An island’s history

Editorial Department • Published 3 Sep 2010 09:00 0 Comments

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Dear Sir, - I have read with interest your article of 26.8.2010 about the felling of trees on Crevenishaughey Island and would like to point out a few errors and give additional information about the history of this lovely island.

Crevenishaughey (Eochaid’s /Keogh’s Branched Island) was part of the Archdale estate acquired by John Archdale of Darsham, Suffolk who came here in 1612 at the time of the Plantation of Ulster. This island of 140 acres was never part of the Irvine estate.

In 1820, the then proprietor, General Mervyn Archdale built a hunting lodge on the island and spent many peaceful hours there while on leave from the army. He was known as “the one-armed general” having lost his right arm while fighting against the French during the Napoleonic Wars. The lodge is discretely sited near the centre of the island and on Ordnance Survey maps is described as a ‘Pleasure Lodge’. To access the lodge the General built a quay on the south-eastern shore of the island which to this day is officially referred to as The General’s Quay. A more visible reminder of the General is the old Church tower. This is all that remains of the first church at Castle Archdale which was built by General Archdale in 1839.

The north jetty of Crevenishaughey is much older and was built for the tenants of the nearby cottage. This cottage was the permanent residence of many generations of islanders and its adjoining outbuildings were once used for livestock. As well as tending their smallholding, they were employed by the Archdales and were also professional fishermen. They were certainly far too busy trying to eke out a living to have bothered planting rhododendrons or indeed ornamental shrubs of any kind.

Parish records from Castle Archdale include the baptisms of 12 children whose address is Crevenishaughey. The last residents of this cottage were the Armstrongs who moved across to the mainland in the early 20th century. In all 38 children from the island’s around Castle Archdale were baptised in the local church from 1840 onwards, the last one being Fred Ternan from Inishcoonra (Fragrant Island) in 1949. The island way of life has now gone forever but already it has become too easy to make glib remarks about how idyllic life must have been “living on an island in Lough Erne”. Whilst such a way of life certainly had its satisfactions and pleasures it could never be described as idyllic.

Incredible changes took place during World War II when the entire Castle Archdale estate was requisitioned by the war office to build a flying boat base as close as possible to the North Atlantic. The trees on Crevenishaughey, Davy’s Island and Castle Hill (mainland) were considered too tall and posed a danger to aircraft taking off or landing. The contract for clearing hundreds of these ancient oak and ash trees went to Fisher’s of Newry, timber merchants. The timber was then ferried down Lough Erne to the Round ‘O’ in Enniskillen for its onward journey to Newry. The steamship used for this task was the “Wide Awake” owned by the local firm Lemon’s of Quay Lane, who operated several boats on the Lough at that time. The “Wide Awake” sank in the 1950s and lies in the Back Lough at Cornagrade, its funnel still visible near the shore.

I can’t help feeling that when the Forestry Service took over these islands it made an unwise and very short-sighted decision to replant them with Sitka Spruce. This fast growing species is now being harvested from a very difficult location which is no doubt proving to be a very expensive operation. Had these lovely islands been replanted with native hardwood at the time we would now have a beautiful forest to look at and admire.

Yours faithfully,

Richard Chambers

‘Front Lodge’

Castle Archdale

Irvinestown.

This letter appeared in Impartial Reporter 02 Sep 10

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