about his walk along the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic in 1986, just after the Anglo Irish Agreement – before the previous recession had ended and well before any boom was even contemplated.

While I was settling in with my cup of tea, the author was walking into Kiltyclogher.

Kilty

It is a very long way from here but I do know a lot more now and look forward to a return visit – and pint.

“I walked along through the boggy terrain where a few scrawny-looking haystacks lay in the fields, through the landscape dotted with abandoned houses, and stretches of new forests. There was no sense of habitation anywhere, the population of Leitrim having decreased from 150,000 to 27,000 between 1841 and 1986 because of emigration, famine and now forestry. I understood why the forests had become an emotional issue. I thought of de Valera’s famous St Patrick’s Day broadcast in 1943 when he wished for ‘a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the rompings of sturdy children, the contests of athletic youth and the laughter of comely maidens, whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. It would, in a word, be the home of a people living the life that God desires man should live’.

Forty years later the road between Rossinver and Kiltyclogher, the heart of rural Ireland was a convincing testament to the failure of de Valera’s vision, which seemed now like a joke from a bitter satirical sketch. He wasn’t a drinking man, but it is likely that even he would have a dim view o the plight of the publicans of Kiltyclogher, right on the border of County Fermanagh. There were six pubs in the town, and four were closed completely for lack of trade, one was only open at the weekends and the other, where I drank to de Valera’s poor old ghost, was the only hostelry which was open all day. And even here trade was bad on weekdays, the owner told me.”

 

Colm Tóibín - Bad Blood

Photos through window of library in Kiltyclogher