The Corran Herald Issue 44, 2011
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The Corran Herald COMPILED AND PUBLISHED BY BALLYMOTE HERITAGE GROUP ISSUE No.44 2011/2012 PRICE €8.00 The Corran Herald Annual Publication of Ballymote Heritage Group Compiled and Published by Ballymote Heritage Group Editor: James Flanagan Design, Typesetting and Printing: Orbicon Print, Collooney. Cover Design and Artwork: Brenda Friel Issue No 44 2011/2012 ––––––––––––––– The Corran Herald wishes to sincerely thank all those who have written articles or contributed photographs or other material for this Issue 2 THE CORRAN HERALD • 2011/2012 Contents Page O’Reillys – The Forgotten Landlords (John McDonagh) 4 McDonaghs of Carrowkeel and their Changing Fortunes (John C.McTernan) 7 The Importance of Fraternities and Social Clubs for the Protestant Community in Sligo from 1914 to 1949 (Padraig Deignan) 9 Page from Minutes of AGM of the Shareholders of The Ballymote Electric Lighting & Town Improvement Co Limited, 2 November 191 (John Coleman) 16 66o South – Travels in Antarctica (Stephen Flanagan) 17 The Gillan Longcars (Eugene Gillan) 20 The Parish Mission in the 19th Century (Padraig Feeley) 21 Colonel Oliver O’Gara 1694 – c1761 in Europe (Maura O’Gara-O’Riordan) 25 Keeping the Peace in Keash 100 Years Ago (John Higgins) 29 “God Save All Here” (Kathleen Fitzmaurice) 0 Charles O’Conor 1710 – 1791 (Murtagh Corcoran) 2 A Prayer (Bernie Martin) The Rock of the Cats (PJ Duffy) 4 Traditional Rhymes (PJ Duffy) 5 Bi-Centenary Celebrations of St Kevin’s Church, Keash, rd Aug 2009 (Padraig Duffy) 6 Eddie Masterson Remembered (James Reddiough) 8 Fr Michael O’Flanagan and the Cloonerco Bog Fight (Joe McGowan) 40 Late 18th Century Views of Ballymote: Bigari, Beranger and Grose (John Coleman) 4 Castlebaldwin Village (Clare Walsh) 46 Local History from Hollybrook to Clohogue (Clare Walsh) 46 The Sligo Shoe Factory (Bernie Gilbride) 47 Summer Sojurns in Ballymote (Neal Farry) 49 Ballymote’s John Perry Appointed Minister for Small Business 50 Clerical Influence on the Outcome of 19th Century Sligo Elections (John C. McTernan) 51 Dreams of an Everyday Housewife (Bernie Martin) 5 North Roscommon Gaelicisms (Continued) (Frank Tivnan) 54 Ballincar House, Ballincar, Co. Sligo (Martin A. Timoney) 56 James Daly (Nancy Smyth) 60 Carrowcullen House: From Family Home to Convent to Hermitage (Martin Wilson) 61 Music and the Megaliths (Lynda Hart) 6 To be Let (Padraig Doddy) 64 The Megalithic Cemetery, Carrowmore (Bernie Gilbride) 65 The Church of Aughanagh/Aghanagh (Clarelsh) 66 Jack Perry 16.5.1927 – 17.11.2010 66 The Fair of Baldwin (Clare Walsh) 67 The Stile (Kathleen Fairbanks) 68 Verbal Footprints (Leo Mattimoe) 69 Care Free, Bealtaine, The Robin (Poems, Bernie Gilbride) 70 Michael Lang (Dermot O’Donnell) 71 Maura O’Gara-O’Riordan Honoured 72 Memories of a Country Scholar of the Fifties (Joan Gleeson) 7 The Man of Ninety Two (John McDonagh) 7 I Wish my Neck Was a Mile Long (Mary Kelly White) 74 Death of G Dodwell (Padraig Doddy) 76 New Community Library and Fire Station in Ballymote 77 Barratoore (Bernie Gilbride) 78 The Miners’ Way (Mary Guckian) 78 Ballymote Heritage Group 84 THE CORRAN HERALD • 2011/2012 O’Reillys - The Forgotten Landlords John McDonagh If we could journey back in time cut-away, or reclaimed bog land to to the eighteenth and nineteenth view the extent of the flax growing centuries, we would find a system that existed throughout this area. Flax of land ownership that would seeds and fibres are everywhere. The be almost unrecognisable today. entire crop, bound up in sheaves, The majority of the population would be left to “ret” ( rot off the outer lived on, worked on, or made their layers of fibre) for a couple of weeks, meagre living from the land, either in bog holes, so that the inner layer as tenant farmers, cottiers, or landless could be salvaged for the complicated labourers. Most of the land was and hugely labour intensive process owned or controlled either by of linen making. (Scutching, carding, landlords, the Established Church, spinning, weaving and bleaching.) or other corporate bodies (Trinity Flax growing appears to have College Dublin – T.C.D, was one of been widespread and intensive and the biggest landowners in the entire must have given employment to a country), while twelve London great number of people, before the companies were granted vast tracts widespread importation of much of land in Co. Derry in return for cheaper cotton led to its downfall and financing the Plantation of Ulster in eventual demise. Dowell O’Reilly from a painting th the seventeenth century. (Terrence Although most of the land Deed of conveyance 14 April M Dooley----“Estate ownership and owning class was of the Protestant 1786 (The O’Reilly papers): management in nineteenth and early Denomination, there were exceptions “ By deeds of lease of this twentieth-century Ireland”) to this. The Catholic O’Reilly family date executed by the chief register of This privileged elite were largely owned the townlands of Spurtown The Court of Exchequer and other of the Protestant faith, often the and Ougham in the civil parish of parties. The lands of North and South descendants of Cromwellian land Kilshalvy, Co. Sligo. Ballinspur situate in the County of grantees and although our history They began their ownership in Sligo, were conveyed to Dowell tends to judge them very harshly, they these parts as Catholics in the year O’Reilly for a consideration of £6500 should not all be tarred with the one 1786, when Dowell O’Reilly, a legal Sterling—Residue of a lease made by th brush. representative and property owner of Nicholas Lord Carlingford dated 15 Some treated their tenants quite well some note, inherited a fortune from Oct 1680 at an annual rent of £25-16s while others treated them abysmally, his uncle Mathew, an unmarried 8d” but most left the day-to-day running London merchant. He then used this (Ballinspur was the ancient gaelic of their estates in the hands of their inheritance to purchase these Co Sligo name for Spurtown) agents and bailiffs. Because these lands from the representatives of one were usually paid a commission Thomas Harte, for the sum of £6500. Dowell O’ Reilly on the rents they collected, they Dowell O’Reilly’s ancestral home were often more demanding, more (This Thomas Harte, was a direct was “Tulleystown”, Co. Westmeath. unscrupulous, and more ruthless than descendant of Coronel Thomas Harte, He was a direct descendant of “Myles the land-owners themselves. Indeed a Cromwellian land grantee who leased the Slasher,” who held the title “Prince many of the biggest landowners did the said lands for a nine hundred and of Breffeni” and was entitled to call not live in the country at all because eighty seven year term from Nicholas himself “The O’Reilly”. of their involvement in politics, the Taafe, Earl of Carlingford, at an Originally from Co. Cavan, Dowell armed forces, or other government annual rent of £25-16s-8d. Thomas purchased and settled in Heath House, positions. Harte, is mentioned several times in” Abbeyliex, Co. Laois (Queen’s Most of the land was under tillage, Woodmartin’s History of Sligo” and County) in the year 1804. Dowell growing potatoes, oats, rye, or flax achieved fame, or notoriety, as second was twice married; his second wife for the struggling and very labour- in command to Lord Kingston at was Elizabeth Knox from Moyne, intensive linen industry. One has The Battle of Sligo in the Williamite Co. Mayo. A dedicated member of the only to disturb the top layer of any Wars.) Established Church, she succeeded 4 THE CORRAN HERALD • 2011/2012 in converting the Catholic Dowell transactions from their extensive to her religion and despite all of his account books showed a payment of siblings and two daughters being £-8s to have “The Book of Fenagh” members of the Roman Catholic translated from ancient Irish into faith, his letters and writings show a English by the said scholar. He (M.J.R.) marked intolerance towards that faith. was also a sponsor of the renowned The O’ Reilly papers show that in the Irish poet James Clarence Mangan. year 1792, Dowell O’Reilly leased part In 1821, Francis Knox of Moyne, of his land at Spurtown to Robert Duke Co. Mayo, died, leaving his vast of Newpark for “three lifetimes” for a estates to his nephew, Myles John rent of £1,000. (A part of Spurtown is O’Reilly, but it proved to be a now known as “Spurtown Duke.”) Is poisoned chalice! The estate was this is the same Robert commemorated encumbered far beyond its worth and in The Church of Ireland, Ballymote? instead of inheriting a fortune, he Dowell was recognised as chief of was left answerable for all its debts, “The O’Reilly Clan” and inherited the which were only resolved by a decree title “The O’Reilly.” He died on Nov from The House of Lords in 1826. 1, 1808 and the title along with his Costly litigation over his inheritance, Myles George O’Reilly circa estates automatically passed on to his bad luck, poor management and 1875) oldest son, Myles John. ill health, appear to have dogged have been devoted to managing and him all his life. There are many improving his estates and trying accounts of court proceedings with to retrieve the family fortunes. his two sisters, most of which had an It was labour in vain! In the post unfavourable outcome for Myles John. famine era, landlords and tenants In 187 all his possessions in Heath alike all suffered great economic House were auctioned and he and hardship. Despite his best efforts his family were forced to vacate the he was forced to sell Heath House premises.