Up close with Louise Leonard: The heart and soul of Cashel

For she is woven into the heart of this very special place on the Fermanagh-Leitrim Border – a place that has risen so magnificently in the face of the cruel adversity of The Troubles.

In Gaelic, it is ‘Cashelnadrea’, or ‘Cashel of the druids’. Well, whatever about those ancient weavers of spells, this place has the magic of a cross-community, cross-Border group of exceptional people who built one of the finest community centres in Fermanagh, if not in Ulster.

And they did it from the bottom up, from a shared desire not to be defined by having four roads in the area into Leitrim blown up. Not to be defined by poor rushy land. Not to be defined by some dark violence. And not to be defined by its remote location on the edge of the province of Ulster.

It took enormous courage, character and utter determination to succeed along with some astute negotiations for Louise and her friends in the Cashel Community Association to have a state-of-the-art centre that would be the envy of many bigger villages.

Although Louise is reluctant to claim credit – always preferring to say “we” – it is clear that this force of nature is not just an astute fundraiser.

She is a highly-respected musician, organist and music teacher all across West Fermanagh; a genealogist and local historian with a forensic recall of days and years, and a constant advocate for the place she loves with a passion beyond words.

For Louise and her hard-working colleagues, the opening of the first Cashel Community Centre was a huge boost to the village against all odds in 1993, and the extension in 2016 has made it into a much sought after venue for a variety of events.

That application for the second tranche of funding was turned down twice, but the community was not taking no for an answer, and eventually succeeded.

But in between, on Sunday, June 19 in 1994, the area was the scene of a major TV collaboration between UTV, RTÉ and London Weekend Television for the first ever live ecumenical cross-Border programme of worship in St. Joseph’s Church, Cashel and Kiltyclogher Church of Ireland.

It was conducted by Canon Patrick Lonergan and Canon Robin Richey, with Paul Clark from UTV filming and the guests were the late Gordon Wilson, Gloria Hunniford and Terry Waite.

Louise was born in the hamlet in the 1960s and her people on both sides had a strong business gene, as she relates in her home opposite the community centre and St. Joseph’s Chapel.

But what is truly remarkable is the sheer amount of businesses that thrived in this tiny hamlet since the start of the 20th Century.

Her father Louie and mother Meg Leonard ran a grocery shop and undertaker business which was originally Jack McGowan’s.

Her uncle, Peter Leonard, had a similar business about 200 metres away – that shop was opened by Louise’s granny, the formidable Maggie Leonard, who was left a widowed woman of eight children but who survived and started a business in the 1920s that lasted until the Noughties.

Louise’s grand-aunt May and Andy Boylan ran a drapery store which also doubled as a dispensary in the 1960s and1970s, and there was another grocery shop in Aughoo called Kerrigan’s, on the road to Belcoo.

Cashel also had a post office at Scribbagh that ran from 1936 to 1998, and was run by Frank and Sarah Foster.

At Cashel Cross, one of the oldest shops was Barney McDermott’s, which had a letter box that was the oldest in Fermanagh and bore the letters VR, indicating it was there in the reign of Queen Victoria – it was a shop that served teas on a Cashel Fair Day.

There was also a forge run by Paddy Kelly, who was a seanchaí, and the forge was a great meeting place. There was a shoe-cobblers that was run by Frank McCaffrey and Joe Collum.

Meanwhile, St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church was founded in 1873 and celebrated its 150th anniversary last year.

But what is clear from all of this history, effortlessly recalled by Louise, is that there was always a spirit of enterprise and can-do in this special spot.

It is also clear that she comes from pretty formidable and enterprising stock.

Louise has all the names of the teachers who taught in the local primary school, which was “always cross-community”.

Her grandfather, Michael Leonard, came from Augoo and he died a young man at around 48 years of age, and her granny was Maggie McGurrin, who was from Kiltyclogher. She lived until 1964 and “was a very strong character”.

Her mother was Meg Maguire, and her granny was a sister of Jack McGowan, who ran the shop near the site where Louise now lives.

Louise was an only child and worked in the shop that sold a bit of everything. When she was just six months old, Louise was sent around the roads with her father Louie, who had a travelling shop.

“I was around loads of houses, and every Friday was delivery day, and it was great as you got into all these houses and there were always treats for the child!

“I remember Abby Stevenson’s of Aughoo, and he was full of life, and Ba Robinson as well, who lived in Teamhair, and I can still see his mother, who was a wee old woman sitting at the fireplace.

“This was around 1970, and [I remember] Ernest Walmsley, who lived in Teamhair and was a very civil wee man, and John McGowan of the Point, and Frank Maguire from Ross, and they were great characters.

“Sarah Elliott lived in Frevagh, and she was a character too, and her husband Jim was a policeman, and they had one son, Willie Elliott, and he joined the police as well.”

The travelling shop stopped in the mid-1970s.

“Daddy was an undertaker as well and the shed was divided in two, as on one side you had the feeding stuff for the cattle and fowl, and coal, and the other side was partitioned off, and you had the coffins.

“I remember the coffins, and did not pass any remarks on them, but when I got older, I was not fussed on them.

“My daddy rented the hearse from Charlie Dolan in Blacklion.

“Cashel was a booming place before The Troubles, and there was a huge population in the townlands.

“Then you had a number of families like the Timoneys, the Tom Benny Burnes, the Jones’, the McIntyres and the McKeaneys, and some of them had 16, 15, 14 13 and 12 children.

“I often heard it said that [these families] kept the school in Cashel going, and there was 21 in McGriskins’ in Kiltyclogher.

“There is a lot of talk now about cross-community and integrated education, but that was always the case here in Cashel.

“This was in the 1950s and 1960s, and there weren’t too many cars, so the local shops would have done well.

“But there was a lot of business that came from Kiltyclogher in Leitrim, which was just two miles away.

“There was a lot of smuggling in the 1940s and 1950s after the Second World War, and Patrick Duffy from Aughoo was known as ‘The Ghost’, as he was hard to find.”

Louise went to primary school in Cashel and Garrison, and then to Mount Lourdes in 1976.

It was there where she got her deep love for music and was taught the piano by Mona Maguire, from Belmore Street, and Louise stayed over some evenings for lessons.

But music was in the genes of the McGowans and the Leonards.

Louise started the piano lessons in 1977. Fr. Terence McElvanney was in the parish and cajoled her to play the piano on Christmas Eve in St. Joseph’s Cashel.

“I had to do Christmas carols, and I was very nervous on Christmas Eve night, 1977, in the chapel, and I played for the choir.

“The McKeaney sisters were in the choir, along with Josie McGrath, but I did not see them that night as I was that nervous.”

That was the start of a career that is still going strong around the west of the county.

Her grandfather, Jack McGowan, bought her a keyboard and she passed the Royal Irish Academy exams.

Louise finished in Mount Lourdes. Her father was not too well and she had to work in the business, and she passed her Guild Hall exams and started teaching, playing at masses and funerals, and she “loves the kids”.

She began teaching in 1988. Her father died in July, 1987, and they closed the shop in January, 1988.

“The shop was started in the late 1920s, and it was emotional.”

Louise started teaching music in the Resource Centre in Blacklion and she was there for three days a week, and she was also in Kiltyclogher.

“I left the Resource Centre in 2019, and now I am in the Market House in Blacklion, from 1.30pm to 6pm and I have up to eight to ten pupils.

“I love the one-to-one, because every child is different – two different characters, and two different performances.

“Music is very spiritual, and music is a universal language. It brings people together and crosses all boundaries, and it can calm a storm.”

The first school Louise worked in was St. Davog’s PS, Belleek. She also worked in the neighbouring St. John The Baptist, Roscor in the early 1990s, where she did the Communion Class in both.

One pupil who was playing the tin whistle in another school had a terrible sound, and Louise went to investigate.

“What had he done, but took the top off the tin whistle and turned it to the bottom, and was playing it back to front!”

She has also been doing Communion Class in St. Martin’s, Garrison and she was in Belcoo St. Columban’s preparing for Feiseanna, and she was also in Florencecourt Primary School for a year.

At present, she does two days a week in Blacklion, and two days a week in Tir Navar in Derrygonnelly and says: “I do a day here for kids around here, so it is five days a week.”

She has been a familiar figure at funerals in West Fermanagh since the late 1980s. “Funerals used to have choirs, and now it is solo.

“There are three of us now for weddings, and we call ourselves ‘Las Trio’, which is Louise, Ann and Sinead.”

So, what does music mean to Louise?

“Apart from it being my livelihood, it is also very rewarding, and I would have had a lot of students who went on to their Grade 8.

“I find that boys have a softer touch on the piano than girls.”

Louise then spoke of how Kiltyclogher in County Leitrim and Cashel in County Fermanagh had a very close relationship in the 1940s and 1950s, and how it was later broken.

“In 1972, the road between the two places was blown up, and that split the communities in two.

“As a result, I did not know anybody in Kilty until they were re-opened in 1994/95.

“The closure was a huge blow to business in Cashel, and to everything, and nobody was coming out.

“Cashel, Aghawanney, Kilcoo and Dooard roads were blown up – four roads that linked tight-knit communities, and now they were sundered within a radius of four miles, and it was devastating.

“If there was a funeral in Kiltyclogher, you had to drive around by Blacklion, which was 25 miles and there was no other way. It was the same vice-versa.

“I remember Harry Bustard died, and they asked me would I play the organ in the Church of Ireland in Kilty, and I was left by my mother to the footbridge, and Canon Richey met me on the far side.

“The first time I played in the Church of Ireland church in Kilty was at Louis Acheson and Audie Foster’s wedding in March, 1988, and my mum had to drive around by Blacklion for the wedding.”

But it is clear that Cashel means so much to Louise.

“It is home, and there is a great bond, and a great community together, and it is a mixed community.

“When you are applying for cross-community grants, you have all these people coming out to assess you, as they do, and they ask, ‘What is the cross-community like?’, and they make a big issue of it.

“Good cross-community relations is not a man-made thing – it is natural and organic, if you like.”

So how did Louise get involved with the Cashel Community Association, which was founded in 1991?

“It was Jim Ledwith, from Fermanagh District Council, who started and there was a St. Joseph’s Hall Committee since 1975.

“Jim held a meeting in the old Cashel School in February, 1991, and that is how it all started. The school is now gone – and a committee was formed.

“It kicked off, and we had 14 [people] on the committee, and he got involved with the funders and got us involved with the Cadbury Trust, as we wanted to build our own community centre.”

This was a brave move as The Troubles were in a dark period, but the cross-community committee and people of the area were determined to rise above sectarianism for the good of their locality.

“We got our first grant in November, 1992 to do a complete new-build. Work went ahead, and it was officially opened on April 15, 1993, and that was a huge day for the whole place.

“We were 75 per cent grant-aided, and we got £45,000 from the Cadbury Trust. We had to make up the remaining £8,000.

“We all worked together on this project, and it was not too difficult to get funding in those times.

“David Carson, of Community Relations Unit Belfast, was there as that was where the funding came from. You also had Elizabeth McCaffrey – PJ McCaffrey’s mother – the oldest woman in the area cut the tape.

“We had and have bowling, senior citizens, keep fit, yoga, dancing, a farmers’ club, and we had different games nights with indoor soccer, badminton and all those sorts of things.”

Then in June, 1994, in a joint venture between RTÉ, Fr. Dermot McCarthy, UTV, Paul Clark and London Weekend Television, Alan Hailes did a programme called ‘Morning Worship’ which broadcast mass from St. Joseph’s, Cashel, and a service from the Church of Ireland in Kiltyclogher at the same time, and it was a unique ecumenical event.

“We had Canon Pat Lonergan, Canon Robin Richey were the celebrants, and the guests were the late Gordon Wilson, Terry Waite and Gloria Hunniford, and Ciarna Goss supplied the music, and that was a very proud day for the area.

“We got an extension to it in 2018, the year it was re-opened, and we were grant aided by Space and Place in 2016, and the extension grant was £358,000.”

Louise did the application for the extension, and it took three efforts before the community finally got it over the line.

“‘No’ was not part of our vocabulary,” she said. “We were turned down twice, but we kept going until we got there, and that is a great tribute to the determination and resilience of this community.

“We were initially looking for £100,000, and then NICVA – the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action – it was they who told us about the grants to be got from Community Foundations Northern Ireland, Space and Place.

“We applied in 2012 and it was a tough interview from Michael Hughes, and he wanted to know what the reason was for the extension.

“Well, the hall was too small, and we could only run one activity per night, and we had other things needed for the area, and we had nowhere to put them.

“We had a small room, and you would not swing a kitten in it.

“So, there was a need, and we initially started looking for funding, with Lauri McCusker from Fermanagh House in 2009, but we were not going to get £100,000, so we had to work our way up.

“We planned to enhance the kitchen and got a committee room that would hold 50 people, and we wanted new toilets and a whole new revamp and a car park.

“When all was done, it actually cost £410,000. Every bit of that was funded, and we opened it and had it paid for.

“The main funders were Space and Place, and they gave us £358,000. We were a bit short, and we got the remainder from the Foyle Foundation, Ulster Garden Villages, Fermanagh and Omagh District Council and Garfield Weston.

“I got the good news in September, 2016 and Michael Hughes officially announced it in Cashel on October, 2016, on the same night we had a presentation for Dr. Deeney, Dr. Kiernan and Nurse Duffy.”

The extended centre was officially opened on September 8, 2018.

“That was another huge day for us, and there was a crowd of 270 that turned up. It was a day for the community to mingle and to talk.

“It was a huge achievement for a dispersed rural community, and there has been a lot of things achieved through the Community Centre”

Then Louise segues into a litany of the current activities in the hall.

“On Monday, we have yoga and keep fit; Tuesday is the gardening club; Wednesday is bowls, Cashel Senior Citizens; Thursday, sequence dancing; whist every second Friday, cookery classes, flower arranging, crafts classes, public meetings, health talks and receptions, and it costs £10 per hour to hire.

“That hall is costing £6,000-£7,000 per year to keep it going, so we have to have bazaars, concerts and dances and coffee mornings to cover those costs.

“The biggest night we had was when the McKeaney Sisters launched their CD on June 30, 2016, but it turned out to be a very sad night.

“The place was jam-packed, and then word came down to me that popular local man Pat McIntyre had a fatal accident with a chainsaw.

“I was concerned, as his sister was in the hall. So, I brought Teresa McKeaney and Anne McKeaney to one side and told them, and it knocked the bottom out of the whole thing, as you might imagine.

“It was a very sad night, and Anne was crying, and they did their last song. Rosie Stewart was there, and they said, ‘Tonight was great but tonight has to end as our school pal has just died’.

“I could not be there as my mother was very ill.”

She added: “That hall has had some great events and for the whist they come from as far away as Ballintra, Askill, Florencecourt, Enniskillen and Derrygonnelly.

“The dancers come from as far away as Grange, Ballyshannon, Enniskillen and Garrison, of course.

“All the committee members pitch in to keep the place clean. It is not one person that keeps it going, and it is team-work.

“Everybody has their own skills as we have the good cooks, the good painters, the good handymen, etc.”

Meanwhile, St. Joseph’s Church was renovated to coincide with the 150-year anniversary last year.

“The foundation stone was laid in 1873.We had a big night on August 13 last year.

“We had Bishop Larry Duffy and the local clergy, and food in the hall, and there was a good crowd.”

One thing is certain. With people of the calibre of Louise Leonard and her colleagues, there is no doubt but that Cashel Community Centre will continue to be a beacon for future generations.

And it will continue to be at the beating heart of a unique community that has turned adversity on its head in a true spirit of friendship at the far end of the Province.