Well we're here in Ballymoney today with Peter Thompson
a Dervock man born and bred from Dervock Village and he's actually discovered a
bit of a link between Dervock, which is a small, obscure, rural village here and
links with the Napoleonic Wars. So Peter can you tell us a bit about that? Well
basically it all stems from a family of the name of Allen and the Allens
came to Dervock late seventeen hundreds and they bought land, it was in later years they
married into the Adair family and one of the Adairs, one of his mother's family, was
killed at the Battle of Trafalgar and that's where our link comes in with the
battle of Trafalgar, Captain Charles William Adair was killed at Trafalgar
just a few minutes before Nelson. So what was Adair's role during the battle? Adair's
role he was a captain on board the ship, he was a part of the Royal Marines'
detachment on the board the ship, there were several Marines killed that
day, Adair was one of them. Adair was killed just minutes before
Nelson so he's one of the casualties in the battle of Trafalgar, one of the most
famous battles in naval history and that's why we in Dervock are so proud
of our wee day because we became part we became part of that I promised the
people in two years ago that they're they're marking this battle throughout the
world and today we took our rightful place in them celebrations throughout the
world. And what can you tell us about these swords that you've collected
behind us as well? These swords all date back from 1796 the top one is 1796 but
they're all used during the Napoleonic Wars and they've been used during from
1796 to 1815, now this one here probably one of the most nicest I have come
across. This one is an Irish sword, that's rare and
as you can see it's got the Georgian crown here, and the Georgian crown again
and the Irish harp, that tells me at that table was made for an Irish Regiment and
was made in Dublin and one of the members that the family who made this went
on to became the mother of Arthur Guinness so it's a nice piece.
This is a Napoleonic bayonet that's from the same period that's the sergeant's bayonet
and that's what makes it different as the short bayonet there is a sergeant or
just a musket. This one here is a relic condition but
in a good service day being fully-edged right today and to have been blue and
gilt the same as that one time, but over the years that's disappeared.
Brown Bess bayonet, sergeant's sidearm from 1796. Light cavalry sabre 1796 and again a
Brown Bess bayonet, exactly the same as this. This a sidearm from 1796, light cavalry
sabre, then we come down to a later period, but this one here that's
interesting because this is a Brown Bess bayonet but as you can
see here has been cut away that is a captured bayonet that was used on one of
the French muskets and these the next two swords is a Flank officer's sabre from
1803 and a non-ranks sabre from 1803 period, you can see the
difference in the blade there's a more curved that's the difference. This one
completely baffled me I'm I bought at a time, a couple of years ago and I couldn't
figure out the pattern, the pattern was completely strange it wasn't a British sword I knew that
so I did a lot of research into it and I discovered during my
research that there was markings on which makes it appear to be American
Revolution period sword, which Ties with my different collection of Napoleonic
stuff because there's the American Revolution ticked off, the French
Revolution and there Irish rebellion, the whole thing all ties in, and there was
lots of Irishmen fought during the American Revolution period, so to me it's
a nice piece of a history brought back, it was found locally, so it's a piece of
local history as well. Well thank you so much Peter for having us in your home
today it's really insightful here and a bit of history you've just shared with
us and your research and knowledge has been great to hear as well thank you.