William G. Wilson Guy

William G. Wilson Guy (known as Wilson Guy, pen name Mat Mulcaghey, also going by The Oul' Besom Man) was a creamery manager, author, poet and broadcaster from the Fintona area in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Much of the dialogue in his books, and many of his poems and short stories are written in the local Ulster English dialect.

Most of Guy's writings are set in and around the fictional 'town' (i.e. village) of 'Ballymulcaghey' and the district of 'Aghnascreeby', which are obviously based on Fintona and the surrounding countryside (e.g. Ballymulcaghey is said in his novel Aghnascreeby to lie just off the Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway, to which it is connected by a horse-drawn tram, just like Fintona was at one time).

Guy was born (as 'William John Gay') in the townland of Mulnagoagh,^[1] between Fintona and Dromore, just like the narrator in his semi-autobiographical novel Aghnascreeby. His poem 'Skelgagh School' suggests that he went to the school of the same name, also between Fintona and Dromore.^[2] Although he later lived in County Antrim (his wife was from Ahoghill) and Gortin,^[3] he returned to Fintona after he was married, where he is commemorated by a small plaque on a house (of which he was a former resident) on Kiln Street.^[4] According to his marriage certificate and the 1911 census, Guy was a Presbyterian, though his religion is listed as 'non-conformist' in the 1901 census.^[5]

Between the late 1920s and the early 1950s, Guy (as Mat Mulcaghey) made regular broadcasts on the BBC radio station 2BE (later BBC Radio Ulster).^[6] He was also a columnist for the Tyrone Constitution and the Strabane Weekly News newspapers,^[7] and made a number of contributions to the Ulster Parade magazine.^[8] In the introduction to his Ballads and Verses from Tyrone (1929), W. F. Marshall, the 'Bard of Tyrone', thanked 'Mat Mulcaghey' for inspiring and promoting (on BBC radio and elsewhere) his own poetry.