It Occurs to Me: A most extraordinary story

In August 1969, 17-year old Frank McGurk walked out of the front gate of his house in Carrigans and as he writes in his brilliant memoir, “A Bit Of Good Luck”, I “...saw my mother standing at the kitchen window, waving goodbye to me with her walking stick. I waved back.

It was about 5.30 a.m. and there wasn’t a sound in the air. My father had secured a railway-lifting contract in Fermoy in County Cork at that time. Railway lines and branch lines were closing all over Ireland between 1960 and 1972 and my father had carried out most of the lifting contracts around the country for the previous ten years or so. He had left home on Monday morning to go to Fermoyand, as I was on school holiday, I was to go with him.

As it was the end of the salmon net-fishing season which we were involved with on the River Foyle, we had two men organised for that same Monday to wash the nets, before hanging up to dry for the winter. But one of the men hadn’t turned up, so I had to deputise and it was going to take all day. My father couldn’t delay his journey, so he went on and I said I would get up early on Tuesday and hitch-hike it to Fermoy.”

So begins a most extraordinary journey in an equally remarkable memoir which Frank managed to complete despite being diagnosed with Parkinsons seven years ago. I recall hitching from Dublin to Carrick in the 1970’s and being thankful for small miracles…getting home with three or four lifts, but Frank McGurk’s seemed a bridge too far in 1969.

He decided to get to Raphoe first and stuck out his thumb at the cross about fifty yards from home. Suddenly, a van pulled up. The driver stuck his head out and asked: “Where you headin’ then boyo?” Frank answered: “Fermoy, in County Cork. But anywhere in that direction would do.” “Well bejaysus,” says he, “this is your lucky day, boyo, for I’m going to Cork too, so I am. Hop in.” Frank recalls that “The smell of smoke was awful in the van. Whether cigarette smoke or exhaust fumes, I wasn’t sure. But as it turned out it was a combination of both. With, as I would soon find out, a frequent ejection of methane. Not to mention the smell of fish as well.”

The van was almost clapped out, there was a hole in the exhaust, and the gears on the steering column ground noisily and couldn’t rise above 40 mph. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and Frank hung on. The fish merchant had left Greencastle at 3am and was carrying a load of lobsters to Cork. They “...sounded like a thousand sheets of sandpaper, all rubbing against each other.” Every so often, he would stop and lash water over the lobsters from a 5-gallon drum, but what was most disconcerting to his young passenger was his habit of stopping for a few ‘jars’ every chance he got.

He detoured to Killybegs at Donegal Town, had a Bushmills and bottle of Guinness, filled the ‘lobster’ water drum and later stopped in Mullaghmore for another two drinks. As it still was early in the morning, these pubs were opening illegally and the next ‘drink’ stop was in Swinford. Fortified with Bush and stout, the driver took to singing the same song all the way, ‘Mother Machree’...Sure I love the dear silver that shines in your hair…”

Jimmy was the driver’s name and he stopped in Westport for fish and chips, but almost fell out of the van, after a total of six drinks.

The stout only increased the methane discharges but heds simply turn to Frank and explained…”Oops!...Better out, aargh! It’s the tablets, Frankie, the tablets.” Jimmy stopped at pubs in Gort, one between Ennis and Kilrush, and another in Kilrush itself.

Seventeen hours after leaving Carrigans, they reached Fermoy at 10.45pm. Jimmy handed Frank a fiver, thanked him for his company, and as he drove away, the young Carrigans man realised he’d probably never see him again. He writes: “It’s more than likely Jimmy has gone to his rest. If he has, I could nearly bet what they sang at his funeral, thinking that if I had my way, I know what I’d put on his headstone…

‘IT WAS THE TABLETS, YE KNOW’”
The above is just one of a half a dozen great yarns in Frank’s memoir, and sales will greatly benefit the Parkinson’s Association of Ireland. Frank It’s published by Austin Macauley Publishers, London.

THE ARGONY PIPE AND A GRAND PIANO
Though situated in Monglass, Newtowncunningham, the Argony Pipe Bar held great significance for the people of St Johnston and Carrigans. The bar was opened in 1848 and was the first licensed premises in the area. It was licenced to Watts Brewery in Derry who got a 99 Year Lease. The next Lease was issued to Leo McGurk in 1948.

Leo was the father of the aforementioned Frank McGurk. 70 years ago, my father bought an engagement ring for my mother in Letterkenny. They travelled by bus back to the Argony Pipe where Leo McGurk gave them a lift to Carrigans. The pub closed in 2011, but some ten or more years before, I called there on the way from Derry to Letterkenny. The new owner recognised me, and said: “Come out the back ‘til I show you something.”

To my amazement, there was an elaborate chicken coop construction surrounding what looked like an old henhouse. “When your father was transferred to Carrigart in 1957, he sold that to us!” What function a henhouse had at the back of a pub still baffles me but it was one of a number of lovely memories for me.

As it turned out, mum’s best friend in Carrigans (and for years thereafter) was Margaret McGinley from Ballyshannon, who taught locally. Her husband John, a Customs man, had introduced my parents circa 1952, and when Margaret played piano in McGurks, my mother sang with her. John and Margaret’s son, Sean, is the acclaimed and award winning actor.

SEEING IS BELIEVING?
Thirty years ago, I co-presented the Frankly Anne-Marie show on BBC Radio Ulster. I worked out of the Foyle studios and Anne Marie McAleese out of Belfast. One afternoon, a man from County Derry joined me to talk about an up and coming summer festival. He looked around the studio for a while before the programme began, looked closely at me and asked: “Are you that Frankly boy?” I said I was Frank alright and that Anne Marie might join the chat from Belfast.

“Boys a dear” says he, “I be listening to youse every day and I thought three things about you, sir!” I was intrigued and asked him to elaborate. “Well” says he, “It’s funny the notions you get when you just hear a voice…the three things are…I thought you were oulder, I thought you were shorter... and bejaysus, I thought you were bald!”

I was so taken aback I actually ran my fingers through my hirsute appendages to check that all the follicles were there, and as you can see from the above picture, I’m just ‘oulder’, thanks be to God!