Life Early in the 19th Century
A History of Moville and its Neighbourhood
By Rt. Rev. Bishop Henry Montgomery, 1847 - 1932

No happier hours have I spent in Moville than when I have been talking with old friends of all classes about life in their childhood, and also about what their parents used to tell. All that follows is gathered from them, and be it remembered that it covers the entire life of Moville itself. For example, one of my oldest friends tells me he remembers talking in his youth with the man who ploughed what is now the market square of our town.

I think the subject which has fascinated me most is the record of the way men and women walked a century ago. It is becoming in a sense a lost art, yet what can be more healthful? I raise my hat to the sturdy walkers of old. I think the finest example set to us is by a woman from Cooley. It will be remembered that certain families were transported thither from Armagh.

One day more than eighty years ago, my old friend, now in Cooley, told me that his mother walked to Armagh, carrying him, then two years old, on her back. I think the distance is seventy-four miles, and she accomplished it in two days, stopping the night in Newtownstewart. In due time she walked back again.

Another old friend tells me that when he was young he regularly walked to Derry on market day, starting in the small hours, and driving cattle, Arrived in Derry, he transacted his business, perhaps bought more cattle, and walked back with them to Moville, arriving at midnight, and so tired that he seemed to walk in his sleep the last mile or two. It meant forty miles and much business. But so little was a mere forty miles considered that in the 'forties of last century the Commandant at Greencastle Fort, when he wanted his pay, in place of using the post, sent his maid servant to Derry to fetch it. She walked the forty miles and went on with her work after she had returned. It is worth recording also that a century ago the people of Greencastle and Shrove made Coleraine their market town. It was the regular custom to use the ferries to MacGilligan for every purpose. Both men and women have told me how they used to walk from Shrove, cross over, walk to Coleraine, thirteen miles, carry their goods, transact business, and return in the evening to their home the same day. The crossing back again was, of course, uncertain and there were sheds near the point where people could, if necessary, spend the night. It was a busy ferry there; today a mere shadow of what it used to be.

The postman was, of course, a fine walker. At first he walked from Moville to Derry carrying the mail; he stayed the night in Derry and walked back the following day. But it was not only the twenty miles daily walk, he had. I suppose, to deliver the letters at certain points both coming and going. He carried the post bags on his back attached to a rope, and in front he had a weight on the rope to balance the bags behind, Later in time the postman rode to Derry and back in the same day, carrying the mails. Of course, he must have had a relay of horses. I have wondered whether, say, in the year 1800, when there were probably no hard roads, these great walkers tramped barefoot. Perhaps someone can enlighten us. Walking has been my passion till old age forbade. But my own effort, when I was seventy, was child's play compared with old stalwarts. I rose one morning and started at 6.30am (my wife was away!), breakfasted at Redcastle at 8am left at 9am., and reached the Derry Post Office at 1.15pm. It rained all the way, but I had an umbrella and a suit of clothes in a fishing basket.

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