‘Hearty applause’ for Royal Mail after service delivers letter to Co Antrim man using just his description

A Cushendall man has hailed Royal Mail for successfully delivering a letter to his address simply by following a brief history of his family in the area.

osting on Twitter, Co Antrim musician Feargal Lynn shared the envelope with the humorous description scrawled on the front in place of the man’s address.

Describing his parents and the “Spar his Ma and Da used to own”, the description of Mr Lynn also included his later move to the nearby Waterfoot and the fact he is “friends with the fella [who] runs the butchers” in the neighbouring village.

Writing on social media, Mr Lynn said Royal Mail deserved a “hearty applause” for finding and delivering the letter and said it gave him a “much needed laugh”.

“They had the first name, the village where I grew up and half the postcode. The rest is more like my life story,” he wrote.

The funny story has so far been liked thousands of times by users online, with many delighting in the quaint description and local vernacular used in the letter.

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Mr Lynn said the reaction online has left him “blown away”.

He described “laughing for around ten minutes” when he first got sight of the letter and said the description on the front brought back “so many memories from my youth”.

The full description on the envelope reads: “Lives across the road from the Spar, his ma and da used to own it, his mother was Mary and Da Joseph, moved to Waterfoot after he got married, plays guitar and used to run discos in the parochial hall and the hotel in the 80s. Friends with the fella runs the butchers in Waterfoot too.”

When asked if he was surprised his local postman managed to track him down from the writing, Mr Lynn said “yes and no”.

“If it was anywhere else I imagine the posties would have just shredded it or returned to sender,” he added.

“I know the postman and he knows me so I think when we he saw it he knew who that was going by the detail.

“He told me he went into the main sorting office in Ballymena this morning to get post and that letter was sitting separate from everyone else’s. The main guy in the sorting office asked him if he had any idea who it was and he read it and knew it exactly who it was.”

The man, who also works in the care sector, said he has been posting letters over the last year as a way of improving his mental health and giving him a distraction from the pandemic.

He said the best thing that has come out of publicising the story has been the “laugh” it has given everyone.

“She only has my social media details. Instead of contacting me and asking for my address, she just fired on,” he said.

“When I told her about the fact it has kicked off on Twitter, both of us had a conversation about trying to brighten people’s moods. She just sent it to me to give me and other people involved a bit of a giggle.”

Of course it is far from the first time postmen in this part of the world have proven their skill in tracking down people from some of the most obscure descriptions and addresses.

In 2015, a postcard sent all the way from Missouri with the not very helpful address of: “Albert, Cardonagh, Donegal” famously successfully made it to the letter box of Albert Doherty, a local Sinn Fein councillor.

Another incident that year saw a letter simply addressed to: “Your man Henderson that boy with the glasses” sent from Belfast to the town of Buncrana in Co Donegal and received by its intended recipient, Barry Henderson.