A Scottish woman whose family is from Donegal has appealed for information about the people in an old recently unearthed photograph.
The picture showing five women and three men is believed to have been taken in the Downings area in either the late 1920s or the 1930s.
Only one person has been identified, Margaret Roy’s great aunt Liz Duffy.
Margaret is now asking the public to help her put names to the rest of the smiling gang of eight.
“My great-grandparents built a restaurant called The Bungalow in Downings in 1927 so these other girls could be local or they could be waitresses from elsewhere,” said Margaret from her home in Perth, Scotland.
“The Bungalow was a busy place and you would have had a lot of people coming on day trips in buses. They would have walked around for a while and then come back to the restaurant where my great-gran would have served them refreshments. It had a gramophone and a piano so whoever was on these buses would have stayed for a while and listened to some music.
“I think the men in the photo might have been bus drivers who had brought people down for the day.”
Margaret Roy’s connections to Donegal go back to her great-great-grandfather, Alex Taylor Duffy.
He worked for the Congested Districts Board for Ireland, established in 1891 to alleviate poverty and congested living conditions in the west and north west.
His job was to help develop the fishing industry and he spent time in Kincasslagh before transferring to Downings.
So appreciated was he that following his death the people of the fishing village clubbed together to build a hall in his honour. It still stands today and is located behind McNutt’s of Downings.
Taylor Duffy’s son, John, married a Kincasslagh woman, Nora O’Donnell, and together they opened The Bungalow.
They ran it from 1927 to 1939 before moving to Glasgow, after which it passed to a relative who kept it running for a few years before it closed.
The Bungalow was finally demolished around 20 years ago.
Margaret Roy has just written a book about her family history, tracing relations back to the 1700s. Despite all her digging and searching though, the mystery of the Downings photograph has yet to be solved.
“It would be great to find out who they are,” she said.
“The middle girl is my great aunt Liz Duffy and the others could be cousins because she had lots of cousins – Boyles, Gallaghers, Sharkeys.
They could be related, they could be locals but going by what they are wearing, I believe they were waitresses. I would love to find out more.”
If you can help, Margaret can be reached by email at margaret.roy@blueyonder.co.uk
Receive quality journalism wherever you are, on any device. Keep up to date from the comfort of your own home with a digital subscription.
Any time | Any place | Anywhere
SUBSCRIBE TO CURRENT EDITION TODAY
and get access to our archive editions dating back to 2007(CLICK ON THE TITLE BELOW TO SUBSCRIBE)