Caddies of Lisfannon went on strike for higher pay

In the days before decimalisation and the euro, inspired by the 1949 docks strike in England, Buncrana's Jim 'Whitey' Doherty led the caddies of the North West Golf Club at Lisfannon out on strike for higher pay in May of the same year.

Taking up the story, Jim said: “I was about 11 years of age and I was a caddie in the North West Golf Links, when the train used to run up and down from Buncrana to Derry.

“At that time there were a lot of strikes going on in England. Well, Jimmy Bonner was our caddie master at that time.

“And, if you had me as a caddie, you gave me, maybe, a shilling and you gave Jimmy two and sixpence. Jimmy then gave us two shillings and he kept sixpence of it for himself.

“We, the caddies, thought that was diabolical. We thought, 'Why should he keep sixpence of our money?' We thought that was our money, at the time.

“So, as I was the oldest caddie, we decided to go on strike because I was hearing so much about the strikes in England.

“We didn't know what a strike but we decided to go on strike on a Monday morning because at the weekend you were caddying on a Saturday and a Sunday and you were bringing in money.

“We decided to go on strike and then I wrote this poem about the train to mark the occasion:

‘It was on the Monday morning, It was in the month of May, that the caddie's of Lisfannon sure went out for higher pay.

‘The train came whistling around the corner, Jimmy Boner let the roar, the caddie's of Lisfannon sure they want this tanner more.’

Laughing, Jim recalled that the caddies never got their tanner.

He said: “We went on strike for a couple of hours but Jimmy kept the sixpence to which he was entitled but we didn't know that at the time.”

Jim, who is Buncrana born and reared, then went on to work on the coal boats .

“I left Buncrana pier before I was 14 on a coal boat. I went all over the place, Wales, Scotland and back to Ireland and back to Wales again.”

He also passed on the golfing skills he learned from patrons of the North West Golf Club including, Sir Basil McFarland, John F McLaughlin, who owned a shoe shop in Derry, and Victor Fiorentini, and his own son, Oliver.

Oliver went on to win a gold medal for Ireland in golf in the Special Olympics in Dublin a few years ago.