A CLONARD pensioner who spent lockdown building a barge from recycled pallets is trying to track down his old school friends to take them on a trip along Lough Erne.
 
80-year-old Francie Morgan now lives in Downpatrick and is keen to track down his old classmates from St Gall’s School who inspired the name of his barge.
 
“When I was 10 or 11-yeas-old, St Gall’s School took a whole lot of us down to Dundrum for a week’s holiday,” he explained.
 
“There was about 50 of us and it cost a shilling. When we got there, we were staying in these old Nissen huts, and the Christian Brothers were staying in a big house at the bottom of the field.
 
“During the day we would have been kicking a football or walking about but there was an old bunk bed thrown into the hedges. We pulled it out and one of the legs was broke off.
 
“It became our play thing and I am not sure if it was Bo Butler or Dennis Devine who shouted ‘all aboard the Hockaninny’ so that name stayed with me.
 
“It was just a made up word which I suppose meant a piece of scrap used for pleasure and this barge is a piece of scrap used for pleasure.
 
“I would love to know if any of them are still alive and if they will come and get on the Hockaninny.”
 
A wood-cutting machinist by trade, Francie also worked as a set designer for the Grand Opera House and the Lyric Theatre. He has also been recycling all of his life and previously ran workshops showing people how to make furniture out of old pallets.
 
“When the pandemic started, I had tonnes of pallets. Some of them are built with the best of timber,” he said.
 
“The trailer for the barge was the first part of the project that I built and 90 per cent of that is recycled material which I got for free.
 
“In the beginning I knew little about boats but this is built to sleep four people. It took me about two-and-a-half-years to build, working on it for about three hours a day.
 
“I wanted to get it in the water in May, but it wasn’t complete. I have a jetty booked on Lough Erne and my plan is to sail it down to the Shannon.”
 
Francie is hoping to be reunited with his former schoolmates to take a trip on the barge next May.