It Occurs To Me:  Cecil King and Amelia Earhart, and Brendan Gleeson on Altan

When Amelia Earhart landed in Gallagher’s field in Derry - less than two miles from Muff - on May 21, 1932, she had to sign a Certificate of Landing which was submitted to the National Aeronautic Association, the witnesses were local journalist Cecil King and RIC Sergeant T. Sawyers.

Cecil worked with the Derry Journal and would go on to become joint-owner and editor of the Donegal Democrat in 1948 (and originator of It Occurs To Me).

Being the first journalist on the scene, he admitted to benefiting greatly from it. Pressmen had arrived from London, Belfast, Dublin and Cork.

As the night wore on, Amelia tired of repeating her story. She told them she had said all she had to say about her journey to Cecil and that they were welcome to ask him for the story.

As he put it himself: “I didn’t bargain for all the monetary enticements I received to give them the story, but I was handsomely remunerated.”

He had also been asked by Earhart to witness the removal of the plane’s barograph, the instrument that measured atmospheric pressure on flights.

He was doubly honoured to take charge of the barograph to have it returned to the aeronautical headquarters in New York as proof of the flight’s duration. He had also found a copy of a Newfoundland paper, the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal of the previous day’s date, May 20.

The paper contained an account of the lead-up to the historic flight. King immediately contacted the paper and sold them the story from the Derry end. They splashed the story in their next edition.

During one of the first Allingham Festivals in the early ‘80s, I sat enthralled in The Thatch in Ballyshannon as Cecil and I sipped a dram and he reminisced about that extraordinary day. Little did I know then, that in a few years, I would be living some ten minutes from Gallagher’s field and watched as the land evolved into the Foyle Golf Centre and Pitchers Restaurant. The accompanying photo shows Amelia at the plane and with the Gallagher family.

The other Donegal connection was that the Gallaghers had originally come from Ramelton, and early in the afternoon on May 21, 1932, the family was sitting in the garden outside their Derry farmhouse …it was a Saturday, “one of those lovely hot afternoons that you sometimes get in May,” remembered Mrs Gallagher.

The children were home from school, and the family was enjoying the fine weather together. Around two o’clock, they heard an engine. A great red airplane circled low over the house and landed in a field behind it.

“The afternoon was hot, and I felt lazy so I’m afraid I didn’t pay very much attention to it,” admitted Mrs Gallagher in an interview with the BBC three years later. “I was too comfortable where I was.”

But her young children were very excited and ran with her husband to see it, converging with farmhands and workers from the surrounding fields.

“My curiosity got the better of me after a minute or two, and I went up to the plane as well,” said Mrs Gallagher.

“Standing beside it was a tousle-headed girl in trousers and leather coat. She didn’t seem at all excited.” All she wanted was a telephone.

“She would not wait to talk but went off as fast as she could over the fields to the nearest house with a line. She explained as she went that the only thing he wanted was to get through to her husband and tell him she had arrived safely.”

Mrs Gallagher returned to her home, where she prepared a meal for her unexpected guest. Amelia Earhart would stay at her house that night. Bertie Gallagher was ten years old and had never seen an aeroplane before Amelia Earhart’s red and gold Lockheed Vega landed in a field outside his house.

Amelia later wrote in her autobiography: “I flew for hours watching the flames from the engine manifold and wondering when the plane was going to blow up. All this time petrol was trickling down the back of my neck. Near Londonderry, after scaring some of the cows in the neighbourhood, I pulled up in a farmer’s backyard. Three people came out to see who or what was in the airplane. I pushed the hatch back and stuck out my head. I wasn’t sure of the proper phrase for the occasion.”

She looked pale and drawn as black smoke poured from the engine of an ailing aircraft. “Where am I?” she asked young Bertie. “On Gallagher’s farm,” said the boy... “In my dad’s field”. “And where is that?,” queried Amelia.

“In Ireland, of course,” he replied. Although she had a quiet night at the farm sleeping in nightclothes provided by Isobel Gallagher, crowds had converged on the farm the next day, including reporters and film crews.

For their benefit, she motored around the field in the plane while cameras whirred as if she’d just landed. But she wouldn’t take off; she wasn’t willing to risk pushing her wounded plane any farther. Instead, the Vega would be dismantled and shipped to London. She’d fly in a plane chartered by Paramount, the movie studio where husband George was to be the chairman of the editorial board.

She would stay with the American ambassador, and the plane would be displayed on the first floor of Selfridges.

When she departed, so did the press, and the Gallaghers went back to their quiet but busy farming life. Any further press queries were to be directed to the young Cecil King.

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Bertie’s son, Rob Junior, now owns and runs the 150-acre golf complex. Today the spot of the landing mentioned as Gallagher’s pasture in Culmore is in fact, the sixth hole, ‘Amelias Landing’ at the club. The 17th hole is called Bert’s and the story of Amelia’s landing and photographs are on display in the golf centre.

Gleeson on Altan

Brendan Gleeson’s heartfelt description of Altan sums it up for all of us.

The legendary actor said: “The music of Altan is as bright as the Donegal air, as fierce as its winds, as beautiful as its landscape. It has been that way since the beginning, over a quarter of a century ago. Unerringly at the core of an extraordinary tradition, the band continues to breathe freshness and vitality into tunes and songs that are the quintessential expression of its native place. What a wonderful place. What wonderful music.”

What are we fighting for?

For those of you who remember Woodstock and the many memorable performances, one that I have long treasured is that of ‘Country Joe and The Fish’. Sadly, Country Joe McDonald died last weekend but his anti-war song, “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die-Rag”, is as relevant today as it was in August 1969. Here is the chorus:

“And it’s one, two, three,

What are we fighting for?

Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,

Next stop is Vietnam;

And it’s five, six, seven,

Open up the pearly gates,

Well, there ain’t no time to wonder why,

Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.”

In 2019, a photo of the 1969 Woodstock music festival was circulating on Facebook with the false claim that the picture shows the crowd at a rally held by Trump.

The lies continue, day and daily, aided by Fox News, who instead of showing a totally disrespectful Trump wearing a white baseball cap - as six bodies of soldiers were being returned from the Middle East - showed another one from last December when he was hatless.

This is the network who had to pay almost 800 million dollars for ‘lying’ a few years ago and whose has-beens - some 23 of them - are currently White House staffers. Fox is not News…it’s the propaganda wing for the hatless, witless and brainless excuse for a president!