Home Again

“Thanks for joining us friends and neighbours and be sure to tune in again next week at the same time, for more songs, jigs and reels from Canada’s 10th province, good old Newfoundland. Until then, long may your big gib draw.”

So says the announcer in his sign off each Saturday night at the end of a very entertaining – and unusual – radio program that can be heard in this area. Each Saturday, about 11:40 p.m. until 12 midnight on CKGL-FM Radio in Kitchener (96.7 on your FM dial), songs from the island come lilting out over the airwaves, complete with accordian accompaniment on most of them, an instrument rarely heard on the radio any more.

(This column is 34 years old now; I am certain the program disappeared a long time ago. JH)

Today’s country music is as slick, sophisticated and highly technological as any pop, rock or beautiful music being produced in studios around the world. Anyone who still associates country music with the “twangy” music of yesteryear and won’t listen to it as a result, really should give it a try again. It isn’t hard to get hooked on it.

But missing from the lineup of songs that make it to the turntables in the studios of most modern country radio stations these days are the old-fashioned tunes that are still being played live in many dance halls and bars across the country, especially in parts of eastern Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime provinces. Modern country music makes heavy use of acoustic guitars, electric guitars, synthesizers and drums and is clearly rock-influenced. Its subjects are love, heartache, trucks, heartache, drinkin’, hurtin’ and heartache.

The old-tyme folk-country sounds of Maritimers like Harry Hibbs (the Beatles and Travelling Wilburys were big fans of one Hibbs’ song called Nobody’s Child) and the late Don Messer and the Islanders rely more on fiddles, banjos, accordions, stand-up bass and piano for the accompaniment to their lyrics about love of home, community and family and their songs about hard times, loneliness and loss.

Canada’s “down east” music is raw, enchanting and unique. Though much of it has its roots in the folk music of England, Ireland and Scotland, it stands on its own. Irish musicians, living in a country with no shortage of great music to play, sing and record, often turn to songs popular in Canada’s eastern provinces. Popular in Ireland are Farewell to Nova Scotia, Song for the Mira (about the Mira River in Cape Breton) and Ian Tyson’s classic, Four Strong Winds.

If you liked Stompin’ Tom Connors, Marg Osbourne and Charlie Chamberlain and early Anne Murray, you’ll enjoy Saturday nights’ shows on CKGL.

At the same time, more modern Canadian country musicians are producing hours and hours of great recorded music these days and a good place to hear many of them showcased each week – from Marie Bottrell, Carroll Baker and Sylvia Tyson to Terry Sumsion, Eddie Eastman and Terry Carrisse – is on Homespun, an hour-long program of interviews and music aired each Wednesday night at 11 p.m. and repeated Sunday nights at 9 p.m. on CJBX-FM in London (92.7 on your dial). For country music – new and old – on a local AM station, tune in CKNX in Wingham, 920 on the dial. And for golden oldies – pop, country and rock – try CJCS-AM Stratford, 1240 on your radio.

(Update 2020: Some of this information about radio stations is out of date now except for CKNX in Wingham, Ontario. Still an excellent source of wonderful country music.)

©1986 Jim Hagarty

My lifelong interest in history served me well recently when my wife and I went to Scotland for a vacation. As a sort of self-proclaimed walking encyclopedia of historical trivia, I was able to impress her with lengthy explanations of how and why things were done in the olden days. (My explanations were peppered with facts I’d read in tourist pamphlets the night before while she slept.)

With a self-assurance that only the truly educated possess, I provided useful information about ancient farming methods, the early settlers of Scotland and the turbulent relations between the Scottish and the English in medieval times.

But my wife, who still has long-lost relatives in Scotland and who also is a keen student of history, wanted to do some explaining of her own and seemed to take exception to having the country of some of her ancestors explained to her by a transplanted Irishman. And so our trip at times seemed to degenerate into an undeclared contest to see who could provide the most and best explanations.

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I would nod in grateful amazement as she told me how Mary Queen of Scots was run out of Scotland by her subjects after she married the man who murdered her second husband. Then she would express similar gratitude for my having told her about the ancient code of the Scottish Highlanders who would take even their most bitter enemies into their homes if they came asking for food and shelter.

To say we were competing with each other to establish who knew more about the history of Scotland might be to exaggerate, but still the air at times was thick with the scent of competition. And the scent of something else, judging by the dubious validity of some of our explanations.

The quality of my observations rose considerably whenever we ventured into any of the very old castles in the countryside as I had the advantage of having toured castles in Ireland in 1985. Castles there are as plentiful as fast-food restaurants in Canada and I had tried to tour as many of them as I could when I was there.

And so, I was amazed to hear my wife telling me all about the stone bridge which led to a very old castle we were visiting in Scotland. She pointed out that the bridge was just wide enough to accommodate one carriage and its team of horses. She showed me how the ancient cobblestones interlocked so carefully and when we came to several stone outcroppings in the bridge, she told me how these little alcoves were where soldiers would stand to keep guard on enemies sailing down the river to attack the castle. I stood in one of the guard posts and imagined myself keeping watch there 700 years ago, searching the landscape for enemies and listening to a horse and carriage make their way across the stone bridge behind me.

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Inside the castle, an old Scotsman who gets paid to explain things, told us how the castle was restored at a tremendous cost between 1912 and 1932. The bridge, which had never been a part of the original castle, was built during that time. The castle was impregnable because it was located on a small island. Putting up a bridge to it, would have allowed enemies easy access, he said.

After that, I pretty well had the explaining field to myself. Barb let a fact or two slip about Robbie Burns later on during the trip, but otherwise, her interest in history seemed to drop right off.

Fortunately, we still had my vast wealth of knowledge to draw on.

©1991 Jim Hagarty

This video was shot by my nephew, Jim Hagarty, during his first trip to Ireland in 2018. Jim is a filmmaker from Toronto.

Being a Roman Catholic of Irish ancestry, I might be expected to propagate prolifically and in a few hundred years from now, have quite a lineup of descendants all tracing themselves (gratefully) back to me. I haven’t gotten off to a good start on that score, however, having been in on the creation of only two children, but at least I’ve bought my ticket and am in the draw.

However, even if my descendants start earlier and have larger families than I have – I’ve been heading in the wrong direction – great-great-grandfather Hagarty had eight, great-grandfather had five, grandfather had seven, father had seven – I’m going to be a long time catching up to the family members who went before. My great-great-grandfather John, for example, born in 1798, can claim more than 1,400 people in his decendancy up to this day (roughly 900 still living, 500 not). Even with the smaller families of today, that number will keep growing exponentially until at some point, the Hagartys should be able to declare our own sovereign country or at least fill a stadium for a horseshoe pitching playoff game and half-time show starring Mick Jagger and the Rolling Grave Stones. (My great-great-grandfather Morrison, my matriarchal ancestor, kept himself a little busier than his contemporary Hagarty by having 13 children.)

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But I bow down today, and will never again pretend to be even a contender in the descendancy sweepstakes, to the great medieval Irish king who may have been the source of life for as many as three million men around the world. A new genetic study suggests that the 5th century warlord known as Niall of the Nine Hostages may be the ancestor of about one in 12 Irishmen, say researchers at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Niall established a dynasty of powerful chieftains that dominated lreland for six centuries and he and his descendants believed in big, big families. He himself is said to have had 12 sons but one of his chieftain descendants had 18 sons by 10 different women, raising the question of when he found the time to get any chieftaining done. He also had 59 grandsons. That’s a lot of birthday cards to send out and graduations to attend.

He died, exhausted, in 405.

The head researcher who discovered all this about his hero Niall has drawn the conclusion that large families, in those days, were the best way to indicate enormous power, in contrast to today, where the more rich and powerful the clan, the smaller the families (the U.S. Kennedys excepted).

I don’t expect anyone, 15 centuries from now, to be referring to me as Jim of the Nine Anythings, let alone hostages (I’d have no room to hide them out if I did capture them, the shed being too cluttered up with hockey sticks and snow tires at present), but Niall was not only romantic, he was very crafty too. He used to take people hostage and use them to keep other chieftains in line and he is even reported to have kidnapped St. Patrick himself. Being a saint however (Patty, not me, yet), my guess is St. Patrick forgave him for the six years he then spent as a slave in Ireland, far from his native England. Not only forgave him, but after entering religious life, returned to Ireland and spent the rest of his saintly days there.

Niall of the Nine Hostages, who became high king of Ireland, got his name from the nine key hostages he dragged off, including St. Patrick. A pesky fellow, he was always raiding the British and French coasts but he is believed to have been killed either in the English Channel or in Scotland. I don’t know how he died but I am pretty sure it wasn’t the result of a fall from a merry-go-round. His descendants, however, were the most powerful rulers of Ireland until the 11th century.

You might know some of them today as O’Neills, but they go by at least a dozen other surnames, Hagarty not among them. Or Jagger.

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Despite his obvious fertility, generating as he seems to have done a whopping three million male descendants, Niall was a relative choir boy compared with good old Mongol emperor Genghis Khan who is believed to have 16 million descendants after conquering most of Asia in the 13th century. Way to go Genghis!

Maybe it’s just me, but l think 16 million, even three million, is just too many kids to look after if you’re going to give them the attention they need.

I’ll be happy with a couple hundred thousand.

After work today, I am going to clear some space in the shed for a few hostages.

©2006 Jim Hagarty

My friend and artist Tom Finn painted this look at the main street of the village of Conna, Co. Cork, where my Hegarty ancestors lived till the 1850s.

Father O’Malley answers the phone.

‘Hello, is this Father O’Malley?’

‘It is!’

‘This is the Taxation Department. Can you help us?’

‘I’ll try!’

‘Do you know a Ted Houlihan?’

‘I do!’

‘Is he a member of your congregation?’

‘He is!’

‘Did he donate $10,000 to the church?’

‘He will!’

An elderly relative gave us a large sheaf of stamps she doesn’t plan to use. The value of each one on the several sheets she gave us is 30 cents. The last time a letter or card could be mailed for 30 cents in Canada was 1983. The price in 2019 is 90 cents. We wanted to send a couple of Christmas cards to friends in Ireland and a check on the price of stamps for that revealed a price of $2.99 each. So, supply meet demand. On went 10 old stamps on each envelope. Fortunately, there is still room for the complete address to be written. A brush had to be used to moisten the 20 stamps, as licking the first few caused the reluctant licker to feel nauseous. So, to our friends in Ireland who might see this, we know your card looks like it has the measles, but we assure you it is well. Just consider yourself victims of a horrible drive-by stamping.

©2019 Jim Hagarty