‘I was a most unlikely traveller. Growing up in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, I had no great ambitions to travel other than to visit friends and family within a two- or three-mile radius. From the age of 11, I had to take the bus each day to the nearest grammar school, 10 miles away in Omagh. Apart from that there was an annual, one-day, bus trip to Bundoran, a small seaside town in County Donegal. That was more than enough travelling for me. At the age of 19, I had never been to Belfast or Dublin, and didn’t feel I had missed anything.
Sixty-two years later, when I sat down to write this travelogue, I realised that in the intervening years I had visited seventy-five countries and all five continents, many of the countries visited multiple times. How had I morphed from someone with little interest in travel into someone who was ready to fly off to anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat? Were the wanderlust seeds sown in my formative years or was I bitten by the travel bug after accepting an offer to represent Northern Ireland at an international conference?
I begin by trying to answer that question before going on to recount my unique experiences and perceptions, gathered from over 30 years of travel, along with insights into different countries, places and peoples. I hope you will agree that the outcome presents as a rich and illuminating read.’
Willie McCarney’s early years were studded with a series of traumatic incidents culminating in the death of his mother, when he was still under 10 years old. Everyone has to learn to deal with the ups and downs of life but Willie seemed to be getting more than his fair share of hard knocks. A Japanese proverb advises: “Fall down seven times. Stand up eight”. Like a baby learning to walk,
Willie was back on his feet after every knockdown, stronger than before. He studied hard, qualified as a teacher and later as a trainer of teachers. He got married. Three months after the wedding his wife was struck down with an incurable disease. To hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, takes strength. Willie was not going to allow himself to be crushed, not even when Parkinson’s came knocking at his door. This book is the story of his fight back which continues 10 years on. He argues that the more physically active you are, the easier it is to live well with Parkinson’s. He offers hope in the future.
While there was terrorist-related activity happening somewhere in Northern Ireland daily, Belfast bore the brunt of it, and the two-mile stretch of road between Willie’s home and the school had more than its share. He travelled that corridor of death to and from school every day. In school, he was prepared to put his life on the line protecting the rights of disaffected young people. He tried to keep the older boys out of the arms of the IRA, who would recruit them into the Fianna (Junior IRA), and out of reach of the security forces who would arrest them for petty crimes and then release them on condition that they became informers. He was ready to protect them against all comers. He walked the middle ground, neither on one side nor the other. The police and the soldiers were professionals. They could look after themselves. He did not support the IRA, nor take orders from them, nor allow himself to be used by them. He saw his role as protecting the young people in his care. He was walking on quicksand, knowing that if he put a foot wrong, he could vanish without a trace.
Willie McCarney grew up in and around the townland of Loughmacrory in Co.Tyrone. He lived in a rented house with no electricity, no flush toilets, no running water. The only employment available fo ........
This is Willie McCarney’s second book and a natural successor to his autobiographical “Big Boys Don’t Cry.” “Travel with a Gavel” deals more specifically with his international travels in pursuit of ........
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