Life Story

Jessie Anne MacFarquhar
1891-1971

One day in the early 1920’s, at the beginning of Sinn Fein uprising in Southern Ireland, a young woman from the Scottish Hebridean Island of Lewis, Jessie Anne MacFarquhar, was working on a farm near Cork where, for the day, she had been left alone in charge of the the farmhouse. At some point during the day the door of the house suddenly burst open and armed rebels entered the building. One of them approached a stunned Jessie Anne with a pistol in his hand and held it to her head, threatening to shoot her. However, Jessie Anne calmly said to her would be assassin – ‘Shoot my good man, I shall go straight to heaven.’ Thinking the woman must be mad the armed intruder turned and walked away. Continue Reading

The soldier had been on sentry duty for far longer than any man was reasonably able to bear and was at risk of falling asleep on his feet – if indeed that was possible in the incredible noise, turmoil and death which surrounded him. On the next visit of his commanding officer, which seemed to take forever, he was forced to say – ‘I can’t go on any longer without some sleep’. The captain was sympathetic and the soldier highly regarded. Knowing the man was totally exhausted, his Captain said –  ‘You go and lie down over there and I will watch and call if I need you’. With no argument, he withdrew and lay down on the ground falling asleep very soon thereafter. However, he was not long asleep when he heard his Captain calling, or so he thought. Rising quickly he rushed over to where the Captain stood. ‘You called me Sir’, he said. ‘No’ the man replied – ‘I didn’t.’ As the men spoke briefly and the soldier was about to return to the area where he had been sleeping a shell came over the trench where the men were standing and exploded on the very spot where, seconds before, the soldier had been sleeping. Continue Reading