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| Title |
Electricity. |
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| Description |
The electricity come to the area in 1951. Dr Maguire, he lived here across the bridge at the Tilery and he was on lookin' about getting electricity and he went round and got a lot of people to sign a petition. And then the Earl of Enniskillen, that would be the 5th Earl, he got interested and he got into it and they went round and got a lot of the people in the area to sign for electricity then. That would have been just after the war, about 1949, they started to push for it, and then the electric people arrived and they had a meeting here in Killesher, that would be the hall, the parish hall and tellin' you about how much it would cost you to boil a kettle, boil a boiler of water and so forth. Well all the good points in it, and how you could pump water from a river or a well or otherwise. And they did come then and they put up the poles, I think it would've been in the spring of nineteen and fifty and for some reason or other the poles remained without wire for about twelve months and it was said that they had run out of money and then they had to get a government loan, finally it was finished anyway. It started off to come this way from Lisgoole via Bellanaleck, Arney, Arney Bridge, Killesher, Kinawley, it went on to Derrylin. And at that particular time they would put the line free of charge into the houses, any houses that had signed to take electricity and some of the people were foolish enough not to take it and in twelve months time when they went to take it they had to guarantee that they would use so much electricity for three years and it would be so much money they'd have to guarantee it for three years and after that it was so much money to get it installed. It was very hard to convince people that all these things were in their own interest, for the betterment of them and themselves and the community. But people had traditional ideas and they didn't want to break with that.
Ref: 90-26-51.
Interviewer: Sandra Matchett, Fermanagh County Museum.
© Fermanagh County Museum. |
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| Speaker |
Patrick Kerrin |
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| Sound |
90-26-51.mp3
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