Towns and villages feature focuses on Magheraveely

It embodies the ancient Gaelic adage of mórtas cine and mórtas dúchais (pride in your people and pride in your native place), and also encapsulates a remarkable sense of community spirit.

This verdant village is nestled in the rolling hills between Newtownbutler and Clones, and was once on the main road to Dublin.

It was also the former home of the famous Crozier family – once, it had its own Petty Sessions, and was a business hub for the local community.

These days, it is the native place of a local legend whose family has been making hurleys for three generations, two Orange Lodges, a flute and pipe band, a Community Development Association, a unique organisation (‘The Sunshine Club’), an Irish International Bowls champion, and a football team that plays in Division One of the Fermanagh and Western League “in a different country”.

As for the aforementioned Orange Lodges, Magheraveely Loyal Orange Lodge 467 sit in Magheraveely Orange Hall on the edge of the village, while Knox Loyal Orange Lodge 1841 meet in their Orange Hall less than a mile away.

Both lodges have been active for more than 100 years, and are two of ten men's lodges that comprise Newtownbutler District No. 1.

In 2015, the Magheraveely Community Development Association (MCDA) regrouped and got straight to work organising a vintage and modern tractor run, along with a family fun day which was followed by a BBQ and live music in the Oasis Bar and Lounge.

The event was extremely successful, and the group continues to organise events and offer opportunities for the local area.

But in postmistress Dorothy Annon, this special spot has a wonderful champion. Dorothy is a walking, talking encyclopaedia for the many varied activities that are the glue that holds the community together.

Her positivity is infectious as she tells just why her home place is so special to her and its inhabitants.

Dorothy also helped organise around 12 locals to greet The Impartial Reporter with tea and biscuits in the Cabin – the local community centre which was opened by DUP MLA Edwin Poots in 2021.

“I have been in the post office for the past 30 years, and I just love every minute of it. This post office here is well over 100 years old, and it used to be under Clones, and since 1926 it has been under Enniskillen.

“The post office has changed dramatically since I came here 30 years ago, and it is very important that every area has a post office at a time when we are losing our banks in so many different places.

“You can do all your banking here – it is here for everybody with deliveries, and you can pay your bills here, and we also do Amazon drop-offs.

“We have a lot of people coming in here from the Clones, Cavan and even Newbliss areas.”

She continued: “The Annons came from Carn Rock, out the road, and are here for over 100 years.

“I was Williamson from Clogher, but this is my home now, and my late husband was Billy Annon, and there have been five generations of William Annon in this place.”

When asked what makes Magheraveely so special, she said: “I love my job and I love the people, and for me, coming from Tyrone, I was made very welcome.

“The people are lovely here, and those who have left us have made their mark. There is a great cross-community relationship here, and we are very proud of it.

“Anyone that comes here never leaves it again, and they make it their home.”

Proud, ebullient Magheraveely man Finian Baker’s people have been making hurleys for three generations, since his late father, Joe Baker, started the business back in the early 1930s in Clonatty, about a mile outside the village.

Finian is a bit of a hurling legend himself, having played for Lisbellaw, and played and managed Fermanagh hurlers for many years, and won two Ulster hurling championships with neighbouring Monaghan as well as managing the Monaghan team to an All-Ireland final in 1998.

Finian, who sadly lost his beloved wife of 53 years, Philomena, in a road traffic accident last December, said making hurleys has been a way of life for the Baker clan since 1932.

Now his granddaughter Aine has made her own hurley, and his daughter, Fiona, has also been a great help to him over the years.

“My earliest memory is of my father having me in a tea chest helping with the shavings of the hurleys.

“My father had great hands, and he had a wee workshop at the back of the house.

“My father played hurling with Clones and my mother Claire played camogie with Clonmullan, and they could not get ash sticks, so he decided to make his own.

“He worked in the saw mill and there was nothing daddy could not make. We got the ash in McCoy’s wood.

“My father had a hatchet to shape the curve of the hurley, and he was very gifted.

“I was paid so much a hurley, and my father always paid me. I was the richest lad in school, as I always had pocket money.”

Finian took up the business and has supplied hurleys all across Ireland. His son, Martin, now runs the business – but Finian still pays a visit to the yard in Newtownbutler to make sure standards do not drop.

And so we moved from an eloquent ash man to an erudite Orangeman – for Magheraveely encapsulates two great traditions.

The energetic and eclectic Les Graydon still has his Belfast accent, but has been living in Magheraveely for the past two decades, where he is the Chairperson of the Community Development Association.

“It has snowballed since it was founded in 2015. We have 30 people in here for dinner in the Cabin every Tuesday.

“We have yoga, summer schemes, polytunnels, a Men’s Shed, and it is all here in the Cabin. This wee hall has gone from being a skip, to running things three or four times a week.

“We are also involved with cross-Border groups in Ballinamore, County Leitrim, and we are working alongside Newtownbutler and Aghadrumsee GAA clubs and Donagh Community Group.

“This is very exciting, and it certainly would not have happened 20 years ago.”

He continued: “Our core group is 6-10 people, and we are cross-community, and don’t have any politicians invited.

“I just love this wee village, and I love history and archaeology. I have a metal detector and have come across some very interesting artefacts.”

Les is also the Secretary of the Magheraveely Loyal Orange Lodge 467, and is a proud member.

“There are two lodges here and we have a flute and a pipe band. The band was founded in 1925, and my wife’s grandfather, Eddie Robinson, was one of the members, and his grandson, Andrew Robinson, is the current bandmaster.

“The lodge was founded in 1798, some 226 years ago, and we have up to 40 members. Our Orange hall in Magheraveely was opened by James Cooper MP in 1924.”

Meanwhile, retired civil servant Tony McAvinney was delighted to be coming back home after almost a lifetime away from his native heath.

He came back in 2012 after a career in the Department of Social Protection, and has been the PRO for the Community Development Association.

“I was born here in 1952, and my father died when I was four, so my mother was widowed as a young woman, but we were well treated.

“I always had a hankering to come back, and I got involved in the community shortly after coming back in 2012.

“There is just so much going on, and we have a great Men’s Shed, which attracts a lot of attention, and we are hoping to get funding for a new football field.

“I look forward to the day when I can stroll around the football field with my zimmer frame!”

Dean Raymond Ferguson was in Dunmurray in Belfast, but has come back to his roots, and as well as preaching, he is also a fine singer.

“I came here to retire almost ten years ago and I am still doing services mostly here in the Church of Ireland parish of Aghadrumsee.

“It is a beautiful little hamlet, and a very friendly place. The post office is the hub of the village, and Dorothy [Annon] is like a mother to us all.

“We have a lot of different organisations and of course, ‘The Sunshine Club’, for elderly people like myself, which is just great.”

Fittingly, the club’s motto is, ‘It’s not the years in your life that count – It’s the life in your years’.

The club celebrated 25 years last year in memory of its founder member, the late Peggy McCabe.

You might think it was a big change for the dean to come from Belfast to rural Fermanagh, as he is now living in a little historical cottage that his grandmother was brought up in.

“She was Teresa Thompson, on my mother’s side, and I was very surprised when the old lady who lived in that cottage, a cousin of my mother’s – when she died, the wee place was left to me.

“I was accepted here very quickly, and that is so enriching.”

The tour de force that is 86-year-old Ina Latimer then gave us a potted history of the Sunshine Club, of which she is a very active member.

“The late Peggy McCabe started the club and we brought out a book last year to celebrate our 25 years in existence, and in her memory.

“During The Troubles, there was never any trouble in the village. She started a cross-community club, and we have 94 people in our club. Our eldest member is Nan McAdam, 98, and she is tip-top.

“The club is thriving, and we go out every month from March to December.”

She continued: “During the pandemic, for that Easter we did a window box, and we bought an Easter egg for the members, and we went around to 92 houses.

“That was because we just could not meet up, and at Christmas we delivered a hamper to the members.

“We have had great funding from the National Lottery, and Fermanagh and Omagh District Council have been very helpful too, and we had a Tea Dance last month in the community hall in Newtownbutler.”

Ina remembers working for Hubert Goode in his shop in the 1950s. “The Impartial Reporter was thruppence, and we used to fold them up as small as we could, and the postmen would deliver them.

“Petrol was two and thruppence, and two and sixpence a gallon. I am 86, and as fit as a fiddle, and I am one of nine.

“We had nothing, but we had happiness, and my father was the local gravedigger.”

Elsewhere, the energetic Glenn Keenan may live four miles away, but his heart is rooted in the village.

Glenn is involved in the football club and is also the Chair of Magheraveely Northern Ireland Supporters Club, which was founded in 2017, and he is also involved in the local Orange flute band.

“We have 50 members in the club, and it is the biggest in Fermanagh. I do a bit of promotion for Basil Wiggins, in the Oasis pub in the village, and I run a social media page for him, and book bands and music as well.

“There is a great community bond here, and the pub is a meeting place for the community. You would never see a row, and we all get on very well on a cross-community and cross-Border basis.

“There never was any tension, and we have a football team and a reserve team competing in the Fermanagh and Western League.

“The players come from Aghadrumsee, Monaghan, Cootehill. At the moment, we are playing in Clones, but we hope to start work on our own field in the village.

“It might be a small place, but there is an awful lot going on,” he added.

Esther Forster is not only the super-efficient Secretary of the Sunshine Club, but she is also an Irish International Bowls player.

“I have been lucky enough to play for an all-Ireland team six years ago when I played along with three gentlemen on a ring, and I played lead, and we won the British Isles Championship!

“I have won Irish individual titles.”

Esther began her extraordinary bowls career in the Protestant Hall in Clones.

“Willie Kennedy, who was a shop owner here in Magheraveely, brought me in one evening, and I started with wooden bowls and Finian Baker has promised to make me a set of wooden bowls.

“I play for Clogh club at Roslea, and we have 17 members. I played for the first Irish Ladies Bowls team, which went across to England last year, and we won the competition, which was great, really.”

She practices five nights a week in the season from September to April, and she also plays outdoor bowls with Clogher Valley and with Markethill Ladies in Armagh.

This writer knew nothing much about Magheraveely before last Friday – but after meeting some of those who live there, it is clear that, for them, it is a truly special spot, where there is a closeknit bond that will not be sundered.

Here indeed is a community that is doing so much for its own, and it was truly an educational experience, listening to its inhabitants’ stories, and the quiet but deep pride they have in their native heath.