Clonmany hero dad's legacy reaches Birmingham
A HEART-felt tribute to a Clonmany man 'who loved his home town' has appeared in a Birmingham-based Irish newspaper.
The editor of the paper - Pat McCool - the son of Clonmany man Patrick McCool snr who sadly passed away last year has written an emotional tribute about his hero dad who he described as the 'quiet man from Clonmany'.
The Irish Herald editor said his beloved dad, originally from a white washed thatched cottage in Crossconnell, felt so passionate about his home town he desperately wanted readers to hear about the colourful life he led from the tiny Inishowen village all the way to the England's second best city.
Pat McCool told the Journal: "Anyone who has lost a mum or a dad will know it is a heart rendering experience.
"When my dad died it left a big hole in my family, life would go on of course, but it would never be quite the same again.
"I will never meet a better man than my dad as long as I live, his quiet humble nature, his devotion to his family was a credit to him.And his legacy will live with me forever."
Mr McCool snr, left his native Donegal back in the 1940s and was one of eight children to his parents Sarah and Edward.
At the tender age of 14 he ventured to to Colraine where he was employed as a farm labourer.
And it was when he attended the hiring fair in Derry - an event held twice a year for employers and workers alike - he was employed by a farmer from the Donemana area, where he worked for three years.
It was down to this employment with farmer Jim Donaghy, that he set his eyes on his soon-to-be wife Noreen McCrossan.
The couple got engaged in 1949 and after spending a short time in Scotland as a trainee crane driver Patrick returned to his Co. Tyrone rose and the pair married in 1950.
And it wasn't before long they had a family of their own.
They had six children altogether, five girls - Anna, Bernadette, Noreen, Kathleen and Jackie - and Pat jnr. The family lived in a Downhill bungalow by Magilligan Strand in Derry and moved to Belfast in 1960.
And, like many of the Irish of Pat snr's generation, he moved his family to the West Midlands area for work in 1973, where he spent many happy years.
Pat jnr said: "We would visit Dad's home place in Clonmany on regular intervals, he loved going back there, especially to see his mother.
"Dad was always at home in the country."
And just before the hard-working family man died on December 6, last year, the family made a trip home.
Pat added: "He went back to his native Clonmany on holiday several occasions, funnily enough in 2005 he went back and stayed in Ballyliffin at a holiday home as a base and visited some parts of the county he had never been to before with my mum, sister Anna and brother-in-law Derek."
Pat jnr said there isn't a day goes by that he doesn't think of his dad.
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Weather for Derry
Monday 13 February 2012
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