The proposed cross border Greenway between Sligo and Enniskillen which has the potential to create jobs in places such as Glenfarne, Kiltyclogher and North Leitrim.
A 73 kilometre stretch of beauty along the track of the old railway between Sligo and Enniskillen. Just imagine hotels and restaurants and cafes of the highest quality for visitors to enjoy, cycling, e-biking, mobility scooters for ease of travel, nature rambles, twitter’s lookouts, play parks and a lake for canoeing and fishing.
I believe we should focus on highlighting the history of Glenfarne Wood and especially its link to Belfast’. I stopped off in Glenfarne to hear more about the plans from former councillor Sean McDermott and hotelier Jim Clancy.
Over a coffee In Clancy’s we talked of his grandparents and how his grandmother knocked through a bedroom wall onto the roadway to establish a shop. It’s now a supermarket and still the only shop in the village. We also talked of another local man who is a national figure, footballer Andy Robertson, Scottish captain and Liverpool player, whose granny, just like mine, was born in the village. Glenfarne grannies are something else!
As Sean explained, working with Coillte (the state owned commercial forestry business) and Leitrim County Council, this area is to be developed into a tourist centre which will bring visitors flooding in.
The main attractions will be Glenfarne Forest and a Green Way starting in Sligo, looping through Manorhamilton, Glenfarne, Belcoo and onto to Enniskillen; 45 miles of nature at its most beautiful where people will enjoy canoeing on Lough MacNean, safe cycling paths, facilities for e-scooters, areas for wedding photographs, nature trails - a paradise for children and fishermen alike.
There will be a holistic centre to study yoga and mindfulness under the canopy of trees only birdsong to help relaxation. Exciting times. The craic was great and we decided, before walking in the woods, the next step on my journey must be the Rainbow Ballroom of Romance.
Built by local man John McGivern and opened in 1934 famous the world over with showbands queuing up to play there and thousands finding romance on the sprung maple dance floor laid over steel girders from the railway line. The local Glenfarne branch of the line was mainly to transport timber from the estate and stone from the quarries, some of the stone slabs were used on the Titanic slipway, others in the Crown Bar in Belfast.
Interestingly records show the wood had ‘a quarry with traces of coal and oil not developed’.
I’ve always had a love for Glenfarne as this estate was where my grandmother grew up 150 years ago. She would have passed the little gate house each morning on her way to school. She would have helped in the household of shipbuilding magnet Sir Edward Harland of Harland and Wolff, where her father tended the land and played the fiddle for the gentry from London and Dublin. She talked of the grandeur and taught me to polka just like the rich and famous. Harland acquired Glenfarne Hall and estate when the owner Arthur Loftus Tottenham, the fourth generation of the family, became bankrupt when building the railway and Harland bailed him out in return for the big house. He only lived there for ten years filled with hunting and fishing expeditions, visits to bake in the sweat house followed by a swim in the lake and, of course, wild parties. Two days before Christmas in 1895, Edward Harland dies in Glenfarne Hall. The story goes that no one could manage to bring the huge lead coffin that had come by train from Belfast, down the staircase to the hearse so they called in the Horse of Black Island, an enormous man who slung the coffin over his shoulder and marched out. When the house fell vacant following the civil war it became a military base and subsequently abandoned then ransacked although not by the locals as the Catholic clergy preached fire and damnation to anyone who stole from the house.
Stories abound! A man brought home a huge mirror from the Hall, too big for a small cottage door so he set it up against a wall of the cow byre only to be smashed to smithereens by a jealous cow who didn’t like the look of the intruder.
And what happened to the white piano? There’s nothing left of Glenfarne Hall except the wall of an outhouse and the trees, many uprooted in the last great storm. The time of gracious living was gone like the fresh vegetables, the heated glass house for exotic fruit and flowers and eventually the young woman who played with her brothers by the Lake MacNean.
Altogether my visit was a very happy and informative one. I met up with local historian Frances White who was full of information and Holly who is in charge of the ticket office in the Ballroom and welcomes thousands of visitors every year and makes a delicious cup of tea. Glenfarne is a happening place and my granny would be delighted!
