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Michael Cutliffe: Inishowen: Wartime

The railway was running very well at that time, we used to travel by train from Buncrana to Derry. We had some difficulty then, travelling, because the time in the North was different from the time in the South. There was a time change in Inishowen and then there was a different time in the North and sometimes there was an hour of a difference which meant that if you wanted to be at your work up in Derry at eight o鈥檆lock it took about an hour travelling from Buncrana to Derry so you had to leave at six in the morning to be in Derry at eight. And then it was the reverse coming out because when you left at six o鈥檆lock coming home again you were home about five o鈥檆lock. We had that difficulty for a while and then it was on to a double summer time and that made it a lot worse. But we got through all that.

There was a lot of smuggling going on during the war because in Inishowen we couldn鈥檛 have white flour our bread was all brown bread and we used to have to smuggle the flour from Derry and we had different ways of smuggling this flour. Some people used to go into Derry by the way they were going in to do a bit of shopping but then they would come out again and they would be loaded with different things on their person to smuggle over the border. You had two customs houses, the Eire customs and the Northern customs and you had to go through these two every dayi n passing up or down. The buses ran every hour. We had a steady service all the time because there was a lot of workers going into Derry and vice versa because there was factories in Buncrana too that had Derry technicians that came down to work there.

We did fire watching in Derry because we worked in the North so we had to do our fire watching so many nights a week. We had different nights when we had to do that and we stopped in Derry. The fire watching meant that we had to look after the fire hoses that were in the equipment at the factory and just to make sure that everything was ready for an emergency. There were nice huts laid out for us with nice chairs and someplace to make tea but not to sleep. We had to be wide awake all the time. But there was no difficulty with that we just enjoyed that as much as everything else. There was no hardship about it.

We had passes to get into Derry to work. I can鈥檛 remember why the passes were issued. You got them from the North. It may have been something to do with the unemployment at the time but if the work that you did was necessary in the North you were allowed the pass.

During the day you would see the Spitfires doing practice work and all that but maybe if you were asleep at home in Inishowen you could hear the reconnaissance planes going out over the Swilly and round the coast looking for German submarines or German planes. If a plane came down in Inishowen the local forces would be sent out to look for the plane and to see if there was anyone that could be saved. And if it was British it would be handed over right away. The same if it was German. They would be captured and handed over to the North. The Governments had an understanding about that .

JIM:The Germans were all interned in Dublin. There was a lot of Germans down in Dublin. I remember we were in the Local defence force at the time, the LDF, and a plane came down and we were all called out. I was at the pictures as a matter of fact when we were called out. But we were out all night and it was discovered the plane had come down in Clonmany and I think it was a German plane. We were in a lorry. I think it was Barney McGonagle who was the driver. We went down to the Parish and from then over the hill and we found out that the plane had landed in Clonmany down there somewhere.There was a couple of them saved but they were handed over. There was another plane came down, I think out by the Parish way, but all the men were lost on it. But I myself saw a plane, part of it, being taken into Derry on a lorry, handed over. This was a British plane. It went into the North.
What I can remember about that time was that we had a blackout here in the Republic and you were fined if the light was shown anywhere in the house. It was the same all over Eire.

MICHAEL: There was a coal shortage in the North and the farmers round Inishowen had the bogs and they used to cut the turf and season the turf and fill their bags, special big bags, with what they then called peat and with horses and carts walk all the way to Derry which was about eleven or twelve miles. They would start very early in the morning and sell these bags of turf at so much a bag then come home with the empty cart, load up and do the same the next day. Under the turf they used to smuggle whiskey. I heard a story of a very old-fashioned countryman who was coming in with a load of turf and before the customs man approached him he approached the customs man and asked him would he be on duty the next morning. The customs man said, 鈥淲hy do you want to know?鈥� 鈥淲ell鈥� he said, 鈥淚f you were here I could make it worth your while. I could have a couple of bottles of whiskey that I could get you very cheap. But I would need to be sure you were on.鈥�
鈥淥h鈥� the customs man said, 鈥淚鈥檒l be here early tomorrow morning and we鈥檒l just keep that quiet.鈥� So the countryman left and that was alright because sometimes they would empty the cart load to see if you were smuggling. So the next morning the man came with a big load of turf and the customs man was there sure enough and he came out and the first thing he did was make him empty out the cartload. The old farmer said, 鈥淚 think it was yesterday morning you should have asked me to empty the load.鈥�

Maggie McKay was very famous in Derry she was an old beggar woman that used to run about the bus depot where the buses came in from Inishowen and she begged about and got a lot of money from the sailors and soldiers because she was a well known character in the city. Well there was an air raid this particular night at Pennyburn not far from the Border.She had a few drinks in her and she heard all this noise. So she asked 鈥淲as that thunder?鈥� And somebody in a terrible state said,鈥� Oh no that鈥檚 a bomb that鈥檚 just fallen out at Messines Park.鈥�
鈥淥h thank God for that 鈥� she said, 鈥淔or I鈥檓 afraid of thunder.鈥�

JIM: I was in the local defence force. The LDF was a second branch of the army actually and one of our jobs was to put obstacles in fields to stop planes from landing and up the shore front as well. We blocked it all off and there were old cars and everything put on so nobody could land on it then. We were always called out if a plane came down but outside of that there wasn鈥檛 much doing. You did drill work and doing up all these fields and the beaches. They had to be covered with all sorts of stuff so that nothing could land on it, not even helicopters. We couldn鈥檛 allow British or Germans to land. We were neutral. I remember one morning I went down to the pier and there was a boat load of survivors from a foreign boat that was torpedoed and they were saved and taken into the pier at Buncrana, and there was a bus waiting to take them into Derry.

The blackouts had to stay on the whole time. People had to make their own blackout curtains and skylights on buildings had to be done. Where we were working it was compulsory for all skylights to be covered. Swan鈥檚 Mill gave Buncrana electric light before other places in Ireland had it and we put a shilling in the meter that gave you so many hours. So it was very important to have the blackout here.

The social life was good here. We had mostly sailors and soldiers that came down from the North to dances and they had a very active life here. Nobody seemed to object. There was no bother with them. They had their PA鈥檚 with them to watch them and keep good order while they were in Buncrana so they wouldn鈥檛 cause any bother.

We went into Derry too. It was a regular run just to take a look around. You needed a pass to go in even though you weren鈥檛 working there. Every body was questioned at the Border. I think we got the passes at the Guards barracks. It was more of an identification pass. Michael had a different pass. It was a work permit.
Inishowen was a good place to live during the war years.

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