Dunmore House Carrigans

Tags

Carrigans, cycle touring, Cyclo-Benelux, Dunmore House, Foyle Valley, Raleigh Trent

One of my favourite local day rides at this time of year is the approximately sixteen mile trip to Dunmore House in the county Donegal village of Carrigans. It’s not exactly a taxing ride and the route via Raphoe and St. Johnston used to form part of my commute when I worked in Derry.

Dunmore House dates from around 1820 and is now the residence of Sir John McFarland, 3rd Baronet of Aberfoyle. The house itself is a fine building but as a private residence it is not open to the public. Over the summer months however, the magnificent gardens are open to the public, any donations given are for the local church. It also forms part of the Donegal garden trail.

I am not a keen gardener and no expert on the huge variety of different plants to be found at Dunmore but I can appreciate the time and effort which goes into keeping a large garden in such beautiful condition and I enjoy wandering around and admiring the blooms and the perfect tranquility. Time seems to stand still when you here and it’s a perfect escape from the daily grind for a few hours.

The gardens at Dunmore House also hide a dark past. In the 1930s, the house belonged to Colonel Robert McClintock and he lived there with his wife Jennie and son William. William had proposed Marriage to a young English girl called Helen Macworth. His mother strongly disagreed of this match believing her son was marrying beneath himself and had tried to put a stop to it. In the meantime William had been left paralysed following a horse-riding accident and Jennie McClintock had hoped that this would end the marriage but the young couple were still determined to go through with the wedding plans.

On the morning of the 24th September 1938 – a few days before the wedding was to take place, William had asked to be carried out to the garden and was writing a letter when his mother shot him dead before shooting herself. Shortly afterwards when Miss Macworth was informed of the death of her lover she also shot herself. The inquest declared a verdict of suicide on the death of Helen Macworth and a verdict of unsound mind and insanity in the case of Jennie McClintock. So on the 26th of September, instead of a wedding, the village of Carrigans witnessed a triple funeral and Colonel McClintock was to leave Dunmore not long afterwards and died a few years later.

The other noteworthy thing about the garden is a large collection of sundials – some of them quite sophisticated and one also tells the time in New York, Sydney and a few other places. Colonel McClintock was something of an expert on the subject of sundials and it was his hobby to design and build them.

For this trip I rode my 1958 Raleigh Trent Sports. This is in original condition with sound but very faded paintwork and decals. It really needs a re-paint but the decals are not available for the Trent Sports. The only work I’ve done to this was to service the bearings, replace the decayed 26 x 1 1/4“ tyres with new ones, replace the chain (the original one was missing, thankfully the new one meshed okay with the sprockets) and I also replaced the cables as the originals were partially seized. This bike has Raleigh’s own design of brake cable with a special end on the cable. These aren’t currently available but I soldered my own ends on to standard cables using a technique I read in the 1926 cyclists handbook. So far my soldering has proved strong enough!

This bike is unusual in my collection as being the only one with Cyclo-Benelux derailleur gearing with a single chainset and four speed freewheel. It is not the most user-friendly of gear systems and needs practice and mechanical sympathy to make clean gear changes but what I will say is that it feels the most efficient gear system I have ever used. No modern derailleur runs so quietly, it really does feel like riding a singlespeed bike. The downside – with a 48 tooth chainwheel and a 22 tooth largest sprocket, the gearing is a lot higher than I would consider ideal.

But this bike is deceptively responsive and the lack of a low gear is only really noticeable on tough ckimbs. The 26 x 1 1/4“ wheels roll really well and I wonder why this size went out of fashion. Raleigh Sports tyres were the only available tyres in this size when I bought them and although a cheap tyre they ride perfectly well and seem to have decent protection against punctures. I also have Raleigh Sports tyres on my Viking in 27“ and have no complaints after a few thousand miles on them on the Viking. I’d buy them again.