Juat one of the stops on our Day Outing Saturday 15th June This beautiful Community Walled Garden at Maghera once belonged to the Church of Ireland

Not history related, but someone from 200 years ago would be surprised to see this field in the townland of Greenan in the month of May. What is being grown?

Here’s an interesting newspaper article from 1919. Where is Rafferty’s Corner? Is the first name Ringham still in use?

Here’s a pleasant photograph of Loughadian bog outside Poyntzpass. Back in the year 1759, this would have been a lake. But in 1760, William Fivey had it drained to feed into Acton Lake (Lake Shark) and raise the level of Acton Lake, which in turn feeds that Canal running to both Newry and Portadown. We can only imagine what Loughadian lake looked like in 1760, but when it was drained, a variety of stone age or Celtic implements of war were found such as spear heads, swords, hatchets and flint missiles. Later in 1796 and a curious boat was dug up and in 1797 a golden tiara was found.

Did you miss last night’s talk by Robert Morrow? Oh dear! Well, here he is singing a song called “Barrett’s Privateers”. It was written by a Canadian folk singer called Stan Rogers about a Royalist privateer from Nova Scotia called Elcid Barrett. In 1778 he was granted a letter of marque by King George to plunder American (or ‘Yankee’) vessels during the Revolutionary War, but his ship is destroyed and he’s killed in battle with the Americans. The last survivor recounts the tale through this shanty. https://youtu.be/sxxgtmZg0Zw