Snippets - Katie Dolaghan Remembers and other short stories |
The Irish Adventure of Richard Kukura and Tommy Hulme and the fate of their Beaufighter JL710 |
Katie Dolaghan RemembersI was married only a week and remember I was at the dance in Templeport Hall with my new husband Peter known a ‘P’ when soon after eleven o’clock someone came in a shouted that there was a plane circling around. Fitzpatrick’s Band of Milltown were playing but we all rushed out and saw very clearly the lights of it as it passed over, it was flying very low and making lots of noise. It seemed to be an awful big looking machine but as most of us had never seen one at that time, we didn’t know any better. Later during the dance someone came in and said it had come down in Port Lake.As we came home past Cafferty’s Cross William Cafferty was standing outside his house, he confirmed that the plane was down and told us he thought there must have been lives lost. The next day Georgie Gault arrived at our house, he told us he was going to see where the aeroplane was. He went on down and later came back with some pieces of it. I think he must have been going to the plane nearly every day for weeks! I particularly remember him coming with something which looked like an anchor about three or four inches long, I don’t remember what it was. John Edwards recalledJohn Edwards recalls that On St Patrick’s Night 1943 John, his mother, Peter, Tom, Shelia and Nancy were at home in Killycrin. “We heard an aeroplane flying around for a long time, it made several rounds and finally it crashed. We knew it was an aeroplane in trouble. We knew it wasn’t going to last too long, there was a sharp noise off it.” Pa Brady's story told to his son SeamusSeamus Brady’s dad told him that on the evening of 17th March
1934 when people were going to dances they called to his mother’s
shop beside Port lake where they bought minerals and biscuits. Some
time later during the night while the dances were still on he heard
the loud rumbling noise of an aeroplane . It circled about three times,
he noticed that each time it came round it was lower. On the last
trip it crossed the house and flew to the Island. Seamus also told me he had recovered a blade of one of the propellers which still had the hub attached, it was very heavy and while trying to take it out of the old Cot boat with Michael McGovern they had nearly capsized it! He explained that some people from a war museum in Northern Ireland had asked for it and been given it. He heard years later that it had been on display in a pub in Enniskillen but didn’t remember which one. Turkey decapitated!A story told by Patrick Duffy; a story he heard often as a child
told by his parents. Tail stuck 'up the air'At the first meeting of the committee to make arrangements for the Kukura’s visit to Ireland Pat McAdam who remembered the incident told us that he had been at school at the time but shortly after the crash had visited the Island on Easter Sunday (25th April 1943). He said he particularly remembered the ’plane with its tail stuck up into the air. Boatman remembered? Last Monday 26th June Packie Joe Brady took me out to the area near
St Mogue’s Island where as boatman he remembers having taken
divers to some twenty years ago. On that occasion they appeared to
locate a single large section of the aeroplane; as when two of the
divers were in the water one was able to feel the other jumping up
and down twenty feet away. |