The last living link with the Fermanagh Gaeltacht

Paddy Flanagan – born February 23^rd 1913, died November 27^th 2013

Paddy Flanagan, who has died in his 101^st year, was the last known link with the Fermanagh Gaeltacht. In every way he was steeped in the traditions of his native West Fermanagh. As a skilled fiddler and accordion player, he was a custodian of its music.

Patrick (Paddy) Flanagan was born in the townland of Scribbagh in February 1913. Scribbagh is in the Cashel area, over 20 miles west of Enniskillen. He was the youngest of five children to Michael Flanagan, a small farmer and road contractor, and his wife Bridget (née Duffy).

Both parents were Irish speakers. His maternal grandmother, Margaret Duffy, lived in a nearby townland, and was known for the richness of her Irish. When he was small, both English and Irish were spoken in his home. He said that, by three or four, he knew more Irish than he ever subsequently learnt. The nearest town was Kiltyclogher in Leitrim, two miles away. There, Irish was regularly heard on fair days.

His home area was one of the Gaeltachtaí stranded in the Northern state after Partition: along with Aghayaran in Tyrone; the Sperrins spanning the Tyrone-Derry Border; the Glens of Antrim and Rathlin Island in Antrim; and a chunk of South Armagh.

All these Gaeltachtaí went into catastrophic decline in the hostile political and social atmosphere of the new Northern state. Flanagan remembered his community ceasing to use Irish in the early 1920s.

He received his education at Cashel Primary School. Afterwards he worked on the family farm till, in his twenties, he moved to Garrison, also in West Fermanagh, and bought another farm. As well as being a farmer he was a musician, who often played at house dances. He was one of those who kept the Fermanagh musical style alive through traditional music’s lean years of the 1940s and 1950s,

He enjoyed playing Gaelic football for teams in Fermanagh and Leitrim till he was 45. Those were times when registration of players was relaxed. He was known to play a match in the afternoon, then cycle to another parish to play another match on another team – sometimes under another name.

Flanagan attributed his longevity to being a lifelong non-smoker and teetotaller. However, advancing age led him to decide to stop driving at 99.

 (This obituary was first published in the Irish Times on December 7th, 2013)