McCabe Bros of Antrim by Milne Mairs -

A look back at the 1980's through the Archives
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willie reynolds
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McCabe Bros of Antrim by Milne Mairs -

Post by willie reynolds »

Looking back. McCabe Bros of Antrim by Milne Mairs


At the beginning of the 1960s as a school boy in my early teens I traveled by bus from my home in Ballyclare to Antrim where I attended the town's Technical School. After school each day there was only one bus back to Ballyclare and if you missed it you were in trouble, with the prospect of a 10 mile hitchhike home. As we waited for this bus we would stay around the town centre spending what little pocket money we had in the local confectionary shop up the street from the bus stop. One of the shops on the street was McCabes Butchers owned by Herbie McCabe and his brother who were local pigeon fanciers. I knew this having read my fathers Pigeon Years books where they advertised young birds for sale from their long distance family of birds, the loft being on the Oriel Road a few hundred yards from the school.
The Irish National Flying Club was formed in 1948 and in it's first King's Cup race that year from Rennes McCabe Bros finished 6th Open in a race where only 12 pigeons made it home in race time. Two of the notable fanciers who also appeared on the result sheet were, J M K McGugan and Smyth Bros, famous names in Irish pigeon racing to this day.

Moving back to 1961 and McCabe Bros finished 11th Open Les Sables Kings Cup, a race won by Jack Blair of Carrickfergus with a lovely Red Cock that was the first King's Cup winner I actually saw in the flesh so to speak, when my father took me to an Open Show in Doagh where the bird was on display. On leaving school in 1965 I started work as a joiner , working for various firms in many locations until the early 1970s when I went self employed specialising in kitchen and bedroom furniture manufacture and fitting. With my workshop situated literally below my fathers double decker flyin loft it wasn't long before I was getting orders for pigeon related items, mainly perches and nest boxes, and now and again lofts. Over the years my customers included many well known fanciers including quite a few National winners, and even to this day as I read the results of the big races I think to myself maybe that winner was reared in one of my nestboxes.

In the early 1980s I took a phone call from Hebie McCabe who wanted me to build him a new loft as he was thinking of retiring from the butchers shop, having purchased a plot of land to build a new house. We arranged to meet at the site on the Dublin Road on the edge of Antrim, where he had plans for the house. The site had a lovely view out over a huge field with Lough Neagh beyond the trees in the background.

Being a pigeon man he was getting his priorities right and wanted the loft built before any work was done regarding the new house, and ordered a traditional 20 x 6 loft with old bird section containing 16 nestboxes and 32 box perch yb section either side of a small central store. Once I had completed the loft at home I went to the site to build brick pillars in readiness to set the loft on, and after setting out the position of the pillars started to dig a small foundation for each one . I hadn't been digging more than a few minutes when out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman coming out of the back door of the house beside Herbie's site. As she stepped over the low fence and approached me I thought that she may be going to offer me a cup of tea or something. That thought was quickly dispelled when her first words were ''and what the hell would you be doing''. It turned out she was Herbie's daughter who thought I was some trespasser digging for worms for fishing bait, as he hadn't told her about the pigeon loft.

A few years later in 1987 Herbie sent pigeons to the INFC King's Cup race which was from Les Landes in Jersey that year, well over 400 miles to Antrim. As the time approached for possible arrivals Herbie took up a seated position close to the loft and ,as some of us well on in years do, struggled to stay awake in a pleasant summer's evening sun. The inevitable happened and he woke to see a pigeon on the landing board, how long it had been there no one knows . It was duly clocked and was followed not too much later by a second arrival. When the result of the race was published he had finished 2nd Open and won the Harkness Rose Bowl for best 2 bird average, a great result but one that still left that feeling of what might have been.

The winner of the race was a man who seemed to have the knack of bringing his pigeons into condition at just the right time for these races, as his club results during the earlier part of the season were very ordinary indeed. Moving on 6 years to the 1993 King's Cup and the same man timed early the second morning to win the National for a second time, on this occasion beating a shorter flyer who had clocked just after the close of daylight hours on the first night, meaning his pigeon was awarded the 2nd day opening time of 4.30am. I remember shortly after that discussing the race with with a fellow Ballyclare club member saying that I thought the winner certainly seemed to get the best out of his pigeons at just the right time of the season. The answer I received shocked me when he said ''that boy's at his work'' . He didn't elaborate but left me with the impression that there were suspicions about the validity of the King's Cup winners performance.

Some time later these suspicions were proved to be well founded when the man in question was caught red handed returning his clock to a National Clock Station unaware that all entrants had been re rubbered some time after the official race marking at which he had taken part. The pigeons he had supposedly sent were never in the race hampers. His 2 National wins were deleted from the record books.

When I heard this my mind went back to Herbie McCabe and how he probably blamed himself for losing the King's Cup by falling asleep, when the fact was he was almost certainly cheated out of his moment of glory. I'm not sure if he was still alive when the wrongdoer was unearthed but I have fond memories of playing a very small part in McCabe Bros best ever performance.

Milne Mairs
milnetmairs@gmail.com
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