You didn’t call a spade a spade – you called it a “McMahon”
A spade was never just a spade in Ireland. There were different ones for every county and soil condition. Photograph: David Turnley/Corbis/Getty Images
In their catchment area, which included most of Ulster but also a swath of Connacht and Leinster, you didn’t call a spade a spade. You called it a “McMahon”. But not only does it have to include a compendium of textual information on every conceivable aspect of Fermanagh heritage, it also features McKeagney’s meticulously hand-drawn tableaux of each scene and subject.
This was a point previously made by the great Welsh geographer and archaeologist E Estyn Evans who, in his 1957 book Irish Folk Ways, mentioned a Tyrone factory that also produced the implements.
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