It Occurs to Me: Bringing the cup back to the bog

Running into the legendary Brendan Bradley in Derry last week, and listening to our own Diarmaid Doherty commentating on Highland Radio on Saturday evening, brought back many happy memories of Finn Harps in their glory days.
I still remember April 21, 1974 vividly when Harps defeated St Patrick’s Athletic 3-1 at Dalymount Park to lift the FAI Cup. Bradley scored twice after an amazing early free kick from Charlie Ferry and the supporters went wild.
Not only did the team contain many great Derry players but Harps had a huge Derry support at that time. A mix of us were walking past the Gresham Hotel when disgruntled Pat's supporters started giving us dog's abuse and hurling rocks and stones across from a nearby construction site.
Later, as manager Patsy McGowan recalled with delight...when the team travelled down O’Connell Street, some gurrier roared: “Go back to the bog where you belong!”. Patsy waved the cup in the air and shouted: "...we may be going back to the bog, but the Cup is going with us!”.
Patsy probably never knew that, earlier, as we were under siege on the same street, one very organised Derryman shouted: “Right lads, let’s show these Free State b.....ds that when it comes to stone throwing, they’ve taken on the wrong boys!” When the Bogside and Creggan lads returned the stones, the St Pat's supporters learned to their horror, that accuracy was not just confined to Charlie Ferry free kicks or Brendan Bradley headers.
3-1 to the Harps...at least 10-0 to the supporters.

Termon finally pip Glenfin in Donegal LGFA Senior final free-kick lottery

There was nothing between Termon and Glenfin in the Donegal LGFA Senior final at O'Donnell Park until the Burn Road side came through on free-kicks to win the Donna Dunnion Boyle Memorial Cup

Here’s how the late Johnny Doherty remembered his first attempts at playing the fiddle:
“Ach indeed I started fiddlin’ when I was very, very small. I started to play the fiddle when my arm wasn’t just as long as the fiddle. And I remember one day I was playing...I made some kind of a fiddle, or the imitation of a fiddle...as we call it in Irish, strachan. And I was annoying my father with it, but he chased me outside anyhow.

The statue of John Doherty in Ardara

‘Get out of that boy, what are you annoying my head for?’
“‘Oh,’ says I, ‘I’m trying to learn a tune.’ ‘Ah now, now,’ he says, ‘leave it from ye, because you’ll never be able to play the fiddle according to what I see you doing,’ he says, ‘and what I hear you at.’
“But, however, the sort of a toy fiddle I had made, I went on out and I sat under the cow’s head in the byre, and what do you think of it, the first couple of notes I struck upon was the first few notes of Bonnie Kate. And I come in to my father.
“‘Well here father,’ says I. ‘Listen haul on, you’re puttin’ me out,’ says I, ‘very often for making noise in your head and all this but wait to you hear this,’ says I.
“And I just begin the first few notes anyhow. But to make a long story short, I went over Bonnie Kate in the way that a child would do it just so it seems to be that it was just nature controlling me to, that it was just me natural musical talent that was controlling me to do it.”
Regrettably, I was unable to attend the annual Johnny Doherty Festival in Ardara last weekend, but listening to an old recording brought back many memories, not only of his incredible playing but his wonderful introductions to many of the tunes.
For example: “It was a wild stormy night and I had a mountainous road to go!”
In the early 1970’s, he played regularly in Madge the Doc's bar in Carrick, and invariably it was thronged. Johnny was a shy, gentle soul and a genius.
One of my favourite stories from Madge’s was Johnny telling the rapt audience that: “The first time I hit Letterkenny, I thought I was at the end of the world!”

Gallery: Annie Jr. the Musical in Castlefin a big success

Now, most of the people who came to the pub were genuine fans and like me, in awe of this legend. However, there’s always one, isn’t there. One gulpen with drink taken couldn’t hold his water and when Johnny played a tune he said he’s picked up in Scotland, your man laughed loudly and exclaimed: “Ha Ha! Scotland! I thought you were never further than Letterkenny?”
He got many a dirty look from those around him for daring to offend an old man’s dignity, but Johnny just left the fiddle down momentarily, didn’t look up at the offender, and shook his head. “Ah sure, I was only ever there the wanst or twi'st…you might say I was never there at all!”
The gulpen was silenced and the audience roared with appreciative laughter. I was reminded of a story from Kerrykeel about a returned Yank who was boasting in John Kerr’s pub about all the places he’s been. Most of the company were nodding their heads or yawning in bored acknowledgement, bar one man who snorted derisively at every utterance from the Yank. The latter got annoyed and asked the cynic, “So where have you ever been, man?” “Ach” he replied “Am a travelled man, sir, I was twi'st in Ra’Mullan!”

NO ‘ARM IN THAT!

Johnny was born in Ardara in 1900. As you can see from the accompanying photo, the rather quirky sculpture in his memory is opposite The Corner House, and is much photographed and filmed. A few years ago at the Festival, I was standing nearby, when a visitor (from another planet?) sidled up to me, looked at the statue in a bemused fashion, and enquired: “Are you all celebrating a famous one-armed fiddler?” I was flabbergasted but rather than explaining the aesthetic virtues of the commemorative sculpture, I just replied “Yes”. Off he went, scratching his head…I gave my own a fair scratching too!

CLEANING UP HIS ACT

I came across a bar of soap recently and was pleasantly surprised. It was green, foamy and not over-perfumed like the squeezy fadoodles that one encounters in bathrooms the length and breadth of the land. It reminded me of long ago Saturday nights when the region behind the ears couldn’t escape a mother’s onslaught.
Anyway, maybe it’s old age, but any such memory nowadays triggers a yarn or two. My favourite is set in an Inishowen public house I know well and concerns two bachelor brothers known as Clane John and Dirty Danny. Danny rarely saw water from one end of the year to the other and had - to use a neighbour’s description - enough clabar on him “to block a gutter”. John went to Mass every Sunday and always looked washed and well clothed. Although they went to the pub together, they sat separately and never spoke to one another.

Household soap

A very old uncle from Philadelphia landed one time, stayed in a local guest house and was particularly disgusted with the shape of Dirty Danny. When he died a few years later, he left quite a fortune to Clane John, who didn’t give a penny to the poor brother, who hadn’t been left tuppence.
John started to wear good suits of a Sunday, upgraded the tractor to a brand new model, and according to the aforementioned neighbour: started “seein’ weemin about Derry”.
One day he and one of the ‘weemin’ came into the local, ordered drinks and ignored Danny sulking in the corner. The bar owner called him aside and cautioned: “Listen John, I heard Danny muttering this while that whenever he finds the lock of pound you have hidden about the house, he’s going to ‘clane’ you!”
“Ha Ha!” replied John, “he’ll never find it…for I have it hidden under the soap!”