ANDY MACINTYRE

Taken from the book – “Between the Jigs and Reels”- by Coimhin Mac Aoidh. The Donegal Fiddle Tradition (pages 167-170)

If Proinseas Mac Suibne was Padraig Mac Aodh O’Neill’s Philomath, Andrew MacIntyre (also known as Alastruim Mac Antire in “Songs of Uladh” and Andy MacAteer as he is still sometimes referred to in his native area) was to prove his polymath. He was born in 1877 at Ballymore, halfway between Creeslough and Dunfanaghy. His mother, Letitia Collins, came from a very musical family and she particularly encouraged Andy’s interest in music. He attended primary school in Ballymore where he was noted as a very attentive student. On leaving school, he served for eleven years as an auxiliary postman at the Ballymore Post Office. During this time he engaged in a relentless pursuit of self-education. Indeed, during this period he often placed a candle on his chest to permit him to read in bed well into the night. This practice resulted in a severe burning when he fell asleep without quenching the candle.

In early 1910 he returned home to work on the farm and in September of 1914 was appointed Master of Dunfanaghy Workhouse where he may have become acquainted with the fiddler Nabla Ni hAnluain noted above. On October 31 1916 he married Mary Martin of Derryreel, (whom he had met during his days at the post office) and who also worked with him in Dunfanaghy. Mary was a native Irish speaker and Andy’s familiarity with the local dialect and his passion for languages led him to become fluent in the language. Irish was the commonly used language between Mary and Andy. The Dunfanaghy Workhouse closed on March 31^st 1917 and he took up similar duties in the workhouse in Milford. In 1918 he accepted the post of School Attendance Officer of Clondahorkey Parish.

At the end of 1921 McIntyre’s big break came when he secured the post of Assistant Librarian under Sam Maguire (not of footballing fame) who, through the foresight of the Carnegie Institute, held the post of County Donegal’s Head Librarian. In March 1923 Maguire moved onto Coleraine and the post of County Librarian was filled by his assistant, Andy. Shortly after his promotion Andy was summoned by the Carnegie Trust to attend a librarian’s conference in London. He crossed from Belfast to Liverpool and onto his final destination. This trip is briefly recalled in Frank O’Connor’s autobiography. During the journey Andy remained in close contact with O’Connor arising from the latter’s ability to speak Irish. Despite some reservations about him, O’Connor, on the basis of his meeting with McIntyre concluded, “Ulstermen are the nicest people in the world except in the matter of religion and dialect.”

During his early period in the library he came into contact with the Englishman, Arthur Fowweather, who had come to teach in the Prior School, Lifford in the 1920s. In his memoir, “One Small Head”, Fowweather admiringly recalls Andy McIntyre as follows:

“My brief experience in the North West had already loaded my eager mind with numberless impressions of the rich variety of individuals to be met with there, but through the Carnegie Library I met one of the most memorable of them all. When Maguire’s work assumed such proportions that Dublin headquarters decided he needed an Assistant Librarian for Donegal, Andrew MacIntyre arrived from remote Dunfanaghy on the northern coast to fill the position. One day I wandered in customary fashion into the Library after school and met him. Anything less like the conventional Librarian I could not hope to imagine.

Andy MacIntyre was a shortish man with sparse sandy hair and pebble glasses. He was around forty and dressed in rough home-spun tweed. He was excessively short-sighted and inelegant to a degree. Andy was a mountainy man who was almost a caricature of the ignorant Irish peasant. It did not take me long, even at the first meeting, to find that here was a man of startling breadth of scholarship and knowledge of and reverence for English Literature surpassing anyone I had ever known. Later I found that he was almost entirely self-educated. A few years at the National School constituted his formal education. Hugh Law, a member of the Westminster Parliament, had discovered the boy’s intellect and had given him free run of his extensive library in the Old Rectory in Dunfanaghy. Andy read in Mr Law’s house and took more books home to read. There he had often only the help of a rush light as lamps or candles were out of his family’s financial reach and he had ruined his eyesight with long hours of reading. However he had been enabled to be a postman, then Workhouse Master in Dunfanaghy and now an answer to a prayer if ever I knew one, a real curator of books and book learning. Now he could live all the time with his beloved literature, have a nice little house in the Barrack Square, Lifford with his adored wife and browse among the books to his heart’s content. If Maguire was the administrator, then MacIntyre was the scholar. He had something that meant more than his own satisfaction to him, for now he had a chance to bring books and learning to his own dear Donegal. He was the kindest and gentlest of men who opened further the eyes of at least one lad (Fowweather) to the richness and beauty of English Literature, and who, without realising it, taught that same young fellow something of humanity as well”.

During this time Andy became very close friends with Peadar O’Donnell, who was also living in Lifford. While their similar interests in literature would have, no doubt, brought them together. O’Donnell’s exposure to and appreciation for Donegal fiddle music through his own family would further facilitate a kinship. MacIntyre took a strong interest in cultural matters and was active in participating and playing at Gaelic League functions in Lifford.

His writing was also running at a high level of output and his interest in poetry led him to become acquainted with George Russell (AE), Percy French, GK Chesterton, Stephen Gwynn, W.B.Yeats and Frank Cousins. He continued in his capacity as County Librarian until his retirement in 1948. Twenty years later he would be succeeded by his son, Eddie, making this the only instance of both a father and son having held such a post in Ireland.

Concerning his musical exploits, Andy was in his playing heyday in the first decade of this century where he was extremely popular for providing music for house dances and convoys. He was not averse to turning his literary talents to writing lyrics. As we find in “Songs of Uladh,” he composed the words to the song The Maids of Bearnas Gap and offered an alternative version of the air from that which Mac Aodh O’Neill obtained from Cait Ni Suibhne. Like his acquaintance, Prionsias Mac Suibhne, Andy made a concerted effort to learn and collect tunes from older players within his locality. No doubt through his familiarity with Padraig Mac Aodh O’Neill, he saw the “Journal of Irish Folk Song, London” as an outlet for his own collecting pursuits and contributed a brief entry in 1905/6. In this material we can see he included a piece from his close friend, John Coll, as well as one from Padraic Glacan whom he described as a well known fiddler from his own parish having flourished in the 1870’s. In a 1904 volume of the “Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society, London”, Mac Aodh O’Neill (writing as Herbert Hughes) included a reel from Andy entitled The Letterkenny Frolic which he notes was very well known all over Donegal. This tune is hardly played today.

Andy spent thirty-six years in Lifford but his heart never left Ballymore. Summers saw the family being relocated to the area for their holidays and Andy’s search for old musical outlets. His musical stimulation received a significant boost during the Thirties with the emergence of the broadcasting career of Neillidh Boyle. The latter would often travel to Dublin by train and this meant a round trip from Strabane. Neillidh would often stay in Lifford with Andy the night before departure and also on returning from Dublin. These meetings inevitably resulted in nightlong sessions. Such visits were seen as testimony to Andy’s stature as a player since around this time Neillidh was at the height of his powers and was known to have a very low tolerance for anyone other than what he considered an outstanding player.

Likewise at this time Andy became friendly with the Ballyshannon fiddler, Harry Carey, who was then working as an agricultural adviser based in the County Offices in Lifford. A photograph of Andy has survived and a copy was recently donated to the Donegal Fiddle Archive in Glencolumcille by Harry Carey’s daughter Eithne Valley. It is a group photograph of the local Gaelic members taken outside the Lifford Courthouse. MacIntyre is at the extreme left of the picture with his fiddle under his right arm. He is a well-dressed, portly man with a moustache conforming very closely to the description recorded by Fowweather.

Andy’s frequency of playing appears to have decreased approaching the Forties with a corresponding interest in sourcing his music from the wireless. Following the radio coverage of the Eucharistic Congress he became fascinated by the medium and read books on the theory of radio transmission and reception. Based on this, he was able to make a crystal set, which was one of the first in the Lifford Area. He regularly listened to the BBC Northern Ireland and had little appreciation for the material broadcast by Radio Eireann. He enthusiastically bought commercial recordings from across the spectrum of musical tastes amassing a collection of approximately three hundred discs. By the Fifties, his fiddling dropped off considerably. Following the death of his wife in 1957 he stopped playing. Andy loved literature and clearly revelled in his work but there is no doubt that his passion lay with traditional fiddle music and particularly, that music of his own Ballymore Area.

Andy MacIntyre died in 1959 and is buried in Lifford.

REFERENCES

1. Padraig Mac Aodh O’Neill and Seosamh Mac Cathmhaoil. Songs of Uladh. William Mullan Publishers, Belfast 1904

2. Anon. The Duck Street Boys from Cashelmore. The Tirchonaill Tribune August 1993.

3. Frank O’Connor, My Father’s Son. Blackstaff Press, Belfast 1994 pp 17-19.

4. Arthur Fowweather. One Small Head. Down Recorder, Downpatrick, 1980, pp 96-97.

5. Padraig Mac Aodh O’Neill and Seosamh Mac Cathmhaoil. Op Cit, p48.

6. Andrew MacIntyre, Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society, London,Volume 2, nos.1+2,1905,p13.

7. Herbert Hughes, Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society, London, Volume 1, nos 2+3, 1904.

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