A photo taken in Bellaghy 30 years ago prompted me to track down author, broadcaster, raconteur and creative writer Frank Galligan, sometimes at home in Derry but often to be found in all corners of Ireland telling yarns and working with the charity Arts Care, encouraging children to develop their imagination and to love words.
“One day in class we talked about Roald Dahl so I wasn’t surprised when a young man greeted me as ‘BFG’,” he tells me.
“Big friendly giant?” I ask.
“No,” he corrects me. “Big Frank Galligan.”
Big Frank is 6ft 4ins and the dark hair of 30 years ago is now silver. We talk about the photo taken at a celebration for Seamus Heaney’s Nobel prize. We reminisce and Frank tells me how Heaney’s poem Mid-Term Break, reflecting on the death of Heaney’s younger brother and the grieving process, brought him comfort at a time that still brings tears.
It was 1966
Frank, then aged 12, was home from boarding school for Christmas and there was excitement in the air. After New Year celebrations he and his beloved little brother Tom were playing football on the morning of January 4. That evening 10-year-old Tom died from an aneurysm.
“I was sent back to school a few days later,” he says. “I’d no time to grieve but for some reason I put pen to paper and I unravelled my grief writing.
“I didn’t understand at the time but it helped. I was the eldest of 11 - eight sisters and two brothers - and It was hard to take when I overheard a neighbour say to my mother after Tom’s death, ‘Aren’t you lucky you’ve a big family?’, implying you won’t miss one child.
“At least that’s what I thought at the time but now I think she meant it was a comfort to have the others for support. Mum has great faith but Dad internalised his grief to such an extent that his dark hair had turned grey by Easter.
“Thankfully I turned to writing. I know how dreadful it is not to be heard which is why I’m determined to give children a voice.”
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Frank’s mother Anna lives in Kilcar, Co Donegal and at the age of 93 is still singing songs and telling stories to her children and her youthful audience of 36 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren.
“We took storytelling for granted when we were wee but it was only when I met Liz Weir, herself a professional storyteller, that I began to believe I’d a talent,” recalls Frank.
“‘You’ve been telling stories for years,’ she told me. ‘Now become a storyteller.’
“It made sense as I did a lot of stage, radio and television work and often there’d be a hold-up as engineers fiddled with the controls and I had to fill in with the audience and so it came naturally.”
From Aughakillymaude, Fermanagh to Killucan, Westmeath
On a wet Sunday morning in an empty pub in Donegal our conversation swept wide: his writing sessions all over the country; his column in the Donegal Democrat; his many broadcasts; and his Saturday music programme on Highland Radio.
We travel the island of Ireland with his yarns: “Half the year Fermanagh’s in the water and half the year the water’s in Fermanagh...” I compliment him on looking well: “Sure you’re looking at the varnish, you don’t see the woodworm.”
We talk of his love of bluegrass music and after acting as master of ceremonies at the international 25th Omagh Festival came an invitation to travel to West Virginia in September to compere their festival. As part of the Pushkin Trust, where he is creative writing facilitator, he takes groups of primary kids to sessions at the Duke of Abercorn’s estate, Baronscourt, in Newtownstewart, Co Tyrone.
“It’s very atmospheric with lovely grounds and it’s fierce craic. The Baronscourt mansion is visible from our classrooms and one of the Belfast boys was especially impressed,” Frank tells me.
“‘Sir, that’s a quare size of a B&B’. One of the others was equally excited, and when he ran off chasing a sheep his mate Jimmy scolded him.
“‘I only wanted to feel its fur,’ came the reply, and I tried to explain in an academic way that it wasn’t fur but wool and the benefits of wool. But Jimmy had a better approach: ‘Leave them alone, don’t you know this is the time of year they lay their eggs?’”
Having graduated with a degree in English Literature, Frank moved into broadcasting, has had his own BBC programmes over the years, tutored creative writing classes in the University of Ulster in Coleraine, and is a musician, writer and poet.
If you ask Frank what he is professionally he’ll tell you, “I’m known as a writer and a broadcaster.” But what do you say Frank? “I’m a blether who wishes there were 700 days in the year...”
