The compiler of this elegantly printed collection is a Comber folksinger and player on the tin whistle and Uillean pipes who has been seeking out songs and ballads from printed sources and other performers since 1967, and the book has been published with the sponsorship of the Ards Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann. Many of the items are supplied with their accompanying melodies, or with a reference to an appropriate traditional tune; and there are frequent notes of explanation or attribution to sources. The material is arranged in seven areas ranging from Bangor and Donaghadee in the north to Carlingford Lough and the Mournes in the south, plus a substantial final section not limited to a particular locality. Most of the 139 texts included derive from the early nineteenth century up to the present day. Well represented are local poets such as Hugh McWilliams of Ballysallagh, Francis Boyle of Gransha and Robert Huddleston of Moneyreagh, but better known later authors are also represented, such as GF Savage-Armstrong, Charles Gavan Duffy, Lady Dufferin, Padraic Gregory, Richard Rowley and Percy French. A short glossary is provided to the fair amount of use of Ulster-Scots. Recurring themes include incidents from 1798; Masonic, Orange and Green; courtship; drinking; emigration and transportation; shipwreck; homesickness and nostalgia; and sporting events.
The whitewashed city: the story of Crossgar, County Down. By Tom Hewitt. Vol. l (Crossgar, Tom Hewitt, 2004) 84pp, 34 black and white illustrations. Paperback, £3.99. The origins of Crossgar as a village go back no further than the early nineteenth century, although the importance of its site had been marked in the sixteenth century by the building of a bridge over the Glasswater River, named after one Ever Oge, from which the village got the name by which it was first named, Everogues Bridge. The creation of Saintfield by Nicholas Price in the early eighteenth century led him to develop a new road to Downpatrick crossing the Glasswater by a replacement bridge. A seceding Presbyterian church was built at Lissara in about 1775 and a Roman Catholic chapel to the south of the river in 1798/1800, but, apart from an inn at the important north/south, west/east crossroad, there were as yet no further houses until Edward Southwell Trotter (a.k.a. Ruthven), having inherited his family's lands around Crossgar in 1794 and built Crossgar House, decided in 1823 to develop the village beyond the ten houses it contained in 1810. Ruthven sold Crossgar to William Thompson of Downpatrick in 1827, and it was Thompson who built the Market House in 1829. In 1850 the Thompson estate passed to his nephew, James Cleland and eventually Crossgar House, having been burned down and rebuilt in 1860, passed out of Cleland ownership in 1929. Hewitt also covers social history in chapters on education, policing, trade and the arrival of the railway, bringing the story up to 1922. A second volume, dealing with the volume dealing with the remainder of the twentieth century, is due for publication this October and promises to contain much personal reminiscence of life in the village from the author, who has lived there since the 1920s.
The men of the Ards. By Harry Allen (Donaghadee, Ballyhay Books, 2004) 345pp, 3 maps. ISBN 1-900935-42-2. Paperback, £12.99. This is a very readable account of the part played by County Down in the 1798 rebellion, but particularly of the contribution made by the various societies of United Irishmen in the Ards to the engagements throughout north Down, at Newtownards, Portaferry, Saintfield and Ballynahinch. As many as 28,597 rebel supporters were recorded for Down alone, and the vast bulk of the correspondence which Ireland's Chief Secretary received about the rebellious activities of the United Irishmen in 1797 originated in the Ards: 'the hotbeds of disaffection of the Ards and north Down .... formed the kernal of discontent'. It was a surprise to many that when the rebellion eventually broke out in May 1798, it was to begin in Dublin and Wexford. For the Dublin government the 'Donaghadee Resolutions' of the vicinity's societies of United Irishmen, recommended the setting up of a revolutionary Committee, the confiscation of the property of 'inimical' landlords and the abolition of tythes, painted a picture of the threatened Reign of Terror to match the French. Most of the rebels who fought at the Battle of Ballynahinch had travelled from the Ards and the barony of Lower Castlereagh. Over 40% of those subsequently executed in the northern command of the Society of United Irishmen came from the staunchly Presbyterian area of Comber, Newtownards, Bangor, Donaghadee and the Ards peninsula.
John M Andrews, Northern Ireland's wartime Prime Minister (Killyleagh, Clive Scoular, 2004) [V], ii, 172pp, 53 black and white illustrations. ISBN 0-9539601-3-7. Paperback, £9.99. When Clive Scoular found that, of the six Prime Ministers who have served Northern Ireland in the lifetime of its parliament between 1921 and 1972, the careers of only four had been covered in biographies and autobiographies, he resolved to complete the record: his biography of James Chichester-Clark, the fifth Prime Minister appeared in 2000. His new book is a sympathetic portrait of the second Prime Minister, John Miller Andrews, a conscientious and hardworking parliamentarian who perhaps has not hitherto been given his due by historians. As a model and much liked employer running his family's flax-spinning mill in Comber, Andrews was determined that the working man should have a voice in evolving Ulster politics and he had a lifetime interest in social reform. He was continuously MP for County Down and then Mid-Down from 1921 until 1953 and, during his period as Minister of Labour from 1921 to 1937, succeeded in achieving parity in social welfare benefits with the rest of the United Kingdom. After three years as Minister of Finance he succeeded Viscount Craigavon as Prime Minister in 1940, when he was already nearly 70. A reserved man, he did not have the charisma of Craigavon and was not popular with some members of his Cabinet, who thought him too conservative and unimaginative. However, he should not solely bear the blame for the initial lack of adequate preparation for the defence of Northern Ireland in the early years of the Second World War: there was a general lack of urgency on the part of the government and people who thought the province out of reach of the war. In 1941 Andrews did not hesitate to make Northern Ireland available as the entry base for United States forces in Europe. However, in 1943 his reluctance to appoint younger men to his Cabinet brought about his enforced resignation, but he continued for another ten years as a dedicated back-bencher at Stormont, one of his most hard-fought campaigns being his opposition to the eventual closure of the Belfast and County Down Railway in 1950. For good measure the book also contains short biographies of John Andrews's three distinguished brothers: Thomas, Managing Director of Harland and Wolff, who, at the age of 39, lost his life on the Titanic, which he had largely designed; Sir James, Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland; and William, the loveable and eccentric bachelor cricket fanatic who was still playing well into his 70s and who received an MBE for his services to the game in Ireland.
Parallel Lives. By Davina Jones (Belfast, Appletree Press, 2005) 206 pp, 138 black and white illustrations. ISBN 0-86281-963-6. Hardback, £15.99 Brownlows have been living at Ballywhite, Portaferry since 1918. However, their family had originally come from England to County Armagh in 1610, eventually in 1839 becoming Lords Lurgan. This is largely the story of the much respected Major William Brownlow (1921-1998) and his family at Portaferry: his upbringing in England, his army career in the second World War and later, and his considerable contribution to moderate politics, racing and field sports in County Down, culminating with a spell as Lord Lieutenant of the county. The parallel life is that of Agnes White (nee Skillen), also born in 1921, in the Downpatrick gate lodge at Castle Ward, Strangford, where her father was head gardener. After a few years as a maid at Castle Ward, Agnes at the age of 18 joined the Brownlow household as under-maid and over the next 40 years or so rose to be their cook and housekeeper. But she was much more than a mere employee, becoming a much loved institution down several generations of the family. Davina Jones most skilfully contrasts the very different social backgrounds of her two subjects while at the same time recording the changes in the relationship between master and servant brought about by the Second World War. By all accounts both lives were blessed by a deep sense of the importance of family, and each made a very significant contribution to the other.
Recent periodicals: selective contents lists Buildings at Risk Northern Ireland, Vol 7, March 2005 (Ulster Architectural Heritage Society) Of the 433 buildings remaining on the Buildings at Risk register since it commenced in 1993, 74 are located in the Downpatrick Planning Division. New entries for listed buildings at risk in County Down include: twin gate lodges to Brookfield, Scarva Road, Banbridge; labourer's cottage, Donaghmore, Newry; west gate lodge to Florida Manor, Kilmood; farmhouse, Mayobridge, Newry; shop and house, 35-37 Main Street, Kircubbin; Hardford Lodge, West Street, Newtownards; and Rossconor House, Annacloy. `Good News' section on restored buildings includes: 3 Palatine Square and The Corn Store, Main Street, both in Killough; 5 Irish Street and 1/3 Market Street, both in Downpatrick; former Railway Station, Dromore; farmhouse, Ballywalter; and terrace in Sandys Street, Newry. 'Bad News' section on losses includes: part of Market Square, Dromore, and former Sangster's Hotel in Rostrevor, both in conservation areas. Case studies on what can be achieved include: gate lodge to Craigavad, Holywood; Rock Cottage, Castlewellan; and farmhouse at Kilmacrew, Banbridge.
Down Survey. Yearbook of Down County Museum 2004. An edition sub-titled 'County Down at War 1850 - 1945' containing many articles on the theme and particularly concentrating on the people of Down in the Great War 1914-1918. Due North, Vol. 1, Issue10, Autumn/Winter 2004 (Federation for Ulster Local Studies) 'The Famine in Ballymacarrett', Neil Callaghan. (Inverbrena, No 9] Strangford.
(Inverbrena, No. 9] Strangford. Memories from Inverbrena, 2004. (Inverbrena Local History Group) 'Recollections of sailboat racing in Strangford. Part 2 [1957-1990s}', Bobby Magee; 'The tower houses of Lecale', Eamon McMullan; 'HomeWords' [and Ballyculter Parish Magazine, 1878], Articles selected by Isobel Magee; 'Life around the slip and along the shore' [at Strangford] (30s and 40s), Eamon McMullan; 'The potato trade in Strangford in the late forties', Isobel Magee [James Elliott & Co.]; 'The Strangford Presbyterian Church [1846-2003]', GA McKibben.
Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society, No. 29, 2005. `The Strangford Lough writers', JW Foster [Joseph Tumelty, Arthur Mason, Filson Young]; 'Ballymullan - the "Lost townland"', RC Davison; 'Extracts from the diary of Francis Little of Mountross [1879-1883]', complied by Amy Anderson; 'Kircubbin C of I Church and [ Graveyard', RC Davison; 'The Ballyherly mills...Ardquin', compiled by Peter Clegg [A corn mill pre 1937 and subsequently, up to 1920s, manufacturer of Edwards's Desiccated Soups and of Smith's Potato Crisps]; 'Queen's University Marine Biology Station, a personal account - plus a little science. Part 4', PJS Boaden; 'Killysuggan [burial ground, Milecross, Newtownards]', Jim Blaney.
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