Beauty is not rare
In the land of Paddy,
Fair beyond compare
Is Peg of Limavaddy.
This pleasant snippet of doggerel was composed, not by a nameless balladeer, but by the English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, who visited the north Derry town of Limavady (spelt nowadays with just one "d") in 1842.
As he writes in his Irish Sketch Book, he was on his way from Coleraine ("famed for lovely Kitty") to Derry City when his driver stopped to change horses and Thackeray took the chance to have a beaker of ale in the local inn. The girl who served him - "lovely, smiling Peg" - so unsettled the 31-year-old writer with her beauty
that . . . my trembling hand,
Up the beaker tilted,
And the glass of ale Every drop I spilt it: Spilt it every drop (Dames, who read my volumes
Pardon such a word)
On my whatd'ycall'ems!
Peg - "the pretty hussy" - laughed heartily at the sight
of the ale tricking down
poor Thackeray's legs,
and he tells us:
That the joyful sound
Of that ringing laughter
Echoed in my ears
Many a long year after.
Thackeray was so taken with Peg that he devoted 184 lines of verse to his brief encounter with her, complete with loving description of her "rounded arm", "little leg" and slim waist "comfortably bodiced", as well as his own drawing of Peg scrubbing a pot. Admittedly, he was a wordy fellow.
The inn in Ballyclose Street where Thackeray was smitten by Peg is now the site of an old people's home, but present-day visitors to Limavady can see more material traces of the town's other main claim to historical celebrity. A plaque on a modest Georgian house at 51 Main Street commemorates the home of Jane Ross, who wrote down the tune variously known as Danny Boy or The Londonderry Air when she heard it played by a fiddler on market day in the town in 1851. She sent her transcription to the English folk music collector George Petrie and it soon became probably the best known of all Irish melodies. (Apart from countless recordings of it, I once heard it played on a church-tower carillon in Amsterdam.)
The air is said to have been originally a lament for the displaced Gaelic chieftains of the area, the O'Cahan clan
(Ó Catháin, today O'Kane).
Limavady is a tidy, well-preserved 17th-century Ulster plantation town, with several fine Georgian houses and a pleasant bustle in its streets, typical of a "good shopping town". It also has a remarkably good bookshop - Books Upstairs in Market Street, where potted guides to philosophers such as Derrida and Aquinas find space alongside volumes on local history, folklore and poetry, as well as the usual bestsellers.
Although I have visited Limavady many times, it was only on a recent trip that I made time to investigate its best-known attraction, the Roe Valley Country Park, which lies on the town's southern outskirts. The park comprises a series of woodland walks along both sides of the Roe, a celebrated salmon river. I walked its full length on both sides of the river - a stretch of about seven miles in all - and was grateful I had made the effort. It was one of those summer days of all seasons, with sunlight dappling the water and banks, and the next minute rain dripping though the canopy of leaves and pimpling the river as it tumbled over weirs, rushed through gorges or wound past quiet meadows.
Perhaps the most peaceful spot is Carrick Rocks Gorge, at the park's southern end, where the river flows though a deep channel with high, rocky banks and oak, birch hazel and holly trees crowd above the water. Here the Roe is crossed by a narrow metal footbridge, listed for preservation because of its technical rarity - it's described as a two-span inverted bowspring structure - as well as its simple elegance. It was erected around 1900 for parishioners to reach Carrick Church (C of I), which stands high on the east bank, ringed by trees. A sign in the grounds reads: "Seek ye the Lord, while He may be found."
Throughout the park there are signposts to points of historical interest, such as O'Cahan's Rock, a riverside cliff near the site of the chieftains' castle. A short way upstream is the supposed scene of the legendary Léim an Mhadaigh ("Leap of the Dog") which gave Limavady its name. The story goes that, during a siege of the O'Cahan castle, a hound was dispatched to jump the river and carry a plea for help. Allies in Dungiven answered the call and routed the enemy.
The park, managed by the North's Environment and Heritage Service, also includes many relics of the river's 19th-century industrial role, such as disused mill races, a corn mill and store, an old hydro-electric station (dating from 1896), a beetling mill, scutch mill and former bleach green (the last three being remnants of the North's once-vital linen industry).
The history and ecology of the Roe Valley is explained at the Dogleap Centre on the river's west bank, which has a café and audiovisual theatre (currently closed for renovations). Beside the northern entrance to the country park is the 18-hole Roe Valley Golf Club adjoining the Radisson Roe Park hotel, which offers a variety of attractively priced breaks and golf packages.
Limavady is a convenient base for hiking on nearby Binevenagh mountain, strolling or enjoying watersports on the seven-mile stretch of Benone strand, visiting the seaside resorts of Portstewart and Portrush, or even exploring Inishowen via the ferry across the narrow neck of Lough Foyle from Magilligan Point to Greencastle. For further information, see www. causewaycoastand glens.com or www.limavady.co.uk.
As to whether or not the area's present-day Pegs compare to the wench who so enchanted Thackeray, I maintain a discreet silence. After all, my wife's from Limavady.