'Hiring Fairs and Market Places' by May Blair, published by Appletree Press

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extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair.

COUNTY DOWN

One of the more unusual places to have a fair was at The Maze for the duration of the July races. In the good old days races were held every day for a week alternating with Downpatrick every second year. Those at The Maze were often attended by two of the warders of Hillsborough Fort – dressed in full regalia (white buckskin breeches and waistcoat, black gaiters, scarlet tunic and black cockade hat with a white plume). They made the journey on foot, passing the chapel known as Reilly’s Trench, then taking to the towpath of the canal at Halliday’s Bridge, exiting at Kesh Bridge and passing Maze Presbyterian Church and old schoolhouse on the last stage of their journey. The custom ceased sometime between the wars. In all probability their presence marked the attendance of members of the Downshire family or their guests at the races. This was a throwback to the days when a contingent of twenty Castlemen escorted the Downshires to church.
Bryansford, Narrow Water, Clough, Seaforde and Killough may be quiet today but all of these places had at least one fair around three hundred years ago. In those days Seaforde had six so it must have been as full of promise as a gold mine. They reduced to two at the end of the nineteenth century and died out altogether soon after. Killough (then owned by Lord Bangor) had four and benefited from having a good pier from which oats, potatoes and wheat were exported for many years. Bryansford had never more than one fair at any time. The fairs at Narrow Water and Clough may have existed long before the others as each has a castle with ‘roots’ in the thirteenth century. The Duke of Ormond built the present castle at Narrow Water in 1663 on the site of an old castle built by Hugh de Lacy in 1212. It is surrounded by a bawn thought to have been built by the Magennis family, who occupied it in the centuries between. The most successful of all these fairs were at Clough which held one in 1938 long after the rest were no more.
To finish: a story about one of the county’s most famous sons. Just beyond Hillsborough in the townland of Taughblane lived farmer Johnny Murphy who in 1938 purchased his first tractor – a wee grey Fergie. Johnny was ploughing one day when he became aware that he was being watched from the field gate. The stranger hurried to reach the head-rig first, holding up his hand in an authoritative way and indicating that he wanted Johnny to get off the tractor. It was none other than Harry Ferguson, who had stopped on his way home from his garage in Belfast to see how his latest customer was handling his new machine. Harry lost no time in jumping onto the tractor and ploughing a few yards before stopping to make a minor adjustment to the plough. He then continued to the other end of the field, turned with the skill of an expert and returned to where Johnny stood, giving him a few words of advice before proceeding to his father’s farm at Growell near Dromore.
As he drove through the countryside Harry Ferguson might well have reflected on how long it had taken to mechanise such a fundamental industry as agriculture when the Industrial Revolution had taken place nearly a hundred years earlier. Incredibly his enormous contribution to the world of agriculture has never been fully recognised although a plaque marks the house where he was born.

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