The Aldfreck Coalmining Disaster
Author: David Hume
Date: 2012
Source: Ullans: The Magazine for Ulster-Scots, Nummer 12 Wunter 2011/12
David Hume MBE
Editor’s note: We welcome a new poet to the pages of Ullans. Dr David Hume MBE is currently Director of Services for the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland.
A former print journalist, he has published books and research papers on Ulster-Scots history and background. The two titles relating to Ulster-Scots that are most familiar to readers are Far from the Green Fields of Erin: Ulster Emigrants and their Stories (2005), and Eagle’s Wings: The Journey of the Ulster Scots and Scotch-Irish, published at the end of August this year.
David is founding Chairman of the Ballycarry Community Association and co-founder of the Broadisland Gathering Festival (or Braidislan Gaitherin, as it’s known to us). His enthusiasm for community activism is coupled with an in-depth knowledge of his locality. Some of his researches came to fruition in the launch on 30 November last of the Weavers’ Trail, which illustrates the life and times of James Orr, the Bard of Ballycarry.
As part of the Ministerial initiative last March, David was appointed to the Ministerial Advisory Group on Ulster-Scots, which is tasked with progressing the establishment of a publicly-funded Ulster-Scots Academy. He also delivers talks on Ulster-Scots language and heritage.
This poem is based on a true story which my father once told me about a neighbouring farmer and his extraordinary quest for minerals — in this case coal — on his land. He hired two men to come and dig to try and find the coal seam, and they sought to match his expectations by bringing coal from home and casually leaving it lying around in the diggings.
The aul fella telt me yin time
aboot thon boy doon the braes,
wha taen intae his heid
that there was coal aneath the fiels.
He maun hae thocht tae mak a dale
frae minin black dymons nixt Larne Lough;
fur he peyed twa men tae come an dig.
So aa days sent by the Man Abeen they’d toil
at diggin doon an plunnerin in the soil.
An thon oul boy wus wile pleased
at the odd bits o coal their efforts squeezed
frae the glarry cley corner o his lan;
waitin aa ree like a dug fur a bone.
But they niver fun a blissit seam
and he didnae come tae be a millionaire,
fur the coal they dug wus bits frae hame
they’d kerried in their pookets and threw doon
whan he wusnae heedin or wus danderin roon;
Ma da telt me aince aboot it — says he
they had mair sense o makkin money
than thon aul boy doon the brae.
