Townland of Roosky

Area: 212 acres
Irish Name: Riasc Meaning: Strip of Marshland or an Uncultivated Plain.
Spelling Variations: none

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COMMENT: Rooskey -or Ruskey - was where I was born during the German blitz on Glasgow in 1941. Our cottage was up from Whitecastle House where Billy, Ken and Joy Doherty and their mum and dad lived.

To me, as a young boy who came home every summer in the 1950's , Ruskey ( my spelling from my uncle Johnnie) was the area stretching out from the Ruskey Road towards Crehenan on the ' Derry side' and Drung on the Moville side.

To me, Ruskey included all the houses, fields and roads in the area between the Crehenan Road and the lower Ruskey Road. On the Ruskey Road, the houses were Paddy and Irene Joyce (once Mr Eaton's House and then Dan and Francis McLaughlin), Willie Harrigans, Charlie Grants, Barrs, Bridget McLaughlin, my uncle Johnnie and Aunt Liza McLaughlin - and up to the Master's House at the crossroads. This is now the Whitecastle Methodist Church.

Going towards Drung along the 'upper road' , Ruskey included the house of my uncle Mannie McLaughlin - now Rooskey Cottage' and down the lower Ruskey road to take in the Davenports with wee Mary, my Godmother, Bridget, Mary Rose and John Armstrong, Red Ned and old Jane.

I'll do some more thinking and update this with more information from the past as well as any I know of the changes such as new houses etc.

The Rooskey area was the Inishowen wonderland my mother took us to during the summers of the 1950's and I recalled much of it in my first book ' Golden Days in Donegal'.

Best Wishes to you all just now.

Stephen Joyce

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