The World's Oldest Family True North

In Armagh or Tyrone,

on a morning in June in 1951,

I fell between two stones.

Collegelands - in County Armagh,

but skirting the Tyrone border -

is part of who I am.

The River Blackwater,

the village of the Moy.

My childhood home is a recurring theme in my poetry.

The townland is home to only 42 distinct surnames.

And in amongst the apple trees that carpet the countryside,

one family has blossomed.

-NEWSREADER:

-A County Armagh family

is celebrating a birthday party with a difference today.

The Donnelly family were marking one member's 90th,

but in total, the 14 surviving siblings' ages come to 1,117 years,

making them, they believe,

the oldest living siblings in the world.

'I just rung around and checked the date of birth and found

'we're just short of 1,200 years between us.'

And I don't know, I think that has...

We've learned a lot in 1,200 years of life.

That's Austin Donnelly.

I grew up in Collegelands

with him and his twin brother, Leo.

"My mother was the schoolmistress,

"the world of Castor and Pollux.

"There were twins in her own class.

"She could never tell which was which."

Austin and Leo, the twins my mother could never tell apart,

were only two of the 16 Donnelly children.

There were only three Muldoon imps.

Hardly world-record material.

'There are 14 of us'

and all as healthy as we were when we were, I'd say, 50 or 60.

And some of them even 20-year-olds. They haven't changed.

We don't change. We're in the land of youth.

Could this tiny corner of rural Armagh

really be the land of youth?

Just what is it about this place that has contributed

to the Donnellys' longevity?

Well, there was always plenty of work.

We're going to replace the crankshaft in this engine here.

I think caring about one another.

The drink was never seen amongst us, at all.

I would have trained every four or five nights a week.

There was never a fat Donnelly reared.

When you're young, if you get good food,

then it's built into your bones.

It's built into you. That is what'll give you longevity.

So, could the 14 remaining Donnellys

be the world's oldest group of living siblings?

Austin, the youngest, at 70, thinks it is, at least, possible.

'In life experience, what must we have between us?'

Jesus was here 2,000 years ago. We're here near the half of that.

'I thought that must be some kind of a record. I did some research.'

The nearest family I could find was 200 or 300 years less.

I thought, "This is interesting".

'There had been somebody in Coventry, I think, some brothers,'

and they were around 1,000 years but then, some of them had died.

As the brothers in Coventry know only too well,

time waits for no man.

It's important for us to get this Guinness world record registered.

If we lose one of our family, that takes almost 100 years off it.

One of the elder brothers then, when it was mentioned earlier,

he says, it's all right, but he says when we start going,

he says, you may keep on your good suits.

'I know this graveyard.'

My parents are buried here.

If you're born in Collegelands,

this is where you'll end up.

Deep into an Armagh winter,

Austin, who first contemplated a world record,

was laid to rest.

'It was nine o'clock in the morning'

on Christmas Day, Austin went to the Lord.

That's...where he is now.

Austin and I were the twins.

We shared the same pram together.

We grew up together.

And Mummy dressed us just the same, when she was out walking with us.

Austin and I were two, when everybody else was one.

So, if anybody tackled us, they were tackling the two of us.

The siblings, who once numbered 16,

are now 13.

But through the grief,

the chance of a world record remains.

'Now that Austin is gone, the baton has been handed

'to myself and Terry'

and we are going to do this. And we will be in the Guinness

Book of Records, as the oldest family in the world...

..the Donnelly family, from Collegelands.

Having taken up the baton from Austin,

Terry and Leo must piece together an accumulation

of family documents.

I believe the oldest family in the world - somewhere around 1,000.

Well, I think we can beat that, Terry. What do you think?

-Well, that's to be seen.

-Start counting.

So, you've Brian ticked here, Terry. So, what age is Brian, Terry?

Hello...

I think I have

a Guinness world record.

James Patrick Donnelly. That's Seamus.

I know they need birth certificates, they need photographs,

they need different bits of paper.

There's a birth certificate. That's William Anthony. That's Tony's.

Leo's looking for this and, at last, I've got it.

Rosie and Eileen

and Peter.

Sean is the eldest in the family, Terry.

Mairead, Maureen,

Tony, Terry. I said Tony twice.

'89 years old?!'

-You do not look 89, Eileen.

-Well, I feel it!

Kathleen, Colm and myself.

What Austin has started,

I don't know where we're going to stop.

This is definitely going to be a Guinness Book of Records.

This is where it all happened.

In 19 and 21, Daddy came down to buy a churn here.

And he ended up with the whole thing.

College Hall.

The big house was, and still is,

the grandest residence in Collegelands.

Fit for a family of 18.

Well, this is where all the magic happened.

This was Daddy and Mummy's bedroom.

All 16 babies were made,

and most of them were born, in this room. Except the last few.

My earliest memory was when I was five.

My brother said to me, "Leo, go in and tell Mummy you're five."

And I went in and told Mummy that I was five today, Austin and me.

There was no big things on birthdays,

because there was just too many birthdays.

It may be only bricks and mortar,

but the big house is very much

at the heart of the family.

'If we could bottle the secret for this Donnelly family's long living,'

I think it's this house and this soil and all the land.

And proof of that is cos they keep coming back.

The roots of family are unyielding.

The Donnelly siblings may have branched out,

but they know their place in the world.

We're living here in this house 95 years

and we were all born and reared here.

And it's lovely to mark that milestone,

to bring them all back to College Hall.

And Mairead!

Oh, this is fantastic to see you over.

I couldn't miss it.

Five boys below me and, then, her and, then, four boys below her.

And there was ten below me.

LIVELY CHATTER

-How are you doing?

-How are you, Peter?

'It's nice to be part of a big family,'

because you feel that you've someone to call on,

if ever you're in trouble or in need.

One, two, three, four...

We have got everybody here, except Colm and Brian.

..five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And me is 11.

'It might be the last chance to get this family'

together.

All looking this way.

CAMERA CLICKING

Everybody looking towards me now. We've got everybody in there.

Good. Hold it like that.

It's a long time since we've been all together like this.

-It could be nearly 50 years.

-It's 50 years since we were

last all around this table together. Definitely, I would say it is -

50 years. At least 50 years.

This long overdue get-together won't be toasted with champagne.

Can I take a show of hands for all the Pioneers left

in the Donnelly family?

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

And Brian's a Pioneer is eight. And Colm's a Pioneer is nine.

So, that's nine out of the 13.

Now, I might take two pints in the year, if I will take that.

You're counted out, Leo, if you take it at all.

Though the Donnellys were Pioneers,

the family matriarch took a liberal view when it came to alcohol.

When we were young, you'd be just upstairs and, in this wardrobe,

you would see the Buckfast wine.

And it was after the babies were born.

And it was taken as a tonic.

So, Maureen, are you saying, after every time...

-Mummy would... Yes.

-She had her wee drink?

-No! No!

-There was nothing to drink.

It was to build her strength.

She was feeding the babies, so you did need something extra,

rather than just the milk or whatever.

It's funny we didn't all become alcoholics, when we were breastfed

with the Buckfast wine!

Perhaps the Donnellys should put their good health down

to a certain tonic wine,

but it seems another family

has been drinking from the cup of eternal youth.

"The world's oldest family have lived to a grand old age."

-How many siblings are in that, Mairead?

-Originally, there were 16

-and they're now down to 12.

-'It was very interesting.'

Another family from Coventry and they have it on the internet

that they are the oldest family in the world.

We've absolutely beaten them hands down. And we're still going.

Sorry, Mr Tweedy, but you're

beaten by the Irish, once again.

We'll have to watch very carefully.

Stay on the white line.

Don't cross it too quick!

As far as we can see way down,

if you could see a bank rising a wee bit,

there's a field on the far side of it.

The land there, there was over 100 acres of it

and yet, they were hard times. Land was cheap, but money was scarce.

Like most families in Collegelands,

the Donnellys were of farming stock.

If a tractor broke down, well, everything stopped.

I remember the Fordson Major, the clutch went on it

at four o'clock in the day.

I had the clutch out of it and back in before I went to bed that night.

One of the big reasons for the success of this family is the fact

we played together, we worked together.

We enjoyed the successes together and fixed the failures.

It was a generation before my time,

but the Donnellys were reputed to own the very first

tractor in the county.

When we got a tractor, nobody could drive them.

We could all go front ways, same as driving the horse,

-sitting on its back.

-Our horse died.

We went for a mechanical horse!

I can remember the first day it came home

and the neighbours was all gathered round.

It might have been nine or ten of the neighbours

come round to see this new tractor.

And they said, that tractor will destroy your ground,

the wheels will destroy your ground.

-Why's that?

-He says, you'll be going back to the horse.

They would never return to the horse

and, in late 1930s Armagh, it was a serious case

of keeping up with the Donnellys.

Well, if you were married to a good-looking girl

and she buys a lovely dress and her neighbour has more money

and she buys a better one, does she be happy?

-You know what I'm saying?

-I hear you.

Aye. A wee bit jealous.

As the oldest son, Sean was always destined to work the family land,

but world events would see him and the new Ford Ferguson

travel further afield.

Northern Ireland is making a superb war effort.

In 1940, she plans to place a quarter of a million more acres...

And that's where Sean come in, a young fella of 17 or 18,

he went off with our tractor in the month of August, September.

From Ulster's fields

is pulled much of the flax which is spun and woven in the country.

Moygashel, across the Blackwater and Tyrone,

was flax country, and Sean's services were in high demand.

It didn't matter what time you start in the morning or quit at night,

you were paid for the work you done.

Today, the looms of Ulster are weaving wings for aeroplanes

and pants for soldiers.

Strong Ulster linen may have supported the war effort,

but a young Sean Donnelly wasn't driven by a sense of national pride.

So, that was your contributions to the war effort, then?

It was the other way about. It was a war effort contribution to me.

As war took a grip of continental Europe,

the population of Collegelands and surrounding areas doubled,

with foreign soldiers.

Stationed close to College Hall was a troop of Belgians.

There was always four or five of them come to our house

and come in and had a cup of tea.

But it wasn't just tea and conversation

the Belgians were interested in.

I would say now they had their eyes on

some of the female members of the family, all right.

Maureen Donnelly, the eldest Donnelly girl,

caught the roving eye of one young Belgian soldier.

One came to our camogie field and a friend of mine hit the ball,

the camogie ball, right down near him.

I did call to him "Je vous en" and he turned back and looked,

then he just went his way and I went home.

Despite not replying to Maureen's pidgin French,

Jean, the shy young Belgian, was keen to correspond.

He wrote me a letter and I answered it and then,

from that on, we seemed to just...pass letters.

His initial reticence notwithstanding,

the Belgian wasn't backward in coming forward.

Working in the middle of October and I was coming up the road

and there he was. And he asked me to marry him and I was really...

I couldn't understand, but I just said to him

I didn't understand

and off he went and I went down home and that was it.

Despite an initial rejection,

the lovestruck young soldier endured.

A few days later,

I got a letter from him, with the proposal written in the letter,

so that was... I thought, "Well, my goodness!"

So, I did correspond and I did tell him that

I couldn't marry him, because I had plans to be a nun.

World War III could have started if my parents had got over

to that barracks.

The Belgians left Collegelands in the winter of 1945

and Maureen would never hear from Jean again.

But it wasn't for his lack of trying.

The world record bid has unearthed more than just birth certificates.

The Donnellys' neglected cupboards and drawers

have betrayed some family secrets.

Maureen happened to be staying over in my house and I said,

"I have some things that you might be interested in.

"I think I saw a photograph of a young Belgian soldier

"and letters that came into my possession."

After all these years, to get a photograph that I never had.

That's just as he was those days - handsome-looking young fella!

Unbeknownst to Maureen,

Jean never gave up on his unrequited love and continued

to write letters for decades.

Letters that would never arrive.

These are the letters that I should have got 70 years ago

and I'm getting now, getting them in 2016, 70 years later.

The 28th of the 10th, 19 and 45.

"I write you for to say you goodbye, because I am leaving your country,

"maybe for always. I shall never forget you."

Oh, he's very thoughtful.

"In Belgium, I shall write to you always.

"I shall see you in my dreams."

I believe him.

"I must close and I send you the best regards of little friend

"of Belgium."

Well, now, that is...

If I had got that that time, so many years ago, well,

at least, acknowledged that he had known me.

Maureen has her suspicions about who kept the letters from her.

Well, now, who... Daddy would be out working, so my mother must have been

the only one that would be in the house, to get them.

She must have opened that letter addressed to me and read it and,

I suppose, the lovey-dovey stuff in it maybe scared them!

The thought they were going to lose me. I don't know.

Terry and myself have gathered up all the ages

and we have got to 1,064 years.

So, that is definitely a world record, in my books.

We just need Guinness to confirm this

and that's what we're doing now.

With all the billions of people on the planet,

there's a family from the Collegelands

is the oldest family in the whole world.

Now, what does that mean?

You could have Brad Pitt coming over and he might say,

"Leo, I want to live another 40 years, for I have too much money

"and I can't spend it all. I want to know your secrets.

"How much do you need?" And I'll say,

"Brad, come on in and we'll talk about it over a cup of tea.

"And bring Angelina with you."

"He followed the exit sign for Loughgall

"and heard among the top-heavy apple orchards

"this stretch of the Armagh-Tyrone border

"was planted by Warwickshire men,

"who planted, in turn, their familiar quick-set damson hedges."

Apples has been running through our veins since before we were born.

That's the start of an apple that will grow three or four inches

diameter. A lot of people have this apple because they grow

a beautiful big apple and they go to Mr Kipling's pies.

My daddy got into apples in the 1930s.

So, there's apples that Daddy put in in 1939 and 1940.

They're still growing. They'll last for, as I say, 100 years.

The apple trees are as old as the Donnellys themselves,

but the family whose name was synonymous with the fruit they grew

were also lauded for their athletic prowess

and many of their physical feats

took place where the orchard now stands.

Where these apples are planted here was known as the old sports field.

And for sports day, the grass was all mowed and cleaned up,

ready for the whole community.

Naturally, it being our field,

we put in extra effort to get most of the prizes.

As the vernacular would put it,

the apple never falls far from the tree.

The Donnellys got their love of sport from their father, Peter.

Daddy was a fantastic sportsman

and I remember the first time ever I beat Daddy at handball.

He never played much after it.

And up to that time, nobody could beat Daddy at anything.

Probably his way of saying, "Time for you to take over, Leo,

"you and Austin."

Whilst all the Donnellys were athletic,

one son was exceedingly good.

There's five Ulster medals and there's a few county medals.

Peter Donnelly was dubbed "the strongman of Collegelands"

for his athletic feats throughout Ulster,

where he took on all-comers - and won.

We were lined up for the 440.

I was put at the back marker, along with the Ulster champion,

Joe Sherry. I put on the speed at the start and passed

all these young athletes and got out in front.

I just kept going on and I could hardly lift my legs!

I won the race easy. I never saw where he was.

Beating Ulster champions was all in a day's work

for the legendary Peter Donnelly and there was plenty of work.

He started at 7.30 in the morning,

milking 20 cows and, then, for an hour or two in the evening time,

Peter went out for a cross-country run round this land,

right down to the Callan river

and down to Jimmy Mackle's cannon factory.

But success in mid-century athletic meets wasn't lucrative.

There was never any money or the like of that.

I've seen me getting pictures, fireside mats,

maybe a tea set, or something like this.

The sports committee that were running the event

would have these presented and have them all sitting on display.

So, you could see what you were going to run for!

Peter may not have profited financially from his success,

but a strict fitness regime may have bought something money can't.

I'm certainly glad we had that healthy lifestyle,

because it's given us a good chance to get this world record.

It's absolutely amazing that the simplest things of life

can have you stay on this planet for longer than any family

in the whole, wide world.

This is a big day for the Donnelly family today.

Apparently, there's a very special package coming this morning.

Postie, postie, don't be slow.

Well, this is what we've been waiting on.

This is the famous letter.

Now, I want to get Terry round here.

I just don't want to open this on my own. Terry deserves to be here.

"Guinness World Records - Officially Amazing."

-I say!

-That's amazing. This is it.

This looks good.

"Dear Leo, Guinness World Records

"application for the highest combined age..."

'I can tell you, when I opened the letter with Terry,'

the excitement was just building up and building up.

"The current record for the highest combined age is 1,042 years."

'And then, when I read the letter,'

to tell you the truth, I was hit with a sledgehammer.

"With your combined age of 1,064 years,

"you exceed this by 21 years."

We had beat them by 22 years almost,

so we had proof, in black-and-white,

we were the oldest family in the world.

The next paragraph said,

"Regretfully, that's not a big enough margin"!

"It is not significant enough for us to be able to acknowledge it

"as a Guinness World Record title."

Now, that says that Guinness have acknowledged that we are

-the oldest family in the world...

-Exactly!

-..by 22 years.

We are the record holders and there is no doubt about that.

It seems actually being the world's oldest surviving siblings

isn't enough to claim an official Guinness World Record.

But the Donnellys haven't lived this long to give up now.

Six multiplied by 365...

They needed another six years added on to that,

to give us the record and six divided by 13 siblings works out...

184, basically. 184 days and then we will have

fulfilled their requirement.

We can reapply for that record in about five months' time,

then we will get it in their big fat book!

THEY LAUGH

You'll get a certificate, to prove it.

Terry, don't you die and I'll not die.

No, I'll not die till then!

We've lived this long,

five more months is no bother to the Donnellys.

"And the full moon swaying over Keenaghan,

"the orchards and the cannery,

"thins to a last yellow hammer and goes.

"The neighbours gather - all Keenaghan and Collegelands.

"There is storytelling."