Randalstown's gardening roots run deep!

RANDALSTOWN is well known these days as an award-winning town.

Over the last five years, steered by the Tidy Randalstown Environmental Group, it has won the small town category of the Translink Ulster in Bloom competition four times and picked up three gold medals in the Royal Horticultural Society’s Britain in Bloom awards.

It was named Best Kept Small Town in Northern Ireland in 2022 and has previously held the Best Kept Town in Ireland title.

Randalstown’s success in the Best Kept awards is not just a recent phenomenon, as Tidy Randalstown volunteer and secretary of the town’s Historical Society Linda Houston has discovered.

Leafing through scrapbooks of old newspaper cuttings collected by her late father-in-law, noted local history enthusiast William Houston, Linda found articles on how Randalstown had won the Central Gardens Association of Northern Ireland’s Best Kept Small Town award back in 1968 and 1969.

At the unveiling of the 1968 trophy one of the judges, Professor A E Muskett, OBE of Queen’s University imparted some fascinating information on the town’s distinguished horticultural pedigree.

He recalled the late Robert McKay, born in Randalstown in 1889, who started his horticultural career as a garden boy to the Rev Martin of 2nd Randalstown Presbyterian Church and went on to be a professor of plant pathology in University College Dublin.

With her interest piqued, Linda did further research on Robert McKay. He was born on 14 February 1889 to James McKay, a linen bleachwork labourer, and his wife Martha (née McDowell) most likely in Feehogue at the lower end of the Portglenone Road where the family appears in the 1901 Census.

He was the third of five sons. A lengthy entry in the Dictionary of Irish Biography reveals that he was a student at the Albert Agricultural College in Dublin in 1910 and subsequently was a student of Horticulture at the Royal College of Science for Ireland in 1912.

During the first World War he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in France and was decorated for bravery under fire.

After the war he returned to Dublin to finish his degree. He later worked in the plant disease division of the Irish Department of Agriculture and progressed to lecturing at UCD, where he became professor of plant pathology in 1945, a post he retained until his retirement.

The Dictionary of Irish Biography notes that McKay was best known for his work, carried out

with Professor Paul Murphy, on virus diseases of the potato.

“Their investigations were internationally acclaimed, and were responsible for paving the way to new methods of virus-free seed-potato production.

“Ireland was the first country to certify disease-free potatoes. His later work on plant diseases, both viral and fungal, covered a wide range of agricultural and garden crops, including onion, cereals, beet, flax, and apple. His research contributed to working out control methods for many of these diseases.”

His publications included six books on crop diseases and he was awarded the Medal of Honour by the Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland in 1948 and the RDS Boyle Medal in 1957. Describing the value of many of his discoveries as incalculable, an appreciation published at the time of his death commented, “Being modest of his achievements, he never sought the limelight… the memorial he would regard as most fitting for himself and his colleagues is a countryside of well-tended fields and orchards bearing maximum healthy produce.”

Robert McKay’s wife, whom he married in 1920, was Hannah Bankhead, who hailed from Ballybollen, not far from Randalstown. Hannah appears in the 1911 census as a hemstitcher, living with her parents Samuel and Jane and six brothers and sisters.

Robert and Hannah had two daughters and a son and lived in Glasnevin, north of Dublin, until Robert’s death on 4 May 1964 but they clearly valued their family connections in County Antrim.

Linda used her detective skills to track down some family members, including their son, David, now living in London, who remembers visits to grandparents, aunts and uncles on both the McKay and the Bankhead side. Robert and Hannah chose to be buried in Randalstown and their grave can be seen in the graveyard of Second Randalstown Church.

Commenting on her discoveries, Linda said: “As a gardener myself, and with my interest in local history and my involvement in Tidy Randalstown I was really excited to find this information which brought all my enthusiasms together in such a perfect combination. I’m now keen to see that this distinguished native of Randalstown is properly recognised and commemorated in his home town.”

Interestingly, Professor Muskett’s legacy in the Best Kept awards is still carried on by his daughter Doreen Muskett, MBE, who is President of the Northern Ireland Amenity Council, the body which administers the awards today.