Do you know Frances or Janice Burge?

Life is full of coincidences.

I’m just back from a tour of Ireland and one of the places visited was the stunningly pretty little village of Cong in County Mayo.

I’d visited Cong on two previous occasions stretching back over a period of nearly forty years – and, thankfully, it doesn’t seem to have changed one iota. It was all just as I’d left it – even the multitude of floral baskets were exactly where they’d been on my last visit of ten or so years ago.

Maybe a few more houses – but nothing like the massive changes seen in UK towns over the past 40 years.

Movie fans will know that John Ford’s 1952 movie – The Quiet Man – starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara put the tiny Mayo village of Cong firmly on the tourist map – and the village has been trading on it ever since. As for the tourists – and here I include myself – they continue to soak it up.

Consider what battered cod would be like without chips. Or strawberries without cream – or bread with no butter. Trust me, you can add Cong, without The Quiet Man, to the aforementioned list – the two are as inseparable as Siamese twins.

We chanced upon an apartment just outside Cong, to stay in for several days.

During a conversation with owners, Seamus and Fionnuala, Macclesfield cropped up and Seamus mentioned he’d visited our town – back in the 1980’s with a friend Pat O’Connor – where he’d met up with two local girls – Janice and Frances Burge.

As a result of our conversation he ran an internet search – sadly discovering that their mother, Frances Irene, had passed away in 2013 in Macclesfield Hospital.

There’s a possibility that either Frances or Janice are still in the Macclesfield area, if so Seamus Foy would love to hear from you.

If anyone has contact details, or you’re planning a visit to this stunning area of Ireland, email me at: editor@ilovemacc.com and I’ll happily pass the information onto him.