Part of Field Marshal Montgomery’s House to be knocked down
New Park
According to a report in the Londonderry Sentinel, Donegal Council have plans to knock down part of New Park, the seat of the Montgomerys and where Field Marshal Montgomery lived and was brought up from the age of 3 to 16.
The Panning application says “ALTERATIONS & EXTENSIONS TO EXISTING DWELLING KNOWN AS NEW PARK HOUSE. DEMOLITION OF EXISTING EXTENSIONS TO SIDE AND REAR. ALTERATIONS T0 AND CONVERSION OF EXISTING OUTBUILDING TO DOMESTIC GARAGE AND ALL ASSOCIATED WORKS INCLUDING NEW BOUNDARY & GATES AND CONNECTION TO PUBLC SEWER”.
After Winston Churchill, Moville’s Montgomery is the biggest and best known figure to British people and people all round the world from World War 2.
After Montgomery hammered the German’s top general, General Rommel in North Africa at the Battle of Alamein, Churchill had all the church bells ring out throughout the land. He said after the war “Before Alamein we hadn’t won a single battle against the Germans. After Alamein we never lost one”. It was one of the turning points of the war.
Any time English visitors to Moville are told that the place where Montgomery was brought up is just up the road they are astonished that it is not exploited.
Moville Split
Moville has been split as to whether to use the Montgomery name and house to attract tourism with some pointing out that he burnt houses in Cork. Some say that we should use it to attract people to Moville. Others say that we shouldn’t.
It may be, sometime in the future, when Montgomery is just seen as a historic figure that people would want to use the connection to attract people to Moville and to spend money there.
Belsen
If Auschwitz and Belsen can be used to bring people to the areas of Poland and Germany with the full backing of the Jewish community surely New Park can be used to attract British and US visitors to Moville. It doesn’t have to be a glorification or a memorial. All the facts could go into it, including what happened in Cork. It could be done ‘warts and all’.
When Buncrana is going to become Amazing Grace Country over a guy who wasn’t brought up there and who only went there once and who composed the song Amazing Grace 25 years later, it seems a bit odd that one of Moville’s sons who was much more famous, is ignored.
See the Sentinel article here Field Marshal Montgomery’s House a Shell