W est Belfast Historical Society rflemcmess optAes

b iACK MOUNTAINEileen Fulton

t is with great pleasure that I recall memories was fascinating seeing them work together, of holidays spent at my grandfather’s house gathering up the sheep and getting them down at the foot of the Black Mountain. to the desired pasture for winter. My grandfather I also bred and trained Shetland Ponies, and in As a young man he left Mullaghsandal near Glenarm around the 1900 mark and bought a the off-season for hunting, horses were allowed sheep farm on the above mountain. His father to graze and rest here. On this mountain the before him had a sheep farm and he was now mineral rights are now owned by Shaftesbury following in his footsteps. Estates but in my grandfather’s time the shooting The house called Blackmountain House was rights belonged to Linen Merchants of Lisburn, situated at the bottom field of the mountain, it I think with the name Barbour. They had a game consisted of two storeys and was built of a white keeper named Sammy Lyttle who lived at the type of stone. It is now demolished but Dan back between Black Mountain and Divis. Here Magill, a descendant has built a new house the Tomaroy River is the dividing line between almost in the same place, he also has held on to these two mountains. a part of the mountain. My grandparents, an Sammy Lyttle was a very strict man and woe aunt, uncle and cousins were the occupants. betide any poacher found about. He had quite a Other cousins lived in an adjoining farm. large family, six according to local people. The During these holidays there was plenty of work children attended the Catholic school at to be done. In winter the sheep had to be looked Hannahstown and were well acquainted with my after. They were a breed suitable for mountain grandparents, religion didn’t matter in those days areas and had the usual black faces. Until the it was neighbourliness that counted. The narrow very cold weather came they would stay on the laneway leading to their house in the heart of hill tops and when the grass got scarce they the mountain was just beside my grandfather’s would come down to fodder of meal and hay, place, they carried their goods and coal on a then take shelter on the low land. My uncle had donkey and a mule from Brennan’s shop at the two very good well trained sheep dogs and it top of Hannahstown Hill. Letters were left at Outline Magazine grandfather’s and my cousin talked to me about boasted a sort of open range with a top hot plate being sent up to Lyttle’s with any important and a door opening at the front to let us see the looking correspondence. Their house was quite open fire. At one side there was an oven and the a large one, built of grey stone, they had a large other had a tank for hot water. She baked soda, paddock in front and fences all around to keep wheaten bread also pancakes. For a treat we their own domestic animals in. During a heavy would get raisin bread as it was called, done in snowstorm it was not unusual for members of the oven or apple dumpling or pudding, steamed his fam ily to be accom m odated in my or boiled. The kettle was always on the boil and grandmother’s. My cousin tells on one occasion a great black pot was surely on the range, so it o f a w a s young “Grandmother was a great cook, her kitchen boasted never girl of the a sort of open range with a top hot plate and a door opening short o f L y t t l e ’s at the front to let us see the open fire.” soup or who died stew as of tuberculosis which was very prevalent at the many callers came to my grandmother’s house. time with the result that the coffin was kept in She was a Magill married to a Magill, no relation, the house and the body had to be taken down and was noted to have a cure for whooping the mountain by sled for burial. As a child I cough. I often wondered what this was, thinking was more fond of my grandmother but as I grew it was something magical or even a circus trick, older I learned to help with the work both outside but to my disappointment it turned out to be just and inside as required. a slice of bread covered with butter and jam, The most of my school holidays were spent with and given to the child to eat. them. I loved Spring and Summer best. Spring One very distinct memory is of a travelling was the lambing season, and it was exciting to woman who came occasionally to the house, she go up the mountain each morning and count the was not of the tinker tribe, but sold accessories many new born lambs. Most of all it was like laces, matches, pins, needles, combs and a fascinating to watch the sheep dogs under the selection of light articles. My grandmother control of my uncle separating the sheep and seemed to have a peculiar liking for this old bringing them to different pens. Each ewe knew woman as some nights she would be allowed to her own lamb and how gently and persuavisely sleep on the settle bed which could be let down they were enveighed by the dogs to settle down the wall in the kitchen. Grandmother liked to and be tested for sickness or injuries. All done bake with a fire of sticks instead of coal so it at the command of a whistle. would be my turn to gather these, she said bread About the end of May and mid-June when made this way tasted better. lambing time is over the older sheep were Brennan’s grocery store and pub did a great brought down to the farmstead, again the dogs business in those days and in the present were the main workers. The shearing work had Hannahstown village there is no such service now to be done. Neighbouring farmers helped for the locals. each other out. Among them there was always When the day of shearing arrived a big tank was one, mostly two expert shearers. A time was filled with water and Jeyes Fluid as a disinfectant appointed and w ord then sent around to the was mostly used, at least this is one I heard about different farmers, my grandfather’s was always constantly. When the sheep were shorn of their the last to be nam ed, so that meant I was usually wool they were dipped in this tank and put into lucky as it w ould fit in with school holidays. pens, they were then marked with the owner’s My aunt and grandmother would now have to particular trademark, usually done in coloured make provision for the catering for so many extra paint. Both shearing and dipping the sheep was hands. A list of all groceries and necessities was tough work as one would imagine, they were made out for B rennan’s shop and the house was very afraid and unwilling to co-operate and cleaned from to p to bottom. mostly had to be held down and then lifted G randmother w a s a great cook, her kitchen West Belfast Historical Society

bodily into the tank. They were then allowed to birds are frightened off. Small animals such as go back to the mountain, but the work was not rabbits and hares are plentiful and an odd finished. The sheared wool had to be sorted, domestic goat or two can still be seen. graded and put into bags for the mill. The good In Summer the wild flowers grew in profusion, grades were separated from the lesser and this bluebells, violets, primroses, foxgloves, not took up a lot of time. In the house a substantial forgetting the whin or golden gorse. The heather meal had to be ready for the men when day was carrie to full bloom about August as did the done, they had taken a very short break at mid­ bilberries. These were a blue berry lovely and day and were now really hungry. juicy and when we finished our picnic we would The next excitement would be hay-making. This fill our cans with them to take home for baking would not entail so much work ,as sheep rearing tarts. I remember once when the hawthorn was was the production line, but a few fields in the in bloom carrying a great bunch home, I thought lowland were kept for some cattle. A cow or I never saw anything so beautiful as the mountain two provided the milk and the rest were store looked on that day, the hillside was covered in cattle. masses of white flowers and ever since I could never understand why the so-called ost of the Sundays in Spring and Summer “Mayflower” could bring bad luck to any person. Mwere spent walking on the mountain. My Needless to say my grandmother did not accept cousin and I would set off after dinner and walk my bouquet so I had to take it outside again. as far as the gulley, sometimes we would reach Another attraction was the cottage in the Hatchet the Hatchet field and view the beautiful scenery Field. A Mr. Forsythe lived here. stretching all over Belfast and on a good day He was distinguished by a long beard reaching one could see Scrabo Tower, Newtownards, to his chest. He used a mule to transport his Castlereagh Hills and the Moume mountains. milk down the narrow road to the Whiterock. In Spring the birds have a sanctuary here. The The cans were strapped on each side of the

Magill family farmhouse, Turf Lodge skylark, snipe, curlew, sparrow hawk, saddle and in the same way he carried his greybacked crow, kestrel and grouse. The provisions up again to his home. I met a nephew cuckoo could.be heard at the front of the of his about five years ago, and I regret greatly mountain in wooded areas near the gulley. that I didn’t take a notebook with me as he saw Nowadays with the noise of quarrying and some interesting happenings in his young day. helicopters many of these and the usual small He lived in a house just below his uncle’s and Outline Magazine he remembered his father telling him to go to The 1969 Belfast Urban area Plan was Dan M agill’s at Hannahstown and take home a commissioned by the Ministiy of Development horse he had bought. He tells about setting off in 1966. While the plan never became statutory, on a November morning and walking right over it provided guidelines for the future development the mountain to Hannahstown, on his return of the Belfast Urban Area. The Antrim Hills arq journey the m ists cam e down very early and he considered in this section and there is also really lost his way. specific mention of the Black Mountain. It Suddenly he realised the horse was sinking and clearly stated in the plan, quarrying being one found he was surrounded by a sea of mud. of the specified threats to the natural beauty and Frantically he held on to the reins trying to keep amenity of the hills, yet we look up today at the the horse’s head up, he thought all was lost and skyline of the Black Mountain and see the as he strained with all his might the horse gained skyline tom away and considerably lowered near strength and was able to pull itself out of the Hannahstown with a gaping hole that has dam into firmer ground. He sighed with relief actually cut the mountain in half. Actually a large part of this hill is taken over by quarrying and is now lost to the people who can “There are recordings of a highway no longer walk here. West Belfast needed a man named Ness O’Haughan and recreational amenity such as this mountain and his band who were supposed to rob it should have been preserved. I ask people to the rich to feed the poor.” write to Mr. Needham about this. While researching in libraries I could find very little information about the Black Mountain, the as he pictured in his mind what his father would only account I found in a library was of cattle have said had he come without it. He also told drover William Cole, his daughter Elizabeth and about cutting grass on the hatchet field with two a woman named Mary Maguire who was either horses in a m owing machine. These horses were a servant or a visitor.to the house. A recording down on their kness at times straining to keep a in a newspaper was as follows:- “On February balance and preventing the machine from 13th 1753 a cattle drover William Cole, his toppling over. daughter Elizabeth and a woman named Mary Unfortunately the Booth family, namely, Maguire who was either a servant or a visitor to Sammy, Billy and sister Elizabeth are now dead. the house were brutually murdered by an axe. I remember visiting them, their cousin John All three were asleep in Cole’s cottage.near the Magill w as with me, he was I think the last of Whiterock on the Blackmountain, when som e the sheep farmers of Black Mountain and was person or persons unknown attacked them. very friendly with the territory they usually were Whoever committed the crime then set fire to found down around Booth’s house. This was the thatch after taking whatever money or particularly so in time of snow but the Booths valuables could be found. The flames were seen would keep the sheep until John came for them. by the occupants of the nearest cottages who Billie Booth’s had some very interesting stories tried in vain to make an entry and later searched to tell and I regret not to have had a notebook the surrounding district for the murderer. At a with me on that occasion. coroner’s inquest in Belfast two days later it was stated that the person or persons responsible f o ’ n the 1960’s the estates Ballymurphy and Turf the murder had not been found. The reason fo ILodge came into being and on the one hand it the murder was believed to be robbery. M an was charity to see houses being built for people in Belfast were convinced that the real reaso and the other hand it meant an increase of dogs was jealousy arising from the presence of M ai on the mountain with the result that too many Maguire in the house. I always felt this murd< sheep were being worried and farmers stopped was the reason for the Hatchet Field to be : rearing them. Today there is not a single sheep named, although it resembled the sha on that mountain. axe. "I’ll keep it as secret as C ole’s West Belfast Historical Society

was a familiar saying until the middle of the last rob the rich to feed the poor. They roamed the century. Another intriguing tale is told of a man mountain and kept the people in terror at one who lived near the gullcy near the top of the time. There are also many stories told about mountain who occasionally took a trip to fairies, witches and leprechauns and I am sure McEnancy’s public house on the Glen Road. He every house is the same as in grandmother’s time would take his horse or pony with him and tie it where the neighbours called at night and all the outside, when he got too much to drink he could news of the day was discussed. Many of the old ride the pony so far up the Turf Lane to the songs were sung and radio or television were Springfield Road, but when it came to the foot never missed, in fact life is so busy now that of the mountain he would get off, take the pony’s this practice of Irish life is becoming extinct. tail and- say “get us home boy”. Other Thus ends my earliest memories of the Black neighbours living on the Black Mountain had Mountain and I finish with thoughts of my own. such names as Davidson, Gordon, Chcsney, What brings me there most? Is it the mountain, Magee, Ireland, Alexander, Lyttle, Forsythe, the landscape, my childhood memories or a Booth, Bell, Hoy, Wharry, Sinclair, Saulter, mixture of all these things which come together Hamill, O'Harc, Magill, McCormick. Bell in a magic of their own, but this is the place I would probably be the oldest family still on the love to be? Whiterock side of the mountain. The following is part of a poem written by an Older people told me there was a road called by M. Cunningham. some the “Mass Road” That leads across the mountain range beginning at Carrickfergus and “Through dreams of time again I climb. going to Antrim. The rugged rising hills, And greet once more the friends of yore, ary McCracken is reported to have taken My heart with reverie fills, Mthis road and met her brother Henry Joy and Jemmy Hope and six others, sitting on the And I whisper a little quiet prayer, hillside beside the Bohill stone. There are To those who lie at rest, recordings of a highway man named Ness In Black Mountain's stretching shadow, O’Haughan and his band who were supposed to Near Colin’s sheltering breast. ”

Eileen Fulton fi