By Catherine McGinty
The North West enjoyed magnificent exposure on our TVs and radios over Christmas, and there is plenty more to come, with the new series ‘Uladh Faoi Thalamh’ being broadcast on BBC NI later this month.
Between Malin Head in ‘The Last Jedi’, and ‘The Sinking of the Laurentic’ on Highland Radio on New Year’s Day, coverage of the area has been unrivalled.
And now, DoubleBand Films have produced a documentary, ‘Ulaidh Faoi Thalamh’ on Dunree, the former Napoleonic fort which was the last of three so-called 'Treaty Ports' to be returned to Ireland by the British in 1938.
John Hegarty from Buncrana, who used to live in the fort, worked extensively with the film-makers on the production and was interviewed by them in the dungeons of Dunree Fort.
He explained: “I was asked to take part in ‘Ulaidh Faoi Thalamh’ as I knew Fort Dunree well because I had lived there for three years, from I was seven until I was about ten. I came to be living there because my father was a soldier in the Irish Army.
"He Came to Dunree in 1945 and he was there until 1985. He actually died in service and had a military funeral in Desertegney.
"We filmed in Dunree Fort, in the underground dungeons where they used to store the ammunition. We also filmed at the top of the fort, where some ammunition would have been stored and there would also have been accommodation. That is where the big guns, the really long-range guns, six inch guns, which fired the shells, would have been. The ammunition for these guns would have been kept in the dungeons.
“DoubleBand interviewed me in one of the dungeons in what we called the Old Fort, where you cross the bridge into it. I was never in there when I was younger. We were never allowed. It had an iron gate on it. It was dangerous. But we were in the dungeons in the top fort and other bunkers around when we were children."
John’s father, who was from Sligo, joined the Irish Army at a very young age.
John said: "His mother had died when he was a child and he had decided when he was only 15 or 16 he would go to Mullingar to join the Irish Army. They took him on although even though he was not yet 18.
“It was the Emergency times, so they took him on and they trained him in Mullingar for about a year or so. When the training was finished, he was asked to get on board a lorry bound for Spike Island in Cork with a load of other young recruits.
“But just before the lorry took off from Mullingar, this officer came on board the lorry and he said he wanted one volunteer for Dunree Fort and he pointed to my father and he said, ‘You’re the volunteer.’
“My father arrived in Buncrana from Letterkenny. He got the bus at Bridgend and another passenger on the bus at the time was a young man about the same age as himself, Denis Bonner, who was coming from up by Glencolmcille, to be a school teacher here. The two of them were on the bus and they chatted and the two of them were friends for life after that."
Married
John’s father was stationed in Dunree Fort a year or two when he met his wife.
John continued: “My mother was from over at the bottom of Mamore Gap. Her family were sheep farmers there. My father and she got married and they lived for a while with my grandfather (the Jackson’s). After a while, they got a house near Dunree, where we were brought up, until I was about seven and then they got into married quarters in Dunree Fort. The house was a very big house, in Dunree Fort.
“The Fort had ceased operating as military installation by that stage. It was just a maintenance crew that was in it. We got a Warrant Officer’s house, with very big rooms. We actually played football in the rooms.
“There were actually about four or five other families there: the Brett’s, the Doyle’s, the Quirke’s and the Hodge’s and the Redmond’s. We would go from there in the morning to school. Twenty-five of us children actually went through the Fort Dunree gates in the morning.
“We had a great time in there. There was only a skeleton staff, so we played all through the place, Cowboys and Indians and all kinds of games. We had a great scenario for playing games there."
Radio officer
The Buncrana mariner said he had had a passion for history from childhood.
John recalled, with a smile he had won a couple of medals in the Feis for History.
He added: “I was interested in archaeology but because of the financial circumstances of the time, in the 1960s. we would not have had the money for me to go to university. So I went to the Atlantic College in Dublin for a year, to learn to be a radio officer in the merchant navy.
“I did a year and a half there and I then I joined Marconi for a couple of years. Working in the UK merchant Navy, I travelled the world to South America and different places. I also worked with the Greek Merchant Navy and in Denmark, before joining the Malin Head Coastguard, where I remained for 30 years.
“Eventually, I did an Open University Degree in Natural Science and Environmental Science, which allowed me to go to Queen’s University, Belfast and complete an MA in Archaeology.
“I work, part-time for John Cronin (Archaeological Consultant). Actually, I am just back from Kerry, where I was monitoring a wind farm. Unfortunately, we found nothing of historical significance, just 15 feet of bog!”
DoubleBand Films, who made Uladh Faoi Thalamh, produce documentaries and factual series for British, Irish and International broadcasters. The company’s previous successes include, ‘Britain’s Ancient Tracks’ with Tony Robinson (aka Baldrick in the Blackadder series).
According to the company, Ulster has a 'rich tapestry of caves, tunnels and lairs underneath the ground and Uladh Faoi Thalamh will cast light on the secret places and hidden treasures beneath our very feet'.
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