Béal Átha An Ghaorthaidh
This is
the text of the first book on the history of
Ballingeary. It was written by Fr. Donnchadh Ó
Donnchadha and published in 1922
The
There are 107 townlands
in that part of the Parish that is in the Barony
of
I have
another trade of living if the potatoes don't
come (fail)
The hound
and the green, and may it bring a lot with it,
The cock
and the partridge dropping down
And the
ducks and the drakes on Muing Na Biorraighe.
In the bed of the river
there are large stones and high rocks on the
banks of the stream. There is a bridge on the
Bun Sileann at the head of the village and it is
from that that "The Bridge" was the name of the
village among the old people. The old road from
Macroom to Bantry went this way, thence west
across the new road and along the old boreen at
the back of the forge. At the place where it
struck the bank of the Lee to the west of Drom
An Ailthigh there was a crossroads. There was a
ford on the Lee there, where the road continued
westward to Bantry. Northwards the other road
continued about a half-mile, across the stream
and westwards over Cnoc An Earbaill in the
direction of Guagán.
There was an old thatched
chapel in Ballingeary a long time ago and it was
presumably this fact
and the high road where two rivers met
was probably the reason why houses were built
there, and eventually a village developed there.
Drom An Ailthigh is a rough and wild townland.
There are 328 acres there but scarcely any of
the land is economically workable. Potatoes and
oats and vegetables are the most cultivated in
that sort. In 1766 there were only four houses
in the whole townland. The following are the
householders and their households, Daniel
O'Leary, seven; Matthew Ring, six; William
O'Harrihan, five; and another Daniel O'Leary,
five. In
the course of years the village grew. In 1821
there were 16 houses in the town, though some of
these were farmers' houses that were outside the
village.
These are the
householders of every house;
Denis O'Leary, laborer,
eight; Denis Managan (Manning), blacksmith,
five; Cormac Walsh, eight; Andrew Foley, farmer
and weaver, seven; Richard Walsh, farmer, six;
Michael Lehane, farmer, three; Nora Hurley,
widow, four; Denis O'Mahoney, farmer, nine;
Timothy Lehane, laborer, eight; Sioban Lehane,
widow, two; Patrick Cotter, farmer, eight;
Timothy O'Mahoney, farmer, ten; Sean 0'Sullivan,
laborer, eight; John O'Leary, laborer, five;
John Ring, farmer, eight; Thomas O'Leary,
four.
At this time the village
ran along by the old boreen facing south. Then
the new road from Macroom to Bantry was built -
The Prince of Wales Way as it was called. It was
James Barry (I747-l832) - The Big Barry as he
was called - from Kilbarry, east of Inchigeela
that made the road. He was collector and High
Sheriff of the country. Captain Hedge and Lord
Bantry had the road made. The bridge on the
river was built about 50 yards north of the old
ford and the new road crossed the bridge and
along the western side of the river till it met
the old road. It crossed the old boreen and
continued westwards by the Lee in the direction
of Bantry.
The new village was built
on both sides of the road along the Bun Sileann.
But there are a couple of houses and a lot of
ruins still along the old boreen westwards where
the old village was. About l84O the Canalltons
(Cearbhallthánaigh) and Captain Mitchell were
the landlords of the town.
They leased to one tenant alone for three
lives, that is generations, (99 years) and he in
turn leased to 15 tenants. Seven of them later
had farms of land, the rest had small houses; 67
pounds rent they got from them. A change of
fortune befell the landlords.
The place went before the Count of the
Chancellor and the Grehans from Banteer took
control of the place.
They had a lawyer, Terry by name.
There were 26 houses in Drom An Ailthigh
in 1881.
There were 143 people living in the
village.
Then 79 pounds, 5 shillings was the value
of the houses and the land that same year.
There are 23 houses
in the village today
(1922) with 100 people living in them.
The people of the village pay rent to the
farmers on whose land their houses are built.
The old people there now
remember when there was only very few houses in
the village and both? of them were thatched
houses. In 1842 there was only one tavern there.
It was at the head of the street facing the
bridge and Mrs. Cronin was the owner. Sometime
before 1850 William Shorten opened another
tavern beside that house on the south side. The
Cronins got out of the business a short while
before that. The other tavern is still there,
Benjamin Shorten being in residence. He is a
grandson of old William Shorten and a brother to
George Shorten who wrote the song, "Den Capallin
Bán". There is reference in the book, ‘The
Felon’s Track’ by Michael Doheny to the good
treatment received by James Stephens and himself
for a couple of nights at the tavern when they
were on the run.
There was an old thatched
chapel in Ballingeary before l824.
It was
in a field at the corner of the Street between
the road of the village and the old boreen
(behind Forge - Ed.). It is still called
"Paircín An Seipéil". There is the track of the
gap on the ditch of the old boreen where the
people came into the chapel.
There is nothing left of the old chapel
except a couple of corner stones. It is hard to
make out what size it was, most probably it was
40 feet long and 20 feet wide. The walls were
not high; a person standing on the ground
beside the chapel could reach the roof with his
hand. The door was at the east end and the altar
at the west end. Once a fortnight Mass was held
there.
When Father Diarmuid
0'Houlihan (1815-1864) came to the Parish he
noticed that the chapel was not suitable for the
people and he planned to build a new chapel for
them. The landlords donated the land to him.
Stones and slates were available in the quarry
in Oilean
Eidhneach, a townland adjacent to Drom An
Ailthigh on the southern side of the Lee.
The chapel was begun in 1824. That was
the beginning of the Chapel that is there now.
The Chapel is built in the form of a Cross,
though in the beginning only the branches were
built. It faced south.
It is 72 feet long and 24 feet wide. The
door was on the north side and the altar on the
south side.
There were six windows, four on each side
and a window on each gable.
The south wall was damp and slate was put
on it outside for protection against the rain.
There was a small house at the back of the
sanctuary with a door going to the Altar.
About 30 years after that
the south wall was taken down and the middle
aisle of the chapel was built along the side of
the road.
The old door was closed and three new
ones put in, one in each branch on the eastern
side and a door in the north side of the middle
aisle on the northeast corner. The windows on
the old part were closed except those on each
gable and three big windows were put in on the
new aisle, one in each side and one on the
gable. The altar was changed and placed in the
center of the west wall of the Chapel. The new
part is of the same length and width as the old
part.
A gallery was erected at
the end of the chapel. There were four pillars
under it in a straight line across, behind the
door. People went up on the gallery from this
door. There were 10 seats in each side of the
gallery and though the gallery is not there now
some of the seats are at the end of the Chapel.
There was a rail surrounding the Altar and from
within it one went to the little house at the
back of the Chapel. Beside the rail, outside
and on the north side, was situated the
Baptismal Font. The Chapel cost £500 pounds. The
people paid for it.
When Father Patrick
Hurley (1888-1908) came to the Parish he began
to make improvements to the Chapel. He built a
porch around each door. Each of them is nine
feet long, eight feet wide and seventeen feet
high. There is a small Gothic window in each
porch and a Holy Water Font on the sill of each
window. Each window is 1 foot 9" wide and 7'7"
high. The Holy Water Font is 1'7" wide and 5" in
depth. The letters I.H.S. are on each font.
There are two half-doors on each porch and two
more going into the Chapel. Besides that the
field behind was taken away at the back of the
Chapel and the west wall of the Chapel was taken
down and the Altar was erected further back
inside the new wall of the Chapel. Two small
houses were erected outside the Sanctuary on the
south side, one within and the other without,
with a door to enter them by the altar. Each one
of them is 14' long and 12' wide. Three stained
glass windows were placed in back of the Altar.
On the south window is an image of St. Finbar,
the crozier in his hand and the bishop's miter
on his head. This is written at the base of the
window,
"St. Finbar, pray for Sarah Sutherland by whom
this window was given. A.D. 1889."
She was
the wife of an Irish merchant from
Besides this Father
Patrick Hurley bought new seats for the chapel.
He took out the gallery, built a new small room
for the Baptismal Font at the end of the Chapel
on the southeast corner. There is a nicely
ornamented door leading into this room from the
Chapel. One of the McCarthys, a carpenter in the
village, made the door. The old Font was taken
east to the Parish Priest's house. A new rail
was placed around the Altar, also. In the middle
of the rail a brass plate has this written;
Presented by Stephen
Grehan, Esq. of Banteer, who also gave the site
of this Church A.D.
1889.
There is an old vessel in
the small house (Sacristy) that was used as the
Lavabo Plate in the Chapel. In the middle of the
plate there is an image of King William III on
horseback; at the base of the image is written,
"William III No Surrender". Around the
plate, written by the margin is this writing:
"This
emblem of intolerance was used for many years as
a ‘Lavabo’ in Ballingeary Chapel, Co.
The Stations of the Cross
are in Gaelic. At each station the colored
figures stand out. On
A Catholic from
"I think
he was received into the Church in 1904.
He was then at Barrow, apprentice
engineer at Vickers Shipbuilding works. I fancy
he remained there about eighteen months. It was
the priest at Ulverston, a small town about nine
miles from Barrow, who instructed and received
him. In appearance Brandreth was a medium
height, of tough-looking build, rather aquiline
features, short stubby red hair. He had a jerky,
emphatic way of speaking. His humour was of the
quiet kind. He was very devout, and his
interest in Liturgy was not the indulgence of a
mere aesethic taste, but the natural expression
of a soul whose unconscious motto was •sentire
cum Ecclesia1 He was very proud of having so
many friends among the clergy secular and
regular. He was a great motor-cyclist, and was
devoted to his cycle, which he made use of in
his pilgrimages to visit Cathedrals and
Churches. Looking back now, I would compare him
to some Damask blade of fine temper; he was
usually quiet and reserved -at rest in his
scabbard, so to speak; but at the right moment,
he would flash forth with a cut and thrust and
slash-though there was no cruelty or
aggressiveness about him.
The Chapel was
completely finished by Easter 1889. Easter
Sunday, April 8th, the Chapel was blessed and
placed under the protection of St. Finbars and
St. Ronan. About four miles west of Ballingeary
is Guagán Barra where St. Finbarr is said to
have had his cell long ago. And a little less
than a half-mile east of the village and beside
the new road in the Cill Mór is the ‘Cillín
Leasa Rónáin’ that was under the protection of
St. Ronan. Therefore it was fitting that the
new Chapel be blessed in honor of St. Finbarr
and St. Ronan.
There is a beautiful
Altar in the Chapel. It is a marble Altar and
there is a slat of gray marble on the table of
the Altar. There are four supports under the
column in the center above the tabernacle. There
is an ornamented silver chalice be longing to
the Chapel. This inscription is at its base,
"Ballingeary Chapel 1883". Besides this
there are two silver ciborium there. On one of
them which is ornamented there is written on
the edge of the base,
"Ora pro
anima Conelius O'Leary P.P. qui obiit, 1913,
R.I.P.".
On the other one which is
not ornamented there is this inscription on the
edge of the base,
"Ora pro
anima Cornelius O'Leary, Parochi, Obiit 1913,
R.I.P.".
Father O'Leary was Parish
Priest in Uibh Laoire from 1908 to 1913. He left
the two silver vessels in a will to the Chapel
of Ballingeary.
New Schools
Together with the Chapel,
the old
priest, Fr. Diarmuid 0'Houlihan, built a new
school in 1820. The school was built in the
Chapel yard, to the south and beside the road of
the village. It was 45 feet long and 14 feet
wide. The slate was taken from the .quarry in
Oileán Eidhneach
. When the Board of
Education was established in 1831 they paid 17
pounds a year to the master and the school
children paid him some money too. In 1840 there
were up to 132 pupils, between boys and girls.
The pupils were getting larger in number and the
parish priest noticed there was not enough room
in the old school and he undertook to build a
new one for the boys. He asked the land from an
English farmer by name of Williams, who lived in
Cill Mhór that time. He refused him. He filled
in the bed of the river and it was raised and
the school was built opposite the old school on
the eastern side of the road of the village
(1845). Mr. Healy was the first master. He was a
Kerryman. It appears he was from Derrynane. A
big kind strong man he was. The year of the
famine he went to
The boy's school was
taken down and in 1898 a new one was built in
the same place. Father Patrick Hurley, a nephew
of the old priest, built the school. It is a big
school. There is a large room and a small room
in it. The girls remained in the old school till
a new one was built for them in 1887, east of
the bridge at the corner of Cill Mór at the
Crossroads. The old school was used as a hall by
the people of the district till the Coláiste Na
Mumhan was established in 1904.
Before the College was
opened, a place for teaching was sought. They
found a place. The east wall of the old school
was knocked down and 10' were added to the
school and a new roof was put on the school. Fr.
Hurley directed the work. Doors were placed in
the middle of the school inside, dividing the
large room into two. There are double doors
entering the College from the road of the
village and above them is written "Coláiste
Múinteórachta Na Mumhan". This school was the
College till the new College was built in 1914.
The old College is used as a hall now by the
people of the place.
Coláiste Na Mumhan
The new College is an
iorn-clad building. It is situated about 100
yards west of the village by the side of the new
road. There are wooden planks under the steel
inside. There is a very large room with a stage
at the eastern end and two small houses behind
the stage. Two folding doors can be drawn across
the room, making three divisions when classes
are in progress. There is a door at the west
end, another on the east side, and two doors
entering the porch on the south side. The
windows are on the south and north sides. There
is a large door on the porch on the east side
and another on the west side and a large window
on the south side. At the base of this window
outside is the foundation stone on which the
following writing appears,
"An tAthair Peadar Ó
Laoghaire, Canónach, do chuir A.D. 1914".
Father Richard
Daly, D.D. collected the money to build the new
College and Father James O'Leary, P.P. from 1913
to 1920 directed the work. Coláiste Na Mumhan
was the first College for the Irish language
Colleges established in
The RIC and the last
Eviction in Ireland
Up to very lately there
was another house in Ballingeary that was the
barracks. The
British Police came there in 1894. There was
strife concerning a farm of land in Inse An
Fhosaidh, a neighboring townland to Drom An
Ailthigh, during that year. The police came and
stayed. They took the Hotel of John Shorten who
lived in the tavern opposite. It was called "The
Bungalow Hotel". Here the gentry people
traveling the road from Macroom to Bantry used
to stay and get a fine meal for themselves and
their horses. Here the police settled down. The
first man in charge of the barracks was an
O'Neill.
In 1906 life was rough
for the police. Tuesday, July 24th, the
landlord, Grehan, evicted Diarmuid O'Mahony, and
put a man named Simpson in charge of the place.
Dermot O'Mahony had a neat hospital house on the
side of the road at the western end of Drom An
Ailthigh on the road from the
The police came again,
early in the morning a week afterwards and
evicted Dermot 0'Mahony again and placed a man
named McDavid in charge of the place. They left
three policemen, of the Curtain family, in
charge to watch over him. On the following
Sunday, the 26th of August, a public meeting was
called in the field on the south side of the new
road, east of the bridge of Inse An Fhosaig, to
protest the eviction. There were a lot of people
there. It was agreed to attempt to put the
watchmen out and to reinstate Dermot 0'Mahony.
There were a lot of police there, armed. An
attack was made on the house and the battle
began. A few were hurt, among them a policeman
of the Curtins. The police eentered the house
and got their guns and they fired a few shots.
This scattered the crowd. Six prisoners were
taken after the day. They were brought before
the Justice in Macroom and having entered their
plea they were remanded on bail to the winter
sessions.
The police continued
their search for the others of whom they were
suspicious and in February they arrested four
more. They were brought before the Justice in
Macroom and they were remanded on bail for eight
days. One of the policemen was sick and that
left them free. The other prisoners were put on
trail at the winter sessions in
During this time other
people were arrested. Some of them were fined
and some of the women of the place who helped
the men were fined also. But shortly, the
landlord realized there was no good trying to
oppose the people and the other landlords agreed
likewise. Father Timothy Murphy was the parish
priest in Uibh Laoire that time. He arbitrated
between the sides and did so very well. Four
other prisoners were taken on
Life was good for
the
police till 1920. The government had
contemplated relinquishing
small
barracks. Besides, they feared that if the
barracks were attacked, at night when help would
be hard to come by, that it would be taken with
its contents. Besides, though the previous
attack failed there was no guarantee that it
would not be taken the next time. On a certain
day then, the police departed. That same night
the barracks was burned. A man by the name of
Appleby was the last man in charge of the
barracks.
Father James O'Callaghan
who was murdered in
Father Conchur O'Leary
was the Parish Priest in Uibh Laoire at the time
and his health was not too good. When Fr.
O'Leary died in 1913, Father O'Callaghan was
transferred to Ballingeary to be curate there.
He worked zealously for the Faith and for the
Country, and on behalf of the language. He was
the Local Secretary of Coláiste Na Mumhan. He
was transferred to
Here is the poem Donál Ó
Laoire from Inchigeela composed in praise of
Coláiste Na Mumhan.
There is a
And a holy priest teaches
there
A blood brother of Máire
Ní Laoghaire
She is the flower and
branch of the authors
She composed verses
That the scholars and
authors loved to read
And over the seas they
desired very strongly
That they might awaken
her voice.
Father Daly who came to
us from overseas,
I wish you courage and
enthusiasm
God be with you, while
reading the Passion
And the Kindly Maker
direct you
It was the scholars that
helped us that day
To chase the bailiffs
away,
It is my regret that they
did not leave Terry stretched prone
As *Smith was on his
belly on the top of *Diuchoill.
In the Parish of Uibh
Laoire are the bravest men
Under the sun by all
accounts
Put Terry and his
followers and strong forces
In every dike, their
pulse exhausted.
The bugles were blowing
loud in the hillside
And thousands coming to
our aid
Let us put the flock at
once out of
And drowning of the
stormy seas to them.
I have heard it said that
the prophets said
That Luthers offspring
would fall,
That then fine houses and
white walls
Would be under
waterfalls, jackdaws and curlews.
That the children of one
great hero would yet be important
Hunting in splendor
enthusiastically
Dancing in the clean
boards with gracious ladies
Drinking punch from the
table.
The Milesian Clan have
ever been harassed
And the gallows and rope
given to them
And it was thought by the
powers and by the holy prophets
That their term of life
was ended.
The skies will tremble
above the ocean
With shooting of bullets
and powder
And
As it was promised by
these accounts.
*Dr, Daly is related to
Mary Leary, the poetess, Maire Buí she is
called. She was of the clan of Leary Buine (Fair
O'Learys)
*An English soldier was
killed in the Battle of Ceim An Fhia in 1822.
John
Smith was his name.
*Diuchoill is near Ceim
An Fhia