writeyouwriteme

The Murlog Strike of 1918

Author unknown

The Union Flag is waving still in Murlog’s famous hall.

Surrounded by the fearless men of heath clad Donegal,

They did unite in one true band and from many a hill and glen,

From that old hall still comes the call of Murlog’s Union men.

It was on a sunny April morn and the sky was blue and clear,

Those heroes’ great did congregate from Porthall and Rossgeir,

From Ballindrait and Tober, from Lifford and Glensmoyle,

They assembled there in thousands like true born sons of toil.

Inchany men did proudly come with a spirit bold and fine,

And Ballybogan and Camus were first to toe the line,

We are not out for battle; we have no foemen to slay,

We only ask the farmers to give us union pay.

Too long we have wrought for a coolie’s wage too long like slaves did toil,

The backbone of the nation, the tillers of the soil,

Some of these Clonleigh farmers are enemies you know,

They were planted here in Donegal three hundred years ago.

They came across the channel in the by-gone days of yore,

When you read your Irish history of them you will know more,

But let us hope the day is near when this great strike will end,

But we must trust brave Donnelly our leader and our friend.

When he meets the crafty farmer, his spirit is the same,

He always kicks the union ball to the goal at which we aim,

Also McNamara is bound to will applauses,

That gentleman, I understand, the mainspring of our cause.

And I can’t forget McGranaghan; he freely uses his pen,

To assist these noble strikers, called the Murlog Union men,

So united we stand, divided we fall,

An injury done to one of our band,is an injury done to all..

Author unknown.

Leaving Micky

Mary felt guilty about not telling Micky that she was leaving him. But she had to get away. Get away from the house.  Get away from the drudgery of looking after and picking up after his sons and daughters.  She wished it was an option to go back home to her home place in Donegal. But she knew that wasn’t an option. Her mother would say she’d made her bed she should lie in it.

She knew her priest Father Sam would think it wrong too.

The day was drawing on to evening but walking helped her to think and the decision she was trying to reach needed a lot of thinking. Once made and acted on it would change her life forever.  She’d be homeless.

Calling the old dog Yapper to her, she pulled on a scarf over her hair and tightening the belt on her coat she made for the road that led to Clady Bridge.

There weren’t many cars on the back road but she crossed over to walk on the right-hand side so that in the gathering dusk a car coming quick around a bend would see her in its headlights. A cow in a nearby field lamented mournfully making her jump. “Its face is as sorrowful as my own,” she muttered as she hurried on her thoughts in turmoil.

She stopped at the breast of a hill as familiar to her as the lines on her own face and looked back the way she had come. The road looked dark and dismal with only the occasional light of a house shining through a hedge here and there to break the gloom. Like my life since I foolishly married Micky and his brood, she thought.

She stood and looked at the road ahead. Bordered by high overgrown hedges it dipped into a shadowy hollow and then rose in a steep bray at the other side. The rise of the bray gave her hope.

Turning, she made her way back the way she had come, tired now.  Her steps slowed as she neared the house in the village of Urney.  As she lifted the latch on the door she hoped against hope that Micky had thought to tell his daughters to clear away the dinner things.  If they’d only help out she’d have no need to leave. But Micky never saw their fault. And they seemed to think working as flax workers in Sion Mills was work enough.  She was in the house all day. It was her job to keep the place, clean-up after them and attend them hand and foot.

Mary sighed. She knew all about hard work. She’d got plenty of it and little pay to show for it since she had been twelve; hired out to farmers and their families.  She’d thought it would be easier to marry a widow man with his family half reared. It had been foolish thinking.

The dinner things hadn’t been cleared from the table. Somebody had let the half feral cat with one blue eye and one green eye in and it was helping itself to the leftovers solidifying on the plates and dishes still sitting on the kitchen table. Pulling off her headscarf she made a swipe at it. Any guilt she felt at leaving her husband, leaving his daughters, almost women now, melted like the snow that had covered the ditches behind the house a short time ago.

She’d wait until she got the right moment and then she’d, leave get a room off somebody in Strabane.

Over the next few weeks she started to put her final plans in place. She already had made some tentative plans. Over time she had been saving small bit of money –a few shillings here and there. She’d opened up a bank account that Micky knew nothing about.

When she went out walking she began to wear extra clothes, and take her personal belongings and hide them in deep hole left in a ditch when the high wind had blown down a rotting tree.  She lived in constant fear every day that somebody would find them or a dog or some other animal would dig them up.

Now that her mind was made up she felt better. She’d think twice before she’d take on another man with a readymade family.

A pile of clothes she had spent the day ironing and hung on the backs of chairs for the girls to put away had slid off and were lying in an untidy heap on the floor. She didn’t bother to pick them up or move the dog off them when he scratched them into a pile and made his bed in them.

The sun was rising the following Friday when she quietly let herself out of the sleeping house. She’d have a while to wait on the wee train that took the school children and workers into Strabane. But she wanted to get away before her courage failed her.

She looked back from the end of the lane with a mixture of sadness and a sense of freedom. What would Micky think when the fire in the range wasn’t lit and he rose to a cold kitchen. Or when there was no porridge on the table for him and his daughters? Would he guess she had left him? Surely he was bound to have noticed how weary and unhappy she was with things as they were between them lately?

She was tempted to leave him a note.  She’d no complaints with him as a husband. But in the end she simply lifted her coat and headed down the road to collect her hidden belongings.

Gemma Hill© 2022