‘We loved our trip to Ballyshannon and left our brother in good hands’

A family thoroughly enjoyed their return to Ballyshannon, having left the Erneside town 70 years ago to move to Africa.

Eleanor Gough, who was born in Dublin in 1950 and spent her early years in Ballyshannon, now lives in Chandler's Ford, not far from Southampton, and was part of the group who made the journey “home” last month.

“What a wonderful experience to return to Ballyshannon after years of absence,” she tells DonegalLive. “Our father, John Doherty, originally from Burtonport, was a civil engineer on the building of the hydro-electric dam at Ballyshannon at Cathaleen’s Fall in the early 1950s.”

Eleanor Doherty, as she was then, went to the local national school where their teacher was Rose Diver, with her elder brother of two years, John (Johnny) Brendan. Whilst the family lived in Ballyshannon, two more children arrived - Daniel Gerard and Mary Cora.

In 1956, because of their father John’s work, they left for Kariba in Rhodesia, as it was called then, a resort town and district in what’s now northern Zimbabwe, along the Zambian border. There, John worked on the Kariba Dam in its very primitive stages, before they settled in Southampton in 1963.

“There was no church, nor hospital, nor school, so my mother, Mary, who was from Woodlawn in east Galway, undertook to teach us herself using materials sent from Salisbury, and ended up with youngsters from Italy, France, Denmark, and England whose fathers were all engineers on the dam,” Eleanor adds from her home in south-west England.

“As my father's job took him to other schemes, additional children arrived in Johannesburg in South Africa (Antoinette), Falkirk in Scotland (Norinne) and Cardiff in Wales (Michael). In all, we were seven siblings. Our brother, Daniel, died last year, so our trip to Ballyshannon - six remaining siblings and a group of 15 in all - was to return his ashes to where he started, scattered at Mall Quay.

“We returned to Ballyshannon in August, four of us staying at The Atlantic Lodge Airbnb where the wonderful Bernie (Gallagher) made us so welcome.

“During our stay, we met Marian Wymbs in St Patrick’s Parish Office, who printed out our baptismal certificates for the four of us who were born in Ireland; Pat Lally from The Mall, who rescued us in Belleek, where we visited as we have the pottery - when we missed the bus back to Ballyshannon; JP O’Rilley, the fisherman who was in Rose Diver’s class with me - and a host of other people who welcomed us with kindness and help. People would stop us on the street and ask us how we were getting on.

“We loved the Italian restaurant in Castle Street, opposite our once-upon-a-time home, and the Pottery Cafe, great coffee! Family friends Rossa and Eleanor McCosker shared a meal with the 15 of us at Dorrian’s Hotel, a chance to catch up on past times before we spent a memorable evening enjoying the music at The Thatched Cottage. We had a wonderful time. Even though it was to honour a sad event, we loved our trip to Ballyshannon and left our brother in good hands. Ballyshannon is a great place to visit!”