Craic On

Field Marshal Montgomery

It’s well-known that Bernard Montgomery, or Field Marshal Montgomery (or Monty) was brought up in Moville.

The Montgomery family home is here.

Indeed, Bishop Montgomery, whom I think is his uncle, wrote a history of Moville and the area.

He also gifted Bath Green to the people of Moville in perpetuity.

Some people say that we should make more of Montgomery’s link to here and some say we shouldn’t.

Lady Montgomery

I don’t think many people are in two minds about Lady Montgomery.

She wasn’t popular, I hear.

Perhaps it is because of this there was outrage when a national newspaper interviewed Lady Montgomery (I forget which one)and sent along a photographer.

It was one of the photos he took that caused outrage at the time.

It involved my uncle, Eddie McLaughlin, who is in the picture.

Uncle Eddie – the Street Urchin

The picture appeared to show Lady Montgomery walking beside a local shoeless, dirty-footed, youngster (my uncle Eddie), who was carrying her parcels for her.

It was taken just outside Farren’s shop in 1943.

The picture, however, was staged.

My uncle Eddie, who was just a lad at the time, was asked to remove his shoes and socks for the photo and his feet were ‘dirtied up’.

He was then given Lady Montgomery’s parcels to carry.

Outrage in Moville

It may have looked good to society people in Britain and Ireland who would have read it and seen the picture, however, the people in Moville were up in arms about it and the way it portrayed them.

I can just imagine what my Granny ‘Annie Farren’ McLaughlin thought of seeing her son, without his shoes on and with his feet dirty, in a national newspaper.

I was made aware of the photo by Pasty Farren.

However, the copyright is owned by Getty Pictures – and it seems that they don’t like their photos being published without a payment.

.However, you can see the iconic, and historic,  photograph by clicking on Lady Montgomery With Uncle Eddie