Whitehead, the Co Antrim seaside resort mentioned here recently, is at the base of the peninsula of Islandmagee. The blackest day in its history was in 1642 when a massacre of the Irish took place - some believe the victims were thrown over the Gobbins cliffs, but that's not certain. The local historian Dixon Donaldson says 50 died only. The big figure on the English side was Moses or Moyses Hill, later Lord Downshire.
But Islandmagee, as known to many of our parents and grandparents, was simply a peninsula of some nine miles long, at most two wide, peopled by folk who still spoke with a clear Scots accent. Many were mariners, some in small coastal "puffers", others in the then Head Line and masters of oceans. As a holiday resort it was glorious for city folk. The houses you stayed in were spotless; the food you ate would now be called organic. Their hens roamed their own small fields. The vegetables had never been touched by any of the new stuffs - maybe, you'll say, because they hadn't been invented, but if they had been, they weren't needed. Good manure and straw, and ship-shape attention. For every family had someone at sea.
A lot of goats' milk, for, like many places, TB was always hovering around in thought, anyway. One grandfather used to tell his children and grandchildren that Islandmagee was the hare capital of Ireland. He had never seen so many in his life - and they weren't timid. One used to be seen touching up his whiskers on the lawn just two yards from the window where the family was at table. And rabbits - galore. During the second World War, when there were many guns and soldiers around, the hare population dropped heavily.
There were two fine places for bathing, Ferris Bay and Brown's Bay. The young group would walk to the nine-hole golf course in the morning and back up two miles to their dinner; down again and back in the afternoon for a swim. Later, out in a punt catching enormous numbers of blocken and lythe - coalfish and pollack.
There was a pub a mile away at Mill Bay, but the grandfather didn't like being seen to go in there and get the name of being a drinker, so he crossed to Larne Harbour by ferry to the Olderfleet hotel. The island was famous for the witch trial of a group of women who were given a year in jail with four appearances in the public pillory in 1712.
After centuries the accent was still Scottish and the religion Presbyterian. But the wildlife, mammal and bird remains as a golden memory. Couldn't write enough about it. But will try another time. Y