Statues of the Saints
Designed by local artist Bernie O'Mara, and funded by Mayo County Council, the statues of the two saints, Cormac and Daria, welcome visitors to our village with open arms. Cormac was a Munster missionary, who came to Connacht in the seventh century. A contrary and awkward man, he found no welcome until he came to Daria, abbess of a monastery by the banks of the Owenmore river. She received him hospitably, providing the weary cleric with milk rather than the water he had become used to receiving. With gratitude, Cormac blessed the abbess and her lands, so that they would abound in Milch cows (fertile cows in their first year of calving). Thus, Magh Gamhnach or the plain of the milch cows became the name of these lands and church, and later the parish thereafter. Behind the saints is Carn National School, the only school now in the parish, and across the road is the GAA stadium and Community Centre of Moygownagh GAA club. The landscaping of the village with trees, flowers and shrubs was carried out in 2019, by the Community Council, funded by the Irish Department of Rural and Community Development, through the 2018-9 Town and Village Renewal Scheme, and in partnership with Mayo County Council.
Memorial of the Saddest Soldier
In December 2016, the memorial to Drumanangle native, Michael Joseph Kelly was blessed by Fr. Brendan Hoban. This commemorates the 'troubled soul' of a veteran of five armies, who was born just fifty yards away in the lee of the hill facing the monument in 1896.The son of a prosperous local politician and large farmer, young Michael Joseph, eschewed the career of a surgeon destined for him, when he joined the 1916 Rising in Dublin as a student. When released by the crown forces, a chastened Michael Joseph seemed to settle back into his studies, until he walked into a British Army recruiting office the following year. He would serve in France during World War I and earn two medals. However, he returned to a changed Ireland in 1919, and joined the IRA who were fighting for Irish Freedom against the very flag that young Kelly had saluted while in uniform. Recognised by friend and foe alike as an able leader, as a Captain he led the local Moygownagh volunteers in raids against the Crown Forces and subsequently against the Free State, during the subsequent Irish Civil War. Ending on the losing side, a dispirited Capt. Michael Joseph Kelly emigrated to the USA in 1925, vowing never to return to his beloved Drumanangle.In America he witnessed the tragic deaths of his two sisters and brother which haunted him for the remainder of his life. After fighting with American forces in South America during the 'Banana Wars', he returned to America and jobbed from farm to farm as a labouring hand, eventually ending up in Prineville Oregon.Despite, signing up for the 'Old Man' army reserve after the bombing of Pearl Harbour, he was now a broken man in poor health and got lodgings from the county in Veteran's accommodation in the town. He was destined to die of ill health and poverty until his cousin Fr. Hannick tracked him down and managed to install him in new accommodation in nearby Redmond. He died only a few months later in 1966.The monument to Michael Joseph Kelly was funded by his cousin Stephanie Jennings and his niece and nephews; Maureen Hegarty Gleeson, Gerard Hegarty, Paddy Hegarty and Declan Hegarty.
Ballintober bridge & mill
Ballintober bridge is an impressive six-arch road bridge over the Owenmore river, dating from at least the 1820's but likely much earlier. Its part creeper- or ivy-covered walls are centred on triangular cutwaters to piers having pyramidal capping with lichen-covered coping to parapets. The bridge is considered as an integral component of the civil engineering heritage of County Mayo with the architectural value of the composition confirmed not only by the sheer limestone dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship, but also by the elegant "sweep" of the arches making a pleasing visual statement at a crossing over the river.Downriver, and originally fed by a cut channel, is the building which housed a large corn-mill. These constructions are connected to the Ballintober Estate house, which was built on the hill, upriver of the bridge and of whom only the garden wall remains (at the back of the present house and farm). This was an old estate, the property of the Orme landlords who held at least four estate homes in Moygownagh parish and probably more. It passed by marriage out of the Orme family in the 19th century and the last owner was William Orme Bourke, a great-uncle of Mary Robinson (nee Bourke) the former president of Ireland.On his death, the house fell into disuse and was demolished for building and road material in the 1940's. Another, possibly older bridge, is upriver of the Ballintober bridge and is known as the 'French Bridge' as the rebels are supposed to have marched over it after the success of the General Humbert's forces at the 'Year of the French' rebellion in August 1798.
Carn Tower and Castle
Carn Tower is a small defence look-out tower, probably built during the Jacobite wars, around 1689. It consists of a round stone structure ringed with gun loops for muskets, and a (now disappeared) second level with two lookout windows. The conical roof was fashioned using an 'upside down' wickerwork dome, upon which the stones were set. The remains of the long vanished wickerwork may yet be seen in the lime plaster inside the tower. Carn tower or 'Túrchoid Carn' was built upon the remains of an early castle, the last fragment of which is located on its side beside the tower. The earthworks beneath, along with the orientation of the ancient Carn road, may delineate the original defences of this castle.The nearby ringfort on the top of the hill, to the south, was known as Dubh-Lios and likely to have been the seat of the Gaelic lord of Bredagh before the invasion of the Normans in the early thirteenth century. Carn castle was thus built near the site of the fort, and became known as Lynott’s castle after the family who owned it. The castle survived to the 17th century, but was in ruins when the tower was built, which likely defended a fortified house to the north in the field opposite. The large vacant house presently there is made of cut stones which indicated their original site was in this house and even from Carn castle itself. Carn castle was also the site of the incident which inspired Sir Samuel Ferguson (1810–1886) to write his epic poem 'The Welshmen of Tyrawley'. The poem tells of an ancient story by Duald MacFirbis, the last Gaelic historian in North Mayo. It tells of a battle between the Barretts and Lynotts for control of the Castle of Carn and its lands. Both families derived from the Welsh-Norman invaders of the early thirteenth century in Connacht. The Lynotts were granted Moygownagh and its environs, by the Burke overlords but the Barretts had a rival claim. At a time of weakness in the Burke's protection, the Barretts seized their chance and antagonised the Lynotts so much, the Carn men killed an obnoxious rent collector. On a pretext of revenge, the Barretts overthrew the Lynotts and in a warning to all others, forced the survivors into a choice of two punishments; to have the men castrated or blinded by needles. Choosing the latter, they were then forced to cross the stepping stones over the nearby Dubh Abhainn river which was in flood. Anyone who made it over safely was subjected to a second plucking just in case. The crossing is known as Clochan na nDall or the Stepping Stones of the Blind (they do not have public access). The Barretts success was short lived and were forced by the Burkes into a humiliating surrender of most of their Tyrawley lands, but in turn all the 'Welshmen' and Gaels alike were dispossessed shortly thereafter by Oliver Cromwell. The poem by Ferguson is long but this verse was the best known: O'er the slippery stepping-stones of Clochan-na-n'allThey drove them, laughing loud at every fall,As their wandering footsteps darkFail'd to reach the slippery mark,And the swift stream swallow'd stark,One and all,As they stumbledFrom the vengeance of the Welshmen of Tirawley.
Garranard Post Office and The Vicarage
Garranard Post Office, was the main post office of the surrounding area up until the early part of this millennium, when the postal services were located to Mitchell's Centra supermarket in the village. The building itself was originally constructed by Rev. William H Brushe, in the early 1850's as a residence, when he became the first Anglican curate of the parish in almost two hundred years.Rev Brushe was an ambitious and abrasive missionary, who believed that the post-Great Famine years were opportune to convert the local catholic tenantry. He persuaded the Palmer estate to build a school house which also functioned as a church in the field to the south, on the opposite riverbank. There he taught classes and also held services in the cruciform shaped building. This adjacent townland of Ballinagur (now Ballynagor) once held a thriving community of Anglican farmers, and was already served by a Baptist school. This led to contention between Rev. Brushe and the in-situ protestants of Baptist and Presbyterians who believed his brand of zealous missionary work was alienating the cordiality between them and their Catholic neighbours. Not to be outdone, the local parish priest, Fr. McNamara built a National School house within a stone's throw of both schools and also became embroiled in the argument over the Anglican clerics’ 'proselytising'. Despite an encouraging start, the decline of the local protestant community, coupled with a lack of Catholic interest, saw the end of Brushe's mission in the 1870's and the schoolhouse - church fell into ruin with the sale of the vicarage to a local farmer. The ruins of the school-house - church were symbolically used by Canon Hegarty as the foundations of the present parochial house in the 1930's. He is reported to have said - as the last cartload of stones from the protestant building was tipped into the foundation trenches - 'You're down now and you'll stay down!'. No trace of the building remains.
Baptist School-House and Ballinagur Dispensary
Ballinagur (now Ballynagor) once held a thriving community of protestant farmers, who were 'planted' here in the late 17th - early 18th century by the Jackson landlords of Eniscoe. They community consisted of two 'villages' of 'Faltabrack' and the rather more dispersed 'Plot' to the west (the latter is likely a corruption of the real name, now lost). The Bapist schoolhouse was built here in the early 19th century to serve the local community and also functioned as an adminstration service centre, due to the lack of civic buildings in the parish in the pre-Great Famine period. Thus, the register of electors was displayed here, and the building also functioned as the local poor law dispensary. It continued in this service, long after the school closed in the post-Great Famine population decline which affected both protestant and catholic farming communities. In later years it was known as 'Timble's dispensary' as the building was leased from a family of this name. Depsite in a much ruined state, the building displays a curious small apse-shaped construction on its western side of unknown function. The dispensary finally closed in the later 19th century and the Dispensary moved to the former Vicarage in nearby Garranard.
Belvin Bridge or Belville
Belvin Bridge or Belville Bridge, was built across the Owenmore river, on the main Crossmolina - Ballycastle road before the early 19th century. It led into the Orme estate of Belville, the house of which was demolished in the 1950s. The Bridge itself is impressively situated consisting of three arches, under one of which impromptu Sinn Féin parish courts were held during the War of Independence. During the Civil War the Bridge was the site of a thwarted ambush. The local Moygownagh IRA company was instructed to cut off the main route of the Free State army based in Crossmolina, on their patrols northwards. However, their operation to dig up the centre of the bridge in February 1923 was foiled when a Free State patrol surprised them in the dead of night, in their act of cutting the bridge with pick-axes. Captain Michael Joseph Kelly and four other local IRA volunteers were seized and imprisoned in Ballina, but Kelly later escaped and remained on the run for the duration of the Civil War. Nowadays the most noise emanating from Belvin Bridge occurs during the annual duck race, run by Moygownagh GAA club, who own the adjacent football stadium, community centre and offices.
Saint Daria and Moygownagh Old Graveyard
St. Daria is a seventh century local saint, reputed to have had her monastery at what is now the old graveyard of Moygownagh. However, ritual practice connected with her derives from pre-Christian worship, as her story has all the attributes of Christian appropriation. Daria - derives from Dar í, or daughter of the Yew Tree in 'Celtic' languages. As a pre-Christian, Gaelic Goddess, Daria was found in triplicate form (similar to St. Bridget who was said to have had two sisters) and said to have also had the name Sodhelbh (the 'beautiful'), and associated with the 'Cailleach'. The latter now meaning 'old hag' formerly had a much more powerful connotation and is found in the uplands to the west of the parish in Croc na Callaigh (hill of the hag), Callaighadoo (Black Hags) and Srahnacally (The flood plain of the Hag).Daria was the Mother Goddess tasked with the special protection of cattle - a powerful symbol of fertility in Gaelic Ireland. The adoption of her own veneration into the Christian religion, included the Christianising of her place of ritual which became a Christian monastery. Little is known of this establishment which was extinct by the end of the twelfth century want little is known indicates St Daria held a powerful place in the Christian Gaelic pantheon of saints. 'Cáin Darí' was a church promulgated rule adopted by several kings throughout Ireland to protect cattle from harm in battle, while her monastery owed an extensive tract of land comprising of half the original civil parish of Moygownagh. Indeed, Daria's associated with cattle is clearly indicated in the origination of the name of the parish. While Magh Gamhnach or the plain of the Milch Cows is said to derive from St Cormac's blessing of Daria's lands, this is a latter patriarchal appropriation of what must have associated with the local mother goddess of cattle.St Daria's church survived for many centuries as the parish church of Moygownagh, but was in ruins by the early 19th century. The surrounding graveyard includes generations of unmarked Catholic graves and also those of the local protestant gentry - in particular of the Orme landlords whose houses were nearby. The Orme's built their own section for family internments in the oldest part of the site, underneath planted beech trees. A bullaun stone set at the 'doorway' to their plot originally would have stood in the early Christian site and is likely connected with smithing based on similar finds thought Ireland.
Orme Estate Gate Lodge
This now disused house, was the original gate lodge guarding the entrance to the Orme estate of Millbrook (renamed Owenmore in the early 1840's). It was built in the very early 19th century and reputed to have been the home a transgressor of the protestant Orme gentry family who had a child with Catholic servant girl. His new family were favoured with a large holding with the Gate Lodge, but as Catholic lost their gentry status. The family continued in occupation, even as the last Orme landlords left in 1923, down to the present day.The Orme's originally arrived in North Mayo from Staffordshire, England, in the latter half of the 17th century and through guile and fortuitous alliances with powerful English colonists, built up a vast estate centred on the parish of Moygownagh. They were a powerful Mayo family, providing county sheriffs, magistrates and resident landlords for over two centuries. The Ormes also had a good reputation as landlords being involved in famine relief efforts and organising a local farmer's co-op. The last landlord, Christopher Guy Orme inherited the estate from his brother - who died unexpectedly at the turn of the last century. Guy Orme as he was known brought home his skills learned on the ranches in America and built up a superb farm specialising in pedigree stock and modern farming methods. He introduced electric powered saw mills and farm machinery, powered by one of the first rural hydroelectric generators on the adjacent Owenmore River. However, despite this, he led his family in their removal to England after the War of Independence. Of the four 'big' estate houses of the family in Moygownagh, two survive today - Owenmore and Glenmore, both in private hands (and not available for public viewing).
Stonehall House
This house once belonged to a Knox family, of whom Thomas Knox was a coroner for North Mayo before the Great Famine of 1845-1851. It is a detached three-bay two-storey farmhouse, extant 1838, on a rectangular plan. Now disused, this is a farmhouse representing an integral component of the early nineteenth-century domestic built heritage of County Mayo with the architectural value of the composition, one allegedly erected in the immediate aftermath of the 1798 Insurrection, suggested by such traits as the compact rectilinear plan form centred on an understated doorcase showing a pretty radial fanlight; and the somewhat disproportionate bias of solid to void in the massing compounded by the uniform or near-uniform proportions of the openings on each floor.A prolonged period of unoccupancy or neglect notwithstanding, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the historic or original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, thus upholding the character or integrity of a farmhouse having connections the Scott family of the late 19th century. Of them, a George H Scott lived here with his family during the Land War of the 1880's. As a land agent and sheriff he was targeted by the local Fenians but a night-time attack on him failed badly. A bullet shattered the top right-hand window of the building, as Scott was undressing for bed, but missed him. An expert marksman, Scott returned fire, wounding one of the young Fenians lying in the bank opposite as his colleagues escaped. The Scotts attended to his wounds, awaiting the arrival of the police and were surprised to learn that the night-time would-be killer, actually was a hard working labourer for the Scott family during the day!Scott survived other attempts on his life as the land agitation subsided. He reinforced the inside of the wooden shutters of the front windows by metal plates which remain there today.
The Evicted Village
Now no more than grassy outlines in the green fields straddling a small boreen, this used to be a village of 17 small houses in the townland of Fairfield Lower and part of the Florence Knox estate of Greenwood. Local tradition is that Florence Knox retired to a smaller house in Fairfield Lower, within view of the present Ball-Alley and her brothers took over managing her affairs. One morning she was roused from the bed by her maid Onie, to say that something terrible was happening in the nearby village and she needed to attend immediately. Running down the road, with smoke heavy in the air she encountered her brother John Henry, returning in his carriage and beyond him the thatch of the seventeen cabins blazed. He had evicted the entire village. 'I am ashamed to meet you John' a distraught Florence cried out. John Henry coldly looked down at her and warned, 'You'd better be careful sister, or your place could be next'. Little evidence survives as to what happened but the local Fairfield tenants did relate the fact of these cruel evictions to several authorities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The lands, became part of a large 'ranch' of land of the Knox's and was known thereafter as 'Ballùr' or the new townland.
Fairfield Ball-Alley
This structure was built for playing handball by the young men of Fairfield in 1933 in a corner of a field owned by Sonny Forrister. As Bobby Cafferty recalled in an interview in 1995 ' Well, we used to be always mad for ball playing, and ball playing up to a gable of a house, and the women would have it whitewashed, and she’d come out ,and clear us away, to hell from it [...] an we said at the finish, that we’d put up a ball alley [...]', Bobby and Bob Gallagher went with 'the lads from around the place', collecting to pay for the cement, casings and other materials and they put it up themselves. After a year, the finished ball-court was blessed by Canon Hegarty the local parish priest who played in the first game with Jack Griffith, Mikie Blehein and another now forgotten local, with a huge crowd roaring them on. Sundays would see the young girls and boys gather around the ball-alley in 'doubles' competitions which the evenings would echo with the ball striking the cement wall of the ball-alley for many years. Teams from Crossmolina would even visit in a challenge to the locals once and a while. A second ball-alley was located where the store of Mitchell's shop now stands, in Moygownagh village. A restored ball-court may be seen on the Ballycastle rd. in a drive north into the neighbouring parish of Kilfian.
The raid of the Black and Tans
This house was a typical dwelling of a small farmer in the late 19th and early 20th century, with small farm sheds nearby. The roof was originally thatched and the remains of an orchard may be seen behind the largest shed.John Francis McHale, born in 1900, was the eldest of the large family of James and Ann McHale. His neighbour Anthony Browne was leader of the local Sinn Fein club in the parish and young John Francis spent many evenings his neighbours, listening to the 'talk of a new Republic' and being fired up with enthusiasm for the cause of Irish Freedom. While only eighteen he became an IRA volunteer rejoicing in missions on his bicycle delivering secret communications or out drilling at night with the other 'volunteer lads'.However, reality struck fast and hard when a combined Black and Tan and RIC patrol led by Inspector White of Ballina raided his home. The young volunteer and his father were dragged into the large shed and the old man was told they would shoot John Francis, unless he gave them names of other IRA sympathisers. Unwilling, the crown force men grabbed his son and forced him into a barrel of water until he began drowning. With the protests of his father, the police threw him onto the floor and struck him in the head - opening a wound that would last all his life.John Francis McHale survived and would find himself interned in Tintown camp, in the Curragh during the Civil War. Afterwards, he emigrated to America, marrying there. His futile attempts to get a medal or pension led him to have a lasting disenchantment with the Irish state, whom he felt betrayed the memory of the ordinary volunteers who had suffered for it. A view shared by many unhappy veterans who joined him overseas.
St Cormac's Chapel
According to the plaque, now set in the wall in front of the building, St. Cormac's church was erected in 1846, under the leadership of parish priest Fr. James McNamara, in the midst of the Great Famine. The original church was a small thatched building in bad repair, sited where no. 1 & 2 of Knockroe estate now stand. Unlike the original church in the old Graveyard, the new church was dedicated to St. Cormac, the missionary visitor to St Daria in the 7th century. The stained glass windows installed in 2000 by Fr. Francis Judge (best viewed with the morning rays of sun streaming through) beautifully personify both saints. St Cormac's chapel is one of the oldest functioning churches of Killala diocese and was recently renovated by the parish, where the choir gallery was reinstalled and the entire building weatherproofed with a modern heating system. Outside, to the rear it the new parish graveyard and to the front are the graves of three priests of the parish. One of whom, Fr. John B Ruddy was a missionary priest who returned to his native parish in the late 1920's. He developed a reputation for his ability to cure ailments and prophesise the future, beside cursing those he disagreed with. In recent times, earth from his grave was used as a blessed or curative talisman. The carved wooden pews were made by Cawleys - the local carpenters, and paid for by donations from the parishioners in the 1930's, whose names are now set into the windows of the entrance porch of the chapel. Included there are the names of the last landlord of Moygownagh and his wife; Guy and Kathleen Orme. While Guy Orme was protestant, his wife was a daughter of Lord Killanin of Galway and a Catholic and their three children were raised in their mother's faith. The Orme's thus had a boxed pew at the front of the chapel and attended mass each Sunday. Kathleen Orme donated an organ to the chapel, which was sadly sold off a number of years ago. Now the church serves the parishioners of Moygownagh under their parish priest, Fr. Kelly - who was born only a few miles away in Ballaghamuck.
