ORANGE CERTIFICATE IN MATCH BOX.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE FERMANAGH TIMES).
Dear Sir, – I read your paragraph in last week’s issue with much interest, and can give you the following particulars:- The Patrick Maguire named in the certificate lived with his brother Bernard Maguire, in the house at Coleshill now occupied by Mr. Owen M’Teggart, in the year 1860 and for some years afterwards. One brother, Patrick, was a Protestant and Orangeman, and the other brother, Bernard, was a Roman Catholic, and reputed to be a Molly Maguire man. The brothers lived together on good terms notwithstanding the difference in their religious views and that both fought on opposite sides at the great Macken fight. Patrick, I think, died first about 1865, and Bernard survived him for a few years. They were labourers and often employed on Lord Enniskillen’s property. It is possible that Patrick put his certificate in the match box and hid it in the roof so that Bernard might not see it. The Charles Feely, who was then Master of L.O.L. 991 and whose signature is to the certificate, was the grandfather of the present Messrs. George and William Feely, Farriers, who carry on business in Cross Street in this town, and in 1860 that lodge held its meetings in the house which then stood upon the site of Miss Megaw’s present house in High Street and Middleton Street. After the Orange Hall was built in the sixties, the lodge commenced to hold its meetings there and I was Master of it for several years. I do not know whether it is now in existence or not. The foregoing particulars may be of interest to some of your readers. – Yours faithfully,
HUGH WALLACE.
5, Anne Street, Enniskillen.
28th September, 1921.
(Fermanagh Times, 29th September 1921)
Our Family 2 