Births registered in the Annaghdown townlands of Turloughmore Registration District between 1876 and 1879
Turloughmore Births, 1876-1879
Newsletter 8, Summer 2021
Our Summer 2021 newsletter was printed in July 2021 and distributed at local shops and Corrandulla Post Office. Much of the newsletter focuses on the complex of mills on the Cregg River at Drumgriffin and Aucloggeen. We welcome articles, items of interest, other material and suggestions for future editions.
Corbally / An Corrbhaile
A townland of 222 acres, formerly on the estate of James O’Hara. The population of 28 people in six houses before the Famine dropped to 7 people in one house by 1851, vanishing entirely by 1871.
Shanbally / An tSean Bhaile
A townland of 165 acres in the north-west of the parish. The population declined from 75 people in 13 houses before the Famine to 24 people in three houses by 1851.
Gortroe / An Gort Rua
A townland of 312 acres, which also containing much of the modern village of Corrandulla. The population increased from 123 in 1841 to 141 in 1851, then declined steadily to 59 people in 1911.
St Brendan’s Church, Corrandulla
The foundation stone for St Brendan’s was laid in 1831, under the direction of parish priest Rev. Raymond Hargadon. The building was part of a wave of new churches built throughout the country following the relaxation of the Penal Laws under the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829. The church is actually located in the townland of Carrowbeg South, and replaced a thatched chapel in Corrandulla townland, the ruins of which can be seen in the present cemetery. The site appears to have been supplied by the Blake family of Cregg Castle, who later provided the adjoining site for the Franciscan Monastery and Boys’ School. The church is built to a standard cruciform plan, along an inverted liturgically-correct axis (east to west rather than west to east). It consists of a two-bay double-height nave opening into single-bay transepts centred on the chancel, with a pitched slate roof, and with a single-bay three-stage tower on a square plan attached to the main entrance.
Forty Years at Gort Roe, Corrandulla
I came to Gort Roe in 1971, with my wife Margaretta D’Arcy and our four young sons. We had been living on an island in Loch Corrib, but because of the difficulty of getting the boys to school, we decided to move to the mainland during term-time. Margaretta went into Collerans, the estate agent, saying how much she was prepared to pay for a small house outside Galway that would be near a bus stop and near a shop. “Why, we have just the thing!” We could walk right into it that very day. Danny Griffin, shopkeeper in Wood Quay, had bought the house from the Cahills whose farmhouse it had been until they built a new bungalow next door. Mrs Griffin unfortunately had become ill so their dream of retirement into a cottage in the country was dashed.
How Far Back Can We Go?
Was Annaghdown parish populated during the time of Brian Boru and if so did the inhabitants ever hear of the great king? Well we know that St Brendan and St Briga with their communities lived in Annaghdown long before the times of Brian the brave. Dare we enquire how far back in time we can go regarding human habitation in this parish? We hit the jackpot way back in 1934 though few people knew about the discovery then, and perhaps not many know about it today. Remain in ignorance no longer for this is how it happened. At that time the local farmers were forced to try a variety of means available to them to eke out a living on their small holdings of land – not only by raising stock but by such enterprises as cultivating sugar beet or by selling turf, cabbages or potatoes. During the month of November 1934 potatoes were selling at 4d. per stone, butter at 1 shilling a lb., eggs at 2s. 6d. a score, hay at 25 shillings a cwt. while two year old heifers and bullocks would realise 46 each.
The Galway Peace Resolution of 1920
One hundred years ago at the end close of 1920, tensions were high across Ireland. November was a bloody month, with British Crown Forces intensifying their campaign of terror. The murder of Eileen Quinn from Kiltartan near Gort, a pregnant mother of four children, followed by the abduction and murder of Fr. Michael Griffin in Galway shocked the world. This was followed by `Bloody Sunday’ in which twenty individuals identified as British agents by Michael Collins and his comrades were targeted and fifteen killed. In revenge for these deaths, Auxiliaries and Black and Tans killed at least fourteen and injured dozens in and around Croke Park that afternoon. At the same time, two high-ranking IRA officers, Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy, as well as Clareman Conor Clune were being tortured by Auxiliaries in Dublin Castle. They had been picked up the night before having been betrayed by an informer. Their bodies were found the next day battered, bayoneted and shot to death. It was a big blow to the IRA, but morale was boosted a week later when at Kilmichael, Co. Cork, the 3rd West Cork Brigade ambushed an Auxiliary convoy, killing seventeen. On 29 November, possibly the most gruesome act of the conflict occurred with the abductions and brutal murders of the Loughnane brothers of Shanaglish near Gort by the Auxiliary Division of the RIC.
Cornelius Lundie of Tomnahulla
In Griffith’s Valuation for the townland of Tomnahulla (mid 1850s), Cornelius Lundie is shown as the occupier of 617 acres, 2 roods, and 1 perch. He was born in the Manse, Kelso, Scotland on 29 May 1815, the eldest son of Rev. Robert Lundie (Parish Minister) and Mary Grey. He was educated privately and at the age of 14 years was apprenticed to an engineer. He attended classes in physical and mathematical science at both Glasgow and Edinburgh universities during several winter sessions while working during the summers in the shops of a country millwright at Kelso. In 1832 his father died and he secured employment with Charles Atherton at the works of the Broomielaw Bridge over the river Clyde from the designs of Thomas Telford. In 1836 he took charge of the Clarence Railway, part of the North-Eastern railway system in Durham where he remained for three years. He married Elizabeth Mould from Merrington, Durham on 9 April 1839.