Joe heads to the Laggan in Donegal for next ‘Lough Foyle’

‘LOUGH FOYLE’ is a television travelogue series featuring the history, natural environment and cultural heritage of the Foyle catchment area, with particular emphasis on Ulster-Scots elements of the hinterland.

In Monday night’s episode, Joe has his hands full. He’s attempting to pull flax for the first time in his life in a field in the Laggan district of East Donegal. The trouble is his hands aren’t full enough, and he’d be in danger of being sacked by the farmer if he was doing this for real! That’s according to his mentor, Colm Clarke, who used to do this for a living when he was a teenager back in the middle of the last century. Colm demonstrates the various processes that the flax, or “lint” as he’s always called it, has to undergo to prepare it for spinning at the Monreagh Ulster-Scots Heritage Centre. And it’s hard work!

Joe next teams up with Dr Frank Ferguson at the Ulster American Folk Park to discuss the extraordinary talent of Sarah Leech, “the spinning poetess” from the Laggan district who came to fame in the early years of the 19th century as a kind of female Robbie Burns. She was one of the very few women ever to be recognised as belonging to the Ulster-Scots Weaver Poet tradition and, although she lived in poverty and in poor health, she has left behind a body of work which suggests she might have achieved much wider fame had she not died at a tragically young age.

Joe then travels to the banks of the River Mourne near Newtownstewart to meet up with Dr Paddy Fitzgerald from the Mellon Centre for Migration Studies, who sheds new light on the circumstances of many Scottish migrants who came to the North West of Ireland in the late 17th century. He also reveals some surprising statistics about the emigrants who left this country during and after the Great Famine.

Throughout the series, Joe has spent time with government bodies, agencies and charity groups whose main aim is to ensure the lough and surrounding areas, and its many natural inhabitants are all looked after. One of the great attractions of this series is the stunning aerial photography which shows off the dramatic land and seascapes of the North West region as they have never been seen before.

LOUGH FOYLE is produced by Westway Film Productions for UTV, supported by Northern Ireland Screen’s Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund. The series is sponsored by House Proud Furniture.

You can watch this episode on Monday 16th November at 8pm on UTV and on catch up on www.itv.com/utvprogrammes