Growing Up in Aughagaskin

Image via WikipediaWhen I was 5 and lived in Aughagaskin, the eldest child in my family, I was sent off to school for my very first day on the trailer of Barney McKenna's tractor. Also on the trailer was Barney's daughter Kathleen, we were the same age. Destination was the Convent primary school in Magherafelt. The teachers were nuns, sympathy was thin on the ground for starters, I was not too impressed. I stayed there for approx 2 years and then moved to Anahorish school not far from my paternal grandparents home. Why I was sent there and why I went to New Row school in Castledawson after another 2 years is a mystery to me. One of my teachers at Anahorish was John Murphy ( a Derry county player ).
At New Row the headmaster was Robert Barton assisted by his wife. With a lot of help from these I passed the 11plus and started at the Rainey Endowed School in Magherafelt in 1954. This was only yards from where I was born in a flat near to Regan's pub in Rainey street.

Living in Aughagaskin in a rented house we kids thought we owned the whole neighbourhood, we had free rein to roam around the fields, playing cowboys and indians, looking for orchards. We thought we were rich. Some neighbours probably thought we were hooligans, but we had no malicious intent. The neighbours were the McKennas & Hegartys who were cousins. The Hegartys moved away in the early fifties to Castledawson and their house was occupied by Charlie Conway who was Mrs Hegarty's father.

We picked anything that grew from the earth - potatoes , blackberries and apples, plums and other delicacy's from the orchard at the rear of our own house and others nearby. The money we got from picking potatoes was given to our mother who spent it on clothes etc. The railway line between Magherafelt and Castledawson on its way to Belfast was only 2 fields away or alternatively 4 hundred yards down the lane. We usually crossed the fields. In the other direction the line headed towards Omagh via Cookstown, Pomeroy and Carrickmore. Once only I remember travelling on this line to Carrickmore on the steam train. Sometime during the fifties passenger trains ceased on this line and only the occasional goods train could be seen. There was a direct connection between my grandparents in Carrickmore and in Anahorish, the railway line ran close to both homes.

The house in aughagaskin was a typical Irish single storey building, with a central living/kitchen area and a bedroom at either side. The roof was originally thatched but in later years was replaced with a corrugated iron roof. The main bedroom had a fireplace in the end gable wall and was large enough to be divided with a curtain. My parents and the younger children slept in these areas. The rest slept in the other bedroom. As the family increased the loft space above this room was converted to an extra bedroom and I slept and studied here as I was the only one attending secondary education at this time. This room had a small window in the gable which overlooked McKenna's house. This was a large two storied farm house and we would have wanted ours to be the same. We got the short straw, but we carried on regardless.
At the rear of the house was an orchard. This had apple trees both eating and cooking apples. Gooseberries, blackcurrants and plums. Some years were good others bad, but the one thing which never failed was the nettles. These took up about a third of the garden and grew to about 5 feet high. The reason why I remember these so well is because of my sojourn in Carrickmore each year. Very little sign in June but growing wild everywhere when I returned in September. I recall we used to cut paths through these nettles and disappear into the tunnels created.