New song tribute to Aghamore legend People and places
Michael Commins 
A new song dedicated to the memory of Bill Naughton was rendered for the first time in public during the recent Kenny-Naughton Autumn School celebrations in Aghamore.
The song was composed by Tom Waldron from Tooreen and celebrates the life and times of one of the people in whose honour the school is named. It was sung by young Sinéad Niland from Aghamore and was warmly received by the enthusiastic audience.
Local man Paul Rogers was the compere for the night. “The song went down a treat. Tom is no stranger to putting verses together and we were delighted when he put together these lines in the old ballad tradition. Sinéad is a lovely singer and she did a great job on the song. It was a lovely moment in time.”
The Kenny-Naughton Autumn School is growing in popularity with each passing year.
Friends and family bid farewell to a ‘country man at heart’ THE recent death of Michael Flatley, Carrajames, Belcarra, occasioned much sadness throughout the region. He was aged 68 and had been in declining health for some time.
Michael was a native of my own home village of Cloonmore, Ballyfarna, Claremorris and was one of a family of four born to the late Frank and Annie Flatley. He emigrated to Manchester while in his late teens and spent seventeen years over in England.
It was in Manchester that he met and married Peggy Buckley from near Ferbane in Co Offaly. Eight of their eleven children were born in Manchester.
During his years there, Michael worked in a variety of jobs including the buses, construction, flagging driveways and kerbing. He was never afraid of hard work and always liked to see a job well done. During all their years in England, Michael and Peggy retained a great fondness for the land of their birth, often making two trips home on an annual basis to Mayo and Offaly.
In the early 1970s, they decided to move back across the Irish Sea and eventually purchased a farm at Carrajames near Belcarra. The youngest three of their children were born in County Mayo.
For many years after coming back, Michael was associated with the cattle jobbing business. He was especially well-known in the Erris region where he bought cattle for many years and where he made numerous friends throughout the barony.
Many were the trips he made in the lorry to the big fairs down in Kilmallock and the south. He became intimately associated with the cattle business which made a huge change from what he had been doing in Manchester for close on two decades. But then again, Michael was always a country man at heart.
In later years, he undertook a variety of jobs and was closely associated with many aspects of the community life of the Belcarra region.
Pleasant and affable, Michael was noted for his great sense of humour and ability to tell a good joke. He was good company and always enjoyed socialising with friends and neighbours. He was blessed with a wonderful memory that he retained to the very end.
His down-to-earth ways endeared him to all. He especially enjoyed the regular banter from people in relation to his ‘dancing skills’ and sharing the same name with the famous Irish-American dancer.
Michael was devoted to his wife Peggy and their family as well as their in-laws and 28 grandchildren. It was a busy home all through the years and the coming and going was part of their daily lives.
It was a measure of Michael’s belief in the power of loyalty and friendship that he drove to Dublin, got the ferry to England, and drove on to Manchester to meet family and some old friends just six weeks before he died. It was as if he knew his time on earth was running out and he felt he needed to answer the call to bid farewell to some friends from over the years.
Though many years away from his home village of Cloonmore, he never forgot the neighbours with whom he grew up and who influenced his early life. He carried a deep love for Cloonmore in his heart and it was very much on his mind during the last few weeks of his life as he reminisced time and time again with his brother Tommy about the people they knew back in those times.
Those who knew him in Cloonmore did not forget Michael either and were always glad and happy to meet him. They knew in their hearts too that a part of him was still around the home and fields where he first saw the light of day.
Large crowds attended the funeral ceremonies in Belcarra with removal from the local community centre to the nearby church with burial in Drum Cemetery following concelebrated Requiem Mass.
Michael is survived by his wife Peggy, sons Francis, Michael, Anthony, Robert, Sean, Dermot and Damien, daughters Donna, Sharon, Sinéad and Marcia, in-laws, grandchildren, sisters Margaret (Galway) and Imelda (Castlebar), brother Tommy (Cloonmore), nieces, nephews, relatives, neighbours and many friends
