It Occurs to Me: Remembering Michael Melly

​I rarely, if ever, passed through Killybegs without calling to Michael Melly.

Although he was two years behind me in St Eunan’s College, we had maintained a friendship for many years, and when he came to your table with a steaming plate of the best fish and chips in the county, and that big warm smile, such visits were irresistible.

If he wasn’t too busy (which was rare), he loved an old chinwag and a chat about college memories and, of course … music.

As a banjo player, he was intrigued by my involvement in the Omagh Bluegrass Festival, and loved to talk about the great Irish and American musicians who came on an annual basis.

Back in St Eunan’s in 1973, he was part of the legendary band, Farmyard Stench, and although I'd left college at that stage, I heard many reports about them.

Truth be told, we envied their long hair as only two years previously, it would not have been permitted. Reputedly, Clannad had won the Slógadh competition in 1972, so the lads decided to give it a rattle in ‘73.

There was one major problem…the name! And so, Fir Bolg was born …the Fir Bolgs carrying enough innuendo to satisfy their fans but not enough to be banned by the authorities!

They won Donegal and Ulster, and Kevin Dunleavy recalls Fr Dinny McGettigan driving a number of them to the final in Dublin. Alas, they didn’t win, but it was an opportunity to return to the pre-punk name of Farmyard Stench.

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In the accompanying photo from 1973, Michael and Kevin are joined by Patrick Cannon and Derek Murray, later of The Stunning in Galway.

The Stench used the old 4A classroom for rehearsals, Kevin using anything handy in place of drums, and as he was a prefect, he had the occasional privilege of going to the La Scala cinema for the ‘pictur’s!’.

Once, he knocked on Father Austin Laverty’s door to ask permission to go to the movies, and after consulting the movie schedule, Father Austin looked at him and said: “The film is called Music Lovers, and it’s over-18…and you fail on both counts!” Ouch!

I’m sure Michael laughed heartily at that story when he heard it. God rest his gentle soul.

Nellie May…from Malin to murder

A few weeks ago, I was intrigued to read this headline in the Irish Independent: “Scandalous life of Nellie May Madison, the Donegal ‘cowgirl’ who was first woman sentenced to death in California.”

Nellie May Madison was born Nellie May Mooney, on April 5, 1895 in Red Rock, Montana, to Edward Mooney and Catherine Doherty from Drumgorman, Malin Head, County Donegal. She was not a ‘cowgirl’, as reported by the Indo, as her father ran a 1600 acre sheep farm near Mooney Mountain (named for him) in Montana. Nellie had no luck when it came to men, as by the time she met Eric Madison, she had already been married four times.

At some point in March 1934, she came home earlier than she had expected to from seeing a film. Upon entering their apartment, she found Eric in bed with a 16-year-old girl. The girl screamed and ran, leaving Eric to beat Nellie.

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The beating lasted for six days, during which Eric boasted that he’d tricked Nellie into a fake marriage for her money and forced her to sign a note saying that they weren’t married.

On March 24, 1934, when Eric Madison was in bed arguing with Nellie, she showed him a .32 caliber gun she had purchased and showed it to him, possibly as an attempt to warn him that she wasn’t going to stand for his abuse any longer. Eric reached under the bed and pulled out a butcher's knife from the box he kept under his bed, threatening to cut out Nellie’s heart. He threw two knives at her, both of which narrowly missed. As he reached under the bed for another knife, Nellie lifted her gun and shot Eric in the back five times, killing him.

She was the first woman in southern California to receive the death sentence, but after a long battle - supported by politicians, the public, and incredibly, the jury - the sentence was commuted to 15 years, but she was paroled after nine. Her case was a stepping stone on the road to credibility for the abuse defence. At the time, the idea of a woman pointing to the spousal abuse she had suffered as the reason for her crime was unheard of.

The voracious media and the public rapidly lost interest in her and she eventually married a sixth time to a man named Wagner, and is buried beside him in Mountain View Cemetery, San Bernardino, California.

In the same graveyard lie the remains of James Earp, the brother of lawman and gunfighter Wyatt Earp, as are his sister Adelia Edwards and Alvira Earp, the wife of another famous brother, Virgil, who fought alongside him at the Battle of the OK Corral.

So despite not being a ‘Donegal Cowgirl’, she has plenty of cowboys for company!

The late Eithne Vallely

I was very sorry to hear of the tragic death of Eithne Vallely in Armagh.

The name Vallely has been synonymous with music in the Orchard County for many years, and I interviewed a number of them during my tenure on BBC Radio Foyle/Ulster.

My late friend, poet and writer Dermot Healy worked with Fintan Vallelly from 1995-2013 on A Fool’s Errand, in which Fintan played his own compositions…and it was broadcast on radio. Dermot introduced me to Fintan, whose first cousin was Brian Vallely, Eithne’s husband.

I want to thank donegalfiddlemusic.ie for this information: “There was music on both sides of Eithne’s family. Her father Harry Carey was born in Edinburgh and brought up in Glasgow. When he was still a boy he moved to live with an unmarried aunt in Corlea outside Ballyshannon, on the border with Fermanagh. There he took his first steps on the fiddle. His cousin was a noted fiddler, Eddie Moore, and his uncles John and James Slevin also played.”

“Harry’s move to east Donegal came when he was employed as a clerk with Donegal Committee of Agriculture, based in Lifford. He spent his career in the town. He married Mary Doogan, who was from Kilcar in south-west Donegal and also worked there. Mary’s uncle Brian Doogan was a noted local fiddler. Caoimhin MacAoidh comments in 1994: “The late Barney Doogan of Kilcar is now best remembered through a rare tape of a limited number of recordings he made privately in Kilcar. This playing shows his music to have been fully rooted in the local style.

“Eithne was born in 1945. She learned her first tunes on tin whistle at the national school in Mulroy, near Lifford, from her teacher Seán Brady, the father of well-known singer and musician Paul Brady.

“Eithne said: ‘Seán was a really good singer himself but he was more interested in musicals and putting on shows rather than traditional songs. But he taught us loads of marches and got us started. I think there was more emphasis in those days on training teachers to teach music. We learned through tonic sol-fa and I still use it in my head or when I’m writing down a tune really quickly on a beer mat, which I’ve done often!’"Eithne went to Coláiste Bride in Falcarragh and then St Louis boarding school in Monaghan, where teaching was through Irish (remarkably enough, subjects had at one time been taught through French).

“Eithne started learning piano and violin. She also began playing traditional tunes on fiddle with her father during the school holidays. ‘I muddled my way through the traditional tunes with my dad and also during the visits to relations in Kilcar and Corlea. There was absolutely nobody of my age around Lifford interested in traditional music at that stage, and nobody really in the school. The nuns were into classical music and weren’t much enamoured with traditional, although there might be some tunes in the concert on St Patrick’s Day.’

“Being a boarder meant that Eithne didn’t spend a lot of time at home in Lifford. During the holidays the family could be in Kilcar or Corlea. Significantly, Eithne helped to found the legendary Armagh Pipers Club with husband Brian.”