SIR, — Last week we had an overturned lorry scatter a mass of herring over a field near Killyleagh, but this is not the first time that herring have arrived unexpectedly in this area.
Hanna, the historian, records that in the townland of Turmennan (the snipe land) there is an area called Scadden (or Scaddy) from a tradition that once a shower of herring fell from the sky here.
While watching a recent programme on British weather they showed fish, which had fallen from the sky as a result of a tornado that had sucked them up from the sea, then deposited them inland.
Aren’t the names of our townlands fascinating, to be preserved as part of our history?
Yours etc.
MAUREEN DONNELLY,
Donard Cottage,
Clough.