Joe Mahon returns to UTV on Sunday night with ‘MAHON’S WAY’ and he’s travelled to Moneymore to uncover some amazing facts about the town.
He joins an archaeological survey at the site of an important discovery, gets the lowdown on a most unlikely war hero, and finds out about drinking habits in the 1600s!
Joe Mahon joins archaeologist Professor Audrey Horning and a group of her PhD students at the graveyard of the old Desertlyn church just off a quiet country lane on the outskirts of Moneymore.
They already know that they are in an early medieval monastic settlement which contains the ruins of a later medieval church, but they are more interested in what appears to be some kind of regular-shaped raised area surrounded by an embankment, because they believe it to be a military fortification which was constructed here exactly 420 years ago and which has been “hiding in plain sight” as Audrey puts it, ever since.
The busy crossroads town of Moneymore was built by the Drapers Company in the early 1600s as part of the Londonderry Plantation, and the street plan that was laid out at that time, designed for horse-drawn vehicles and a largely pedestrian population, has changed little since.
Audrey Horning has done a lot of research on Moneymore’s earliest days and provides us with some fascinating insights into the pub culture of the 17th century, bringing Elizabethan English, Ulster Scots and Irish together with poetry and singing!
Local historian Kevin Johnston introduces Joe to the remarkable story of Fr James Stuart, a native of Moneymore who became a Columbanmissionary priest and who found himself in what was then called Burma during World War II.
Because of his knowledge of the native language and his standing among the local people he became an invaluable ally of the US forces in their campaign against the Japanese.
As a result of his endeavours, he was hailed as a war hero and was decorated by both the USA and British governments. He had contracted malaria and other ailments from his years in the jungle, and his nephew, Charlie Stuart, recalls the day from his own childhood when he went to wake his uncle to say mass and discovered that he had passed away during the night.
‘MAHON’S WAY’ is produced by Westway Film Productions for UTV, and supported by Northern Ireland Screen’s Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund. The series is sponsored by Warmflow Engineering.
You can watch this episode on Sunday 9th October at 7.30pm on UTV and afterwards on catch up on www.itv.com/utvprogrammes
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