08 July 2020

A teenage introduction in
the Isle of Man to hotel
holidays and ‘island hopping’

Onchan Head in the 1960s … my first experience of staying in an hotel and ‘island hopping’ (Photograph: Wikipedia / Dr Neil Clifton)

Patrick Comerford

I am still wondering whether I am going to get to Greece later this year. Any possible government announcement about an ‘air bridge’ has been postponed once again.


Ryanair keeps advertising that it is flying to Thessaloniki. Although I booked this journey late last year, all does not seem secure. Even if an ‘air bridge’ is agreed between Ireland and Greece, am I going to feel reassured enough to go ahead with a planned holiday in Halkidiki in late August and early September?

I mused, until a few days ago, that the ‘R’ factor in Greece is lower than it is in Ireland, and that perhaps I would feel as safe there – if not safer – than in Ireland.

But the arrival of people like Stanley Johnson, and his casual, Trump-like – well, Johnson-like – response to questions, makes me wonder what if … what if, later this summer, the beaches of Greece become like the beaches at Bournemouth and Southend?

Of course, the expectation of the journey has its own pleasure that does not actually depend on arriving at the destination. As the Greek poet CP Cavafy says in his poem Ithaka:

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich
.

But, as I thought about these prospects in recent days, I realised that it was 55 years ago – probably this month, although I am unsure – that I first ever went ‘island hopping’ or stayed in an hotel.

It was 1965, July or August, and I was a 13-year-old who had just realised the fun and joy of being a teenager by the sea.

My father normally took a house in the summer months on the east coast, within commuting distance of Dublin and close to a golf course, so that he could commute to work in the day, and spend the evening playing golf, leaving us to our own devices and creative imaginations throughout those long, balmy days. I still remember episodes in Bettystown, Kilcoole and Termonfeckin that I am sure my parents were never aware of.

But, for some reason, there was a change of locations 55 years ago, and we all caught the ferry to the Isle of Man and spent that family holiday in an hotel in Onchan, overlooking Douglas Bay.

I cannot remember the name of the hotel, but I can remember it was at the end of a terrace of Victorian buildings, above the rocks of Onchan, and I can remember some of the hotel’s guests or residents. There was a veteran from the Battle of El-Alamein, fought in 1942 who entertained me with stories of Monty’s Eighth Army and how they defeated Rommel’s Desert Rats. It was only 23 years earlier, so he may have been only in his early 40s, perhaps even in his late 30s. But, as my father played golf and my mother played bridge, he brought many of my comic-book stories to life.

There was a couple who were convinced that two jobs were safe in life: the binman’s and the milkman’s. Who could invent a machine that would walk up the garden path, take the empties and replace them, or bring the bin down to the waiting cart. I can’t imagine they were recommending a career path for a young teenager; nor could they predict the future … although I only know that with the benefit of hindsight.

Keith was a boy of my age from Haywards Heath. I think his father was a vicar or a lay reader, and he took me to Saint Catherine’s, the Anglican parish church, with its beautiful rood screen and Celtic crosses – this is where Captain William Bligh married Elizabeth Betham.

Keith and I kept in touch with each other for a long time … well, at least until the following Christmas.

I took a delight that only teenage boys appreciate in the local names, such as Windy Corner, Molly Quirk’s Glen, and The Butt, I visited the TT course and saw some of the practice runs, I almost frightened myself when, after pretending I was older, I tried mini-kart at the Onchan Pleasure Park, where I also went boating, I searched for tail-less Manx cats and tried to send others in search of three-legged Manx residents.

I made my own way by bus to other towns on the island, including Castletown, Peel, Port Erin, Laxey and Ramsey, and Tynwald, and spent hours on the promenade and the beach at Douglas. On a more serious note, I was introduced to the horrors of the Holocaust at Madame Tussaud’s in Douglas.

Mutiny on the Bounty had been a hit film three years earlier (1962) and Lord of the Flies (1963) was still showing that summer.

It was the year of the Selma and Montgomery marches, the year TS Eliot died, the year Liverpool beat Leeds 1-0 in the FA cup final. The Rolling Stones could get no Satisfaction, Bob Dylan went electric and had a hit with ‘Like a Rolling Stone,’ Elvis Presley was crying in the chapel, the Beatles played at Shea Stadium, Petula Clarke was downtown, the Beach Boys wanted help from Rhonda, Kathy Kirby and Butch Moore sang in Eurovision in Naples, and the Seekers knew they would never find another you.

Ted Heath became the Tory leader, George Papandreou was sacked in move that would later turn into the colonels’ coup, Sean Lemass had led on, draft cards were being burnt across America, Vatican 2 was coming to an end, WB Yeats was reburied, and Kenneth Tynan, briefly director of Garrick Theatre in Lichfield, used the ‘F’ word on British television.

Lady Penelope and Thunderbirds were about to go, and I was still reading the Eagle, Look and Learn and Lion. But I was maturing in a way I did not yet understand. If my accent was a little too English for a teenager in Ireland, I was sent to Ballinskelligs in the Kerry Gaeltacht the following year. That was the ‘Summer of Love’ and there I would read Anne Frank’s Diaries and Catcher in the Rye, have my first smoke, and face the challenge to go ‘skinny dipping.’ From there I was sent on to boarding school in Gormanston.

My world was changing, and the Isle of Man – with its hotel whose name I have forgotten, and the temptations of ‘island hopping’ – was playing a part in those changes.

A horse-drawn tram on the seafront in Douglas (Photograph: Tripadvisor)

The church and tower in
Shanagolden and links with
the Precentors of Limerick

The tower, erected in 1815, is all that survives of the former parish church in Shanagolden, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

On my way back to Askeaton from Ballybunion on Sunday afternoon [5 July 2020], having visited the former Church of Ireland parish church on the edges of Foynes, two of us went in search of the former parish church in neighbouring Shanagolden.

I had briefly visited this church back in 2017, while I was on my way from the morning service in Tarbert to an afternoon confirmation service in Rathkeale, but on this occasion I had a little more time to walk around the churchyard and to see the tower of the former churchyard.

Shanagolden is on the R521, between Foynes, Askeaton and Newcastle West. Shanagolden has a population of about 400, and the village was laid out during the 1580s as a plantation village after the defeat of the Munster Geraldines, but the story of the church and this area goes back many centuries earlier.

The area is mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters. Brian Ború’s elder brother, Mahon or Mathgamain mac Cennétig, King of Munster, defeated the Norsemen of Limerick and Waterford at Sengualainn in a ‘red slaughter’ in 968.

Turlogh O’Connor gathered a fleet together to cross the Shannon, and plundered the lands of the Uí Conaill at Foynes Island in 1124.

The church in Shanagolden was held by the Precentors of Limerick from the early 13th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Shanagolden had a church from at least the beginning of the 13th century, and Donat O’Brien, Bishop of Limerick (1203-1207), gave control of the church in Shanagolden to M O’Melinus, Chantor or Precentor of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, in 1207.

From the Middle Ages until the Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, the Precentors of Limerick were also the Rectors of Shangolden, but a full list of Vicars of Shangolden survives from ca 1422, and the parish also had a curate from the 1680s until the mid-19th century.

The nave of the church was re-roofed in 1815 and a tower was added while the Revd George Vincent was the Vicar of Shanagolden.

Canon David La Touche Whitty (1806-1885), who was the curate in Shanagolden in 1848, was assaulted and severely beaten near Foynes Island. The assault was widely reported as ‘a monstrous and almost unheard of outrage.’ Later, Whitty was the Rector of Ennistymon, Co Clare.

Whitty was related to two extraordinary Whitty sisters who spent part of their childhood in Limerick and Co Clare: Sophia Angel St John Whitty (1877-1924) was an Irish artist and woodcarver, named after her maternal grandmother, a daughter of Bishop Edward Stopford of Meath; Clare Emma Whitty (1883-1950), was an Anglican nun, Mother Mary Clare, who died a martyr’s death during the Korean War in 1950.

Shangolden was united with Loughill ca 1878. The last separate Vicar of Shangolden was the Revd Robert James Connolly (1839-1926), who was vicar in 1878-1919. Before coming to Shanagolden, he had served in a number of parishes, including Loughill (1864-1865) and Saint John’s Church in Sandymount, Dublin (1865-1866).

He retired at the age of 80 and died on 21 August 1926. Meanwhile, Shanagolden and Loughill were united with Askeaton from 1920.

The Langford family vault in the churchyard at Shanagolden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

The church was deconsecrated on 16 June 1956. When it was demolished, the tower was left standing. The church silver, which was given to Shanagolden by Catherine Greer in 1714, was given to Rathronan and was then given to the church in Foynes.

Among the graves and tombs in the churchyard is the Langford family vault.

The Spring-Rice cross and fountain below the former parish church in Shanagolden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Below the church tower, a large Celtic cross with a drinking fountain was erected and installed to the memory of Stephen Edmond Spring-Rice (1877-1920), who died in London, the eldest son of the local landlord, Lord Monteagle, who lived at Mount Trenchard in Foynes.

The inscription beneath and the cross and above the fountain reads: ‘To the glory of God and in memory of Stephen Edmond Spring-Rice, who died on the seventh day of April 1900 aged 22 years.’

The inscription on the Spring-Rice fountain, erected in Shanagolden in 1900 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Last weekend, the church tower looked forlorn and abandoned in the churchyard, standing above Shanagolden with its wide Main Street.

The shops are set well back on the Main Street, and the brick chimney-stack of the old creamery is a reminder of the past prosperity of Shanagolden.

The wide Main Street in Shanagolden, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)