The old courthouse in Kinvara has a connection with the arts since the 1860s

The old courthouse in Kinvara, Co Galway … standing for two centuries and now an arts centre (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

The Old Courthouse in Kinvara, Co Galway, is now home to Kinvara Area Visual Arts (KAVA), run by a committee representing local volunteers. The Georgian building has been used as a performance space as well as a courthouse since the 1860s, and dates back to ca 1820-1840.

The building has been described as ‘an almost vernacular version of the courthouse type.’ It has a symmetrical façade flanked by doors at either end. The tooled limestone surrounds and plinth course add an element of grandeur to what is otherwise quite a simple building.

This is a detached five-bay, single-storey building, with a hipped slate roof with cut limestone eaves. The roughcast rendered walls have a tooled limestone plinth course. The square-headed door openings at the end bays of the front elevation have tooled limestone surrounds, keystones and plinth blocks, and timber battened doors. There are rendered steps at the entrances. The round-headed window openings in the middle bays have tooled limestone sills and replacement timber windows.

The poet and songwriter Francis Arthur Fahy (1854-1935), whose songs include ‘Galway Bay,’ was born in Kinvara and produced his first play, The Last of the O’Learys, in the courthouse in Kinvara. It was performed by the local dramatic society in aid of the dependents of Fenian prisoners in 1869.

Fahy was born at Kinvara, the son of Thomas Fahy, who came from the Burren area in Co Clare, and Celia Marlborough from Gort, Co Galway. He wrote ‘Galway Bay’ while living in London, and his other songs include ‘The Bog Road’ and ‘The Ould Plaid Shawl.’

The courthouse was also used to lay out corpses, particularly the bodies of people who died of unnatural causes in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Petty Sessions were held there until 1920, when the original building was almost completely demolished in an attack by a group of local nationalists.

The courthouse was eventually rebuilt and District Court sittings took place there from 1926 until 2008. It also accommodated a community playschool from 1980, which ran alongside the district court sittings. The playschool moved to new purpose-built premises in 2009, and since then the building has been a venue for wide variety of events, including use as a solicitor’s office and housing the Kinvara Youth Project from 2010 to 2015.

The courthouse became the home of KAVA in 2015, with the support of the Kinvara Community Council and the Parish Council. Since opening the courthouse as a community art gallery and art space, KAVA has revitalised the building.

Francis Fahy’s version of ‘Galway Bay’ is hardly as well-known as Arthur Colahan’s song, written in Leicester and popularised by Bing Crosby in 1947. But as I came down the hill from the courthouse to the harbour in Kinvara and looked out onto Galway Bay, I wondered how many of the poor tenants of Kinvara who faced eviction by Henry Comerford after he bought the Kinvara estate from Sir William Gregory (1816-1892) in 1857 ended up in Kinvara Courthouse.

Looking out onto Galway Bay from the harbour in Kinvara (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The romantic ruins of Muckinish Castle in the Burren, overlooking Galway Bay

Shanmuckinish Castle, or Muckinish Castle, is a ruined tower house in Drumcreehy, Co Clare, not far from the churchyard with Henry Comerford’s mausoleum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

When I was searching recently for Comerford family houses and graves in Kinvara, Co Galway, and Ballyvaughan, Co Clare, I stopped on the road between both locations to admire the ruins of Shanmuckinish Castle, or Muckinish Castle, a ruined tower house in Drumcreehy parish, Co Clare, not far from the churchyard with Henry Comerford’s mausoleum.

The name Muckinish comes from the Irish meaning ‘pig island,’ but the castle ruins stand in a romantic location halfway between Kinvara and Ballyvaughan, on the narrowest part of a small peninsula on the northern edge of the Burren, looking out onto Galway Bay.

Shanmuckinish was also known for a time as Ballynacragga Castle. It sits on a narrow part of an isthmus jutting into Pouldoody Bay and once had a strategic position. The castle was built by the O’Loughlin family ca 1450. However, the exact date of its original construction is unknown.

The castle is first mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters in 1584 when Turlough, son of Owny, son of McLoughlin O’Loughlin, owner of the castle, was taken prisoner and later put to death.

Muckinish Castle was inhabited until the 19th century by members of the O’Loghlen, Neylon and Blake families. The castle was repaired around 1836, and it was still habitable in 1897.

Today, the tower house represents the ruins of a square-plan, single-bay, four-storey rubble stone-built tower house, ca 1450. It reaches almost to its original height of around 17 metres and is partially collapsed, exposing a cross-sectional view of the interior floors. The stairways have not survived.

The striking ruins of Muckinish Castle stand off the road between Kinvara and Ballyvaughan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The striking castle ruins, with their magnificent views over Pouldoody Bay and Galway Bay, stand off the road between Kinvara and Ballyvaughan. From the road, the castle appears intact, but only the south wall is complete. The ruins stand tall over the bay and it is possible to look inside at the ground floor through one of the windows.

Parts of the east and west wall remain, while the coastal north wall has completely fallen into a pile of rubble that prevents exploring the lower floors on that side.

From the shore, it is possible to see partially demolished arches and hanging vaults above the first and third floors. But it is sad to see huge blocks of masonry in the shoreline rubble.

However, the ruin still features the remains of two vaulted ceilings, intra-mural passages and stairs. The lower windows are defensive loops, while the upper floors feature larger decorative windows.

A bawn wall survives and is in relatively good repair due to repair work in the 18th and 19th centuries. The first floor reception room had a large fireplace in the west wall and some of the internal wall rendering can still be seen. The house also has a wall walk and two of the original four machicolations survive.

Below a machicolation that juts out from the parapet is a three-light mullioned window that may have been inserted in the 17th century. All other windows are single narrow slits and may be original work. The parapet on the east wall projects from the wall with corbels, but these features are not repeated on the south or west walls.

It is hard to miss this ruined castle off the coast road between Kinvara and Ballyvaughan. A laneway provides access from the main road, and new holiday homes beside the ruins make it easy to find parking.

A three-light mullioned window below a machicolation that juts out from the parapet may have been inserted in the 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Stopping in Ballyvaughan, Co Clare, to see the Church of Saint John the Baptist

The Church of Saint John the Baptist, on Lisdoonvarna Road, Ballyvaughan, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

During my recent ‘road trip’ through Co Galway and Co Clare earlier this month, after visiting the Comerford Mausoleum at Drumcreehy, near Ballvaughan, Co Clare, I stopped to visit the Church of Saint John the Baptist, the Roman Catholic Church on Lisdoonvarna Road, Ballyvaughan.

Ballyvaughan is on the north side of the Burren, looking out onto Galway Bay. Saint John the Baptist, Ballyvaughan, and Saint Patrick’s Church, Murrough, Fanore, are united in one parish in the Kilfenora Deanery of the Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora. The parish is an amalgamation of the former parishes of Drumcreehy, Gleninagh, Kilonaghan and Rathborney.

The Church of Saint John the Baptist in Ballyvaughan was built and twice rebuilt after damaging storms in the period 1858-1866.

The foundation stone was laid by Bishop Fallon in 1858. The church was knocked down in 1862 and again in 1863. The parish priest, Father Forde, then went to Australia to collect money for rebuilding Saint John’s and he managed to complete the church in 1866.

This Gothic Revival church was designed by the Dublin architect Michael Brophy Moran, whose only known works are Catholic churches.

Michael Moran was admitted to the Royal Dublin Society’s School of Drawing in Architecture in 1847. He was a son of Michael Moran, builder and slater, of 15 John Street West, Dublin. The house was next to the Augustinian church in John Street, which may explain why Moran was commissioned to design the Augustinian churches in Drogheda and Galway.

He was also one of the 13 entrants in the competition to design Rathgar Presbyterian church in 1860, and he also designed two churches for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Melbourne in Australia.

Moran worked from 15 John Street West (1855-1856), 140 Saint Stephen’s Green West (1857), 3 Castlewood Avenue, Rathmines (1860-1863) and 20 Belgrave Road, Rathmines (1864-1865). However, after 1865, he no longer appears in Thom’s Directory.

A new marble altar and communion rail were erected in the church in Ballyvaughan in 1938, and the walls and floor of the sanctuary were finished in mosaic. A general renovation of the nave, roof and tower was carried out in 1942, and the church was given a new roof in 1985.

The Church of Saint John the Baptist, Ballyvaughan, was designed by the Dublin architect Michael Brophy Moran (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Saint John’s is a double-height Gothic Revival church, with eight-bay side elevations, a gable-fronted three-bay chancel, a two-bay single-storey sacristy anda two-stage entrance tower and spire. The church has a pitched concrete tile roof with gable copings, finials and cast-iron downpipes. There is a cut-limestone spire with lucarnes, snecked limestone walls with stepped buttresses, a string course, eaves dentils and some hood mouldings. There are pointed arch windows with cut-limestone dressings and cast-iron quarry clear and coloured glazing. Retaining interior features.

The graveyard has a number of cut-stone grave markers, and there are cut-stone piers at the front with cast-iron gates and railings.

On my visit two weeks ago, I did not manage to get to see inside Saint John’s Church, which was given a recent facelift when the generosity of an anonymous donor made funds available to install new stained-glass windows.

The Dublin-born artist Manus Walsh, who has been living in Ballyvaughan for more than 40 years, was approached by local parish priest, Father Richard Flanagan, with a view to designing the new stained-glass windows.

The older stained-glass windows were in complete disrepair, and PVC plain glass windows were totally out of place.

The broad theme for the design of the new windows was a reflection on Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si, on care for the common home and the environment. In his work, Manus Walsh incorporated portions of Genesis, the creation and the environment of the Burren. Aria Glass in Cortoon, Galway, helped to bring Manus Walsh’s vision to life, and Marija Kovak, an artist from Serbia, did the painting and leading.

Manus Walsh has worked in the Abbey Stained Glass Studios in Dublin and designed the Michael Green memorial window in Saint John’s, commemorating Michael and Mary Green who founded the Burren College of Art. He has five windows in Galway Cathedral, dating from the 1960s.

Although I did not get inside Saint John’s to see these windows, I was impressed by a notice at the church door:

‘However trying we find Saint Paul’s views on sex or the role of women, his definition of agape (love) is incomparable; that which is patient and kind does not envy others, is not quick to take offence, keeps no score of wrongs, takes no pleasure in the sins of others, delights in the truth. The opposite of love is not hate but indifference, the failure to care, or to care enough. It is a want of imagination, a lack of empathy, an inability or a refusal to see in another human being a creature as frail and as easily hurt as I can be.

‘When someone is troubled, sick or dying, the caring love of people who also know themselves to be vulnerable.’

In the churchyard in Ballyvaughan, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Searching for more family links in Co Clare, and finding another link with Dylan Thomas

The Falls Hotel in Ennistymon … once the family home of the Macnamara family, who laid out the streets of Enistymon, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

In my search last weekend for some more Comerford houses and graves in Co Galway and Co Clare last weekend, I came across some distant but interesting links between the Comerfords of Kinvara and Kilfenora with the Comyn and Macnamara families of Co Clare, and stories that link the Macnamara family with Dylan Thomas, one of the greatest poets of the 20th century.

Henry Comerford (1796-1861), JP, of Merchant’s Road, Galway, and Ballykeel House, Kilfenora, Co Clare, is buried in Drumcreehy churchyard at Bishop’s Quarters, Ballyvaughan, Co Clare. His grandson, Captain Francis O’Donnellan Blake Forster (1853-1912), married Marcella Johnson (1852-1917), in Saint Andrew’s Church, Dublin, on 2 August 1879. She was the eldest daughter of Robert Johnson of Arran View, Doolin, Co Clare, and was described as the heiress of Sir Burton Macnamara.

So I started looking for the links with the Macnamara family, and came across stories about the origins of the Falls Hotel in Ennistymon, gold and silver salvaged from the Spanish Armada, and the writer from Co Clare who married the poet Dylan Thomas.

Quin Abbey, founded by the Macnamara family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Macnamara family is among the oldest families in Co Clare and they presided at the inauguration of the O’Brien Kings of Thomond. The Macnamara territory once included almost all that part of Co Clare east of the River Fergus and south of a line from Ruan to the Shannon. Those Macnamara chiefs were Lords of Clancullen, they founded Quin Abbey for the Franciscan friars, and in 1580 the family had no fewer than 42 castles in Co Clare.

The Macnamaras of Doolin and Ennistymon arrived in North Clare in the mid-17th century, when Teige Macnamara of Ballynacraggy settled in Drumcreehy (Ballyvaughan) in 1659. He married Ann Nugent and Teige and Ann were the parents of seven sons.

Their youngest son, Bartholomew Macnamara (1685-1761), was the ancestor of the Macnamaras of Doolin and Ennistymon. He married Dorothy Brock, daughter of a Mayor of Galway, and their youngest child, Ann, married Laurence Comyn of Kilcorney.

Bartholomew Macnamara was buried in the old church of Rathbourney, near Ballyvaughan. His eldest son, William Macnamara (1714-1762), married Catherine Sarsfield of Doolin, and so the Sarsfield estate eventually passed to the Macnamara family. After William Macnamara died in 1762, his widow Catherine married her second husband, Nicholas Comyn of Kilcorney, ca 1772, continuing the links with the Comyn family.

Dorothy, the youngest daughter of William and Catherine Macnamara, married her cousin David Comyn JP of Kilcorney and afterwards of Bishop’s Quarter. Their son, Peter Comyn of Scotland Lodge, New Quay, caused a political storm when he was hanged at Ennis in 1830 for burning down his house following a dispute with his landlord, Bindon Scott of Cahercon.

Francis Macnamara, the eldest son of William Macnamara and Catherine (Sarsfield), was born in Doolin in 1750. In 1774, Francis married Jane Stamer of Carnelly House, Clarecastle, grand-daughter of Christopher O’Brien of Ennistymon. Jane is said to have ruled over her husband and family with an iron fist. They built Doolin House, but in 1806 moved to Wellpark, near Galway, where he died in 1821.

Francis and Jane Macnamara were the parents of a large family, including: William Nugent Macnamara; George Macnamara; Francis Macnamara of Aran View; and Admiral Sir Burton Macnamara.

Sir Burton Macnamara, the seventh son, had a distinguished career in the Royal Navy. He took part in the Great Lakes campaign in Canada in 1812, and was present in the Ionian islands during the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s. He was a knighted in 1839. Later, he was appointed a vice-admiral, and then a full admiral of the reserve list. In the 1850s, Sir Burton bought a 732-acre estate at Tromora, near Miltown Malbay, and was a popular landlord. He married Jane Gabbett of Limerick, but they had no children.

Three weeks before his death, he had been appointed Deputy Lieutenant for Co Clare in succession to his nephew, Colonel Francis Macnamara who had died earlier that year. Sir Burton died at Merrion Square, Dublin, on 12 December 1876.

A memorial to the Spanish Armada in Spanish Point … Marcella Blake-Forster is said to have inherited gold and silver salvaged from a wreck of the Spanish Armada (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Sir Burton’s brother, Francis Macnamara, was given a farm at Glasha by his father and a sum of £1,000 when he married Marcella O’Flaherty from Aran. Francis and Marcella built a house at Glasha that they named Aran View. Aran View House is now a Georgian country house hotel in Doolin run by the Linnane family.

Marcella is said to have inherited fine gold and silver ornaments salvaged from a wreck of the Spanish Armada. When she died in 1856, they were inherited by her daughter Catherine Macnamara, wife of Robert Johnson JP, who married into Aran View. After Catherine’s death in 1867 the objects passed once more to her daughter – another Marcella – who married Henry Comerford’s grandson, Francis Blake-Foster of Ballykeale House near Kilfenora.

Major William Nugent Macnamara (1775-1856) was the eldest son and heir of Francis Macnamara and Jane Stamer. It was said, ‘He is a Protestant in religion a Catholic in politics, and a Milesian in descent.’ He was born at Doolin and educated at Trinity College Dublin.

Major Macnamara was a major in the Clare militia, a justice of the peace (JP) and in 1799 High Sheriff of Co Clare. He became something of a national figure after Daniel O’Connell selected him as his second in his duel with John d’Esterre in 1816. He was elected MP for Co Clare in 1830 and sat as a Liberal MP for 17 years.

He married Susannah Finucane, daughter and co-heiress of Judge Matthias Finucane (1737-1814) of Lifford House, Ennis, in 1779. Susannah’s mother, Ann O’Brien, was the only daughter of Edward O’Brien of Ennistymon House, and Ennistymon House passed to the Finucane family and later to William Nugent Macnamara’s son, Colonel Francis Macnamara, in 1843.

Major William Nugent Macnamara died in 1856 at the age of 81. His funeral in Doolin was described as the largest ever seen in Co Clare and extended for two miles.

Colonel Francis Macnamara (1802-1873), the major’s only son, was MP for Ennis (1832-1835), and High Sheriff of Co Clare (1839). When he married Helen Mc Dermott, the daughter of a Dublin solicitor, in 1860, he was 58 and she was 35. They moved into Ennistymon House in 1863 and made it their family home. He also carried out an ambitious building scheme in Ennistymon, laying out the streetscape that largely survives to this day.

The Macnamara estate extended to 15,000 acres in 1876, including large swathes of North Clare, some property near Ennis, 16 acres near Galway, and houses in Dublin, Galway, Ennis and Doolin. Francis Macnamara died in London on 26 June 1873.

Colonel Macnamara’s eldest son, Henry Valentine (Henry ‘Vee’) Macnamara (1861-1925), was educated at Harrow and Trinity College Cambridge (BA 1882). He was a justice of the peace (JP) and High Sheriff of Clare (1885). In 1883, Henry Vee married Edith Elizabeth Cooper, an Englishwoman of Australian descent who was described as ‘a formidable and capable woman who knew her rights and exercised them.’

Henry Vee lived at the height of the ‘Land War.’ In the ‘Doolin Cattle Drive’ on 22 September 1908, about 400 people watched as cattle and sheep were driven off his estate and through the streets of Lisdoonvarna. Later, 40 people appeared in court in Ennistymon.

During the War of Independence, Henry Vee and some friends were ambushed near Leamaneh Castle by the IRA in December 1919. During the Irish Civil War, a letter was sent Henry Vee on 27 April 1922, telling him he was a ‘marked man’ and ordering him to leave Ennistymon House. Doolin House, still used as a Macnamara family holiday home, was burned down.

Henry Vee left, never to return to Ennistymon House. He died in London on 30 October 1925. By then, Ennistymon House had become a temporary barracks for the Garda Siochána.

The Cascades at Ennistymon … inspired by the Cascades, Francis Macnamara renamed Ennistymon House the Falls Hotel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Henry Vee Macnamara was the father of three sons and four daughters. Francis Macnamara (1884-1946), the eldest son, was educated at Harrow and Magdalen College, Oxford. In London, he was friends with Augustus John, George Bernard Shaw and WB Yeats, and published a book of poems. In 1907, he married Yvonne Majolier (20), the daughter of a French father and an Irish mother from Co Limerick. They spent part of their honeymoon at Doolin and at Coole Park with Lady Gregory and WB Yeats.

They were the parents of a son, John, and three daughters, Nicolette, Brigit and Caitlin, and Francis was also the father of another daughter named Katherine Patricia (‘Pat’), who was part of the family all her life.

Francis owned a converted Galway hooker, Mary Anne, and is said to have sailed from Doolin to Greece with some of Augustus John’s family as crew. After 10 years of marriage, he left Yvonne and their children for Augustus John’s sister-in-law, Edie Mac Neil, and they were married in 1928.

Francis recovered Ennistymon House in the 1930s, and began to convert it into the Falls Hotel, named after the nearby cascades on the Inagh River. This project was interrupted by Edie’s death, but by 1935 Francis had married his third wife, Geraldine Iris O’Callaghan (22), daughter of Colonel George O’Callaghan-Westropp (1864-1944), a woman less than half his age.

Within a few years, Francis had given up his plans for the Falls Hotel. He moved to a small house in the grounds, and leased the hotel to the O’Regan family, parents of Brendan O’Regan, later identified with Shannon Airport and Duty Free. Francis Macnamara then moved to Dublin, finally living at Sorrento Terrace, Dalkey. He died in Dalkey on 8 March 1946.

Francis Macnamara’s eldest son, Major John Macnamara (1908-1962), married Henriette Buffard, a French woman, and they had no children. After World War II, they moved to the US, where John worked as a civil engineer until Henriette’s death in 1962. He returned to England and died within a month. With his death, the Macnamaras of Doolin and Ennistymon became extinct in the male line.

Nicolette Macnamara (1911-1987) was the eldest of Francis Macnamara’s daughters. She painted under the name Nicolette Macnamara and also wrote six books. In 1931, she married Anthony Devas, who died in 1958. Seven years later, Nicolette married the widowed Rupert Sheppard, Professor of Fine Art in Cape Town University.

Brigit Macnamara (1912-1994) was the second of Francis Macnamara’s daughters. She has been described by friends as ‘a little eccentric,’ and changed her name by deed poll from Macnamara to Marnier. Brigit, who never married, was the mother of two sons, Tobias and Edward. She died in August 1994, just days after her younger sister Caitlin.

Caitlin Macnamara (1913-1994) was the third of Francis Macnamara’s daughters. Caitlin married the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas in Penzance in 1937. They later settled at Laugharne in Carmarthenshire in the ‘Boat House’ overlooking the estuary. This was their home until Dylan Thomas died in New York in 1953 at the age of 39.

Four years after Dylan’s death, Caitlin and their children moved to Rome. There she met Giuseppe Fazio, a Sicilian, in 1957. They never married, and their son Francesco was born in 1963. They moved from Rome to Sicily and lived in a house in Catania owned by Giuseppe’s mother. Their relationship lasted four decades until they died. When Caitlin died in July 1994 at the age of 80, she was brought back to Wales and buried beside Dylan in Laugharne.

Caitlin Thomas was also a published writer. She and Dylan were the parents of two sons, Llewellyn (‘Wellie’) Edouard Thomas (1939-2000) and Colm Garan Hart Thomas (1949-2012), and a daughter Aeronwy Thomas-Ellis (1943-2009), who was a writer and poet in her own right.

After visiting the Comerford, Blake-Forster and Comyn family graves, I returned through Lisdoonvarna to Ennistymon to see the Falls Hotel and the Cascades once again, stopped for coffee in Lahinch, and then watched the sunset at the pier in Fintramore, the ancestral home of Henry Comerford near Spanish Point and Milltown Malbay.

Sunset at the pier in Fintramore, the ancestral home of Henry Comerford near Spanish Point and Milltown Malbay, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Further reading: Michael Mac Mahon, ‘The Macnamaras of Doolin & Ennistymon’, https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/genealogy/don_tran/fam_his/TheMacnamarasofDoolinEnnistymon.pdf

In search of a family mausoleum and finding John Betjeman cycling with Emily in the Burren

Ballyvaughan, the Burren and Galway Bay spread out below Corkscrew Hill in north Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

During the weekend, two of us went in search of some more Comerford family stories in Kinvara, Co Galway, and some Comerford family graves and mausoleums in Ballyvaughan, Co Clare.

Ballyvaughan overlooks Galway Bay and stands as the gateway on the North Clare coast to the Burren. Corkscrew Hill is a narrow road that rises up from Ballyvaughan, on the road on to Lisdoonvarna, bending and folding several steps, and providing breath-taking views back down across Ballyvaughan and out to Galway Bay.

John Betjeman visited the Burren with ‘Emily’ in the summer of 1943, and described the landscape in his poem ‘Ireland with Emily,’ first published two years later in New Bats in Old Belfries (1945).

As I gazed on the Comerford mausoleum in Bishop’s Quarter in Ballyvaughan, I thought too of John Betjeman and his reference to a ‘fantastic mausoleum’ as he recalled cycling along Corkscrew Hill with Emily almost 80 years ago.

John Betjeman and Emily Sears cycled over Corkscrew Hill on a road built to provide work for starving labourers during the Great Famine a century earlier.

His wrote:

Stony seaboard, far and foreign,
Stony hills poured over space,
Stony outcrop of the Burren,
Stones in every fertile place,
Little fields with boulders dotted,
Grey-stone shoulders saffron-spotted,
Stone-walled cabins thatched with reeds,
Where a Stone Age people breeds
The last of Europe’s stone age race.

These words are quoted in a sign at the viewing point near the top of the hill, where I had a vista of the natural amphitheatre carved out by giant ice sheets of ancient ice ages. The ice sheets left behind a fertile valley surrounded by Aillwee Mountain to the east, Cappanwalla Mountain to the west, and opening out onto Galway Bay to the north.

The typical and often contrasting characteristics of the Burren are on view there: bare limestone terraces, fertile fields, dense overgrowth of hazel scrub alongside areas of incredible biodiversity created by traditional farming practices.

There are other literary links too. JRR Tolkien often stayed in Gregans Castle, nestling in the valley below, and many have asked whether he was influenced by this view when he was writing Lord of the Rings.

John Betjeman’s lines on the Burren in ‘Ireland with Emily’ may not be the most comprehensive description of this uniquely valuable area of north-west Clare. But he conveys a sense of the overwhelming bareness of its characteristic limestone landscape.

The ‘soil-less, treeless, waterless’ hills of the Burren also made an impression on Robert Lloyd Praeger. In his classic, The Way That I Went, he wrote: ‘The strangeness of this grey limestone country must be seen to be realised; it is like nothing else in Ireland or in Britain.

According to the Belfast-born environmentalist Gordon D’Arcy, 70 per cent of Ireland’s wild plants grow here in less than 0.5 per cent of Ireland’s land area.

The archaeological heritage of the Burren is also disproportionately large, with evidence of human settlement in the upland area stretching back through 6,000 years. It includes no less than 350 ring forts, notably Cahercommaun, as well as 70 wedge tombs, the highest concentration known, and numerous fulacht fiadha or cooking sites.

John Betjeman’s relationship with Emily Sears did not last that long. He returned to England, and later became Poet Laureate; she later married Ion Villiers-Stuart. ‘They did, however, remain good friends right up to the end of his life,’ according to her ddaughter, Barbara Grubb, who now lives at Dromana House, near Cappoquin, Co Waterford.

‘Ireland With Emily’ by John Betjeman

Bells are booming down the bohreens,
White the mist along the grass,
Now the Julias, Maeves and Maureens
Move between the fields to Mass.
Twisted trees of small green apple
Guard the decent whitewashed chapel,
Gilded gates and doorway grained,
Pointed windows richly stained
With many-coloured Munich glass.

See the black-shawled congregations
On the broidered vestment gaze
Murmer past the painted stations
As Thy Sacred Heart displays
Lush Kildare of scented meadows,
Roscommon, thin in ash-tree shadows, And Westmeath the lake-reflected,
Spreading Leix the hill-protected,
Kneeling all in silver haze?

In yews and woodbine, walls and guelder,
Nettle-deep the faithful rest,
Winding leagues of flowering elder,
Sycamore with ivy dressed,
Ruins in demesnes deserted,
Bog-surrounded bramble-skirted –
Townlands rich or townlands mean as
These, oh, counties of them screen us
In the Kingdom of the West.

Stony seaboard, far and foreign,
Stony hills poured over space,
Stony outcrop of the Burren,
Stones in every fertile place,
Little fields with boulders dotted,
Grey-stone shoulders saffron-spotted,
Stone-walled cabins thatched with reeds,
Where a Stone Age people breeds
The last of Europe’s stone age race.

Has it held, the warm June weather?
Draining shallow sea-pools dry,
When we bicycled together
Down the bohreens fuchsia-high.
Till there rose, abrupt and lonely,
A ruined abbey, chancel only,
Lichen-crusted, time-befriended,
Soared the arches, splayed and splendid,
Romanesque against the sky.

There in pinnacled protection,
One extinguished family waits
A Church of Ireland resurrection
By the broken, rusty gates.
Sheepswool, straw and droppings cover,
Graves of spinster, rake and lover,
Whose fantastic mausoleum,
Sings its own seablown Te Deum,
In and out the slipping slates.

John Betjeman is quoted on a sign at the viewing point near the top of the hill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Finding a Comerford family mausoleum in the Burren in Co Clare

The mausoleum of Henry Comerford in Drumcreehy Churchyard at Bishop’s Quarter, near Ballvaughan, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

I was searching last weekend for some more Comerford family houses and family graves in Kinvara, Co Galway, and Ballyvaughan, Co Clare, at the weekend.

It was a journey along the south coast of Galway Bay and along the northern edges of the Burren, and it eventually took me to Drumcreehy Church, overlooking the tiny bay and beach at Bishop’s Quarter.

Bishop’s Quarter, about 2 km north-east of Ballyvaughan, once had a religious house belonging, perhaps, to the Bishops of Kilfenora. Today, the most prominent features of the landscape in the area are the ruins of Saint Colman’s Abbey or Drumcreehy Church and an attractive little beach backing onto some sandhills, with a sandy pool almost totally enclosed by sand to the rear of the hills.

The beach, with its tidal lagoon, is said to be a good place for swimming or to collect sea shells, and there is a car park close to the shore. Seaweed is still harvested there and left to dry out of the tide’s reach until it is collected.

The mausoleum of Henry Comerford (right) and the ruins of Drumcreehy Church (left) at Bishop’s Quarter, near Ballvaughan, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Drumcreehy Church takes its name from ‘Druimcriche,’ the original church built on a hillside in the territory of Crioch Maille. Today, the church is a picturesque but decaying ruin overlooking the Burren and the southern shoreline of Galway Bay.

The church, like many other religious sites in the area, is associated with Saint Colman and is known locally as Saint Colman’s Abbey, but this seems to be a later association.

Some records suggest the church was founded in 1302 by Drumcruth. Other sources point out that the windows and some aspects of the building may date from the 11th century and may have been integrated into the later design.

The north door, which reflects the style of west doors of the nearby Quin Friary, and the chancel may have only been added in the 15th or 16th century. What we see today, however, is a rubble stone-built, single-cell church that may have been built ca 1500.

Most of the church and its details are now destroyed. It appears the church was already in a very poor state by the 1839 when the ordnance survey letters of John O’ Donovan and Eugene Curry describe the church as ‘five centuries old and in a state of dilapidation.’

The inscription the Comerford mausoleum in Bishop’s Quarter, near Ballvaughan, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

However, burials continued to take place in the surrounding churchyard. The most conspicuous tomb is the mausoleum of Henry Comerford (1796-1861), JP, of Merchant’s Road, Galway, and Ballykeel House, Kilfenora, Co Clare.

Henry died at Ballykeel House on 6 September 1861, and was buried in Bishop’s Quarters Cemetery, Ballyvaughan, Co Clare, with his wife Margaret (McDonagh) Comerford, who died ten years earlier in Salthill, Galway, on 31 August 1851.

Henry Comerford was a prosperous merchant, landowner and magistrate in Galway, but his actions during and after the famine led to infamy.

Henry was the owner of the famine migration ship, St John that sailed from Galway to the US but was wrecked off the coast of Massachusetts on 7 October 1849, leading to 100 deaths.

This was only the beginning of his misfortunes. During the decade immediately after the Famine, emigration continued and economic distress intensified. The migration of tenants and the social upheavalbrought about by the Famine was compounded in the decade that followed by the change of landlords. In 1857, Henry Comerford bought the estates around Kinvara that belonged to the Sir William Gregory, MP for Galway and husband of Isabella Augusta Gregory, better known as Lady Gregory, a key figure in the Irish literary revival and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre.

Henry obtained a bank loan to buy the Gregory estates in Kinvara on the basis of his plans to increase revenue from the lands by raising the rents. Sir William Gregory had a relatively good relationship with his tenants, but Henry set out to double and triple the rents of an already disparate and dwindling community.

In his History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Kilmacduagh, Monsignor Jerome Fahy says after Henry Comerford bought the Kinvara estate, ‘the comparatively short interval of about twenty years witnessed the ruin of over a thousand homesteads in one Parish’.

Another priest, Father Francis Arthur, wrote, ‘The change of landlords for the greatest portion of this place has rendered this one of the most wretched and deplorable parishes in Ireland’. He added that it was impossible to get credit from the merchants of Kinvara as they were ‘bereft of all hope’ after Comerford tried to raise the rents so steeply.

Henry Comerford died at Ballykeel House, Kilfenora, Co Clare, on 6 September 1861. He is buried in the churchyard at Drumcreehy, overlooking Bishop’s Quarter and Galway Bay on one side, and looking across the landscape of the Burren on the other side. It is a monumental statement of his sense of importance in the Kinvara and Ballyvaughan area.

The Comerford coat-of-arms carved on the mausoleum of Henry Comerford in Drumcreehy Churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The Comerford Mausoleum is a single-bay two-storey cut-stone mausoleum, erected ca 1865, with a rusticated underground burial chamber, channelled walls with pilasters above, surmounted by a cut-stone obelisk with a ball finial and surrounded by cast-iron railings.

The inscription reads: ‘Sacred to the memory of Henry Comerford Esqr J.P. who died in the 67[th] year of his age at Ballykeal on the 6th day of Sept[ember] 1861. A fond parent. A faithful friend. A prudent adviser. And in all his dealings just. May the Lord have mercy on his soul. This monument has been erected for him and posterity by his attached and beloved brother Isaac.’

The carved coat-of-arms above the inscription and below the obelisk represents the coat-of-arms of the Comerford family of Co Kilkenny and Co Wexford, blazoned, ‘Azure, a bugle horn argent, stringed gules, between three mullets or. Crest, A peacock in its pride proper. Motto, So Ho Ho Dea Ne.’

The Burren landscape behind Henry Comerford’s mausoleum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Henry Comerford’s grandson, Francis O’Donnellan Blake Forster (1853-1912), and his family, are buried in the lower part of the mausoleum. The plaque at the lower level is inscribed:

‘In loving memory of Francis O’Donnellan Blake Forster, who died June 27 1912, his wife Marcella died June 26 1917, also their children Francis died March 26 1919, O’Donnellan (Donny) died July 7 1938, Mrs Mollie Pearson, died July 16 1939’.

Marcella Blake-Forster was related to the MacNamara family of Ennistymon, and there lies a link with the poet Dylan Thomas. But that’s a story for another day, as is the story of the Comyn family, who are also related to this branch of the Comerford family and who are buried at Drumcreehy Church too.

The small secluded shoreline at Bishop’s Quarter, below Drumcreehy Churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Corpus Christi Church, in the heart of the festival town of Lisdoonvarna

Corpus Christi Church in Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

On the way from Kinvara in Co Galway to Kilfenora in Co Clare, visiting Comerford family homes during this summer’s ‘road trip’, two of us stopped briefly in Lisdoonvarna (Lios Dúin Bhearna), Co Clare.

Lisdoonvarna is a bright and colourful spa town with a population of 739, wide streets, colourfully-decorated pubs and shops, a large number of hotels, and large square in the centre of the town with sculptures of musicians and dancers.

Lisdoonvarna is known for its music and festivals. Although the music festival came to an end in 1983, Lisdoonvarna continues to host a ‘matchmaking’ festival in September.

The matchmaking festival has attracted up to 40,000 people in pre-pandemic times. The music festival is celebrated in Christy Moore’s song Lisdoonvarna.

Inside Corpus Christi Church, Lisdoonvarna, facing west, the liturgical east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Lisdoonvarna is in the Burren, between Ballyvaughan and Ennistymon, and the Aille River flows through the town.

Lisdoonvarna is a comparatively new town by Irish standards, dating mainly from the early 19th century. The spa official opened in 1845, but the town was visited before by people ‘taking the waters.’

But even by the 1880s, there were few facilities in Lisdoonvarna. The wells were privately once owned by the Guthrie family and they were later developed and the baths built by the new owner, Dr WH Stacpoole Westropp, who lived in a house overlooking the spa.

Inside Corpus Christi Church, Lisdoonvarna, facing east, the liturgical west (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

In the Roman Catholic Church, Lisdoonvarna is a parish in the Kilfenora Deanery in the Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora. The parishes of Lisdoonvarna and Kilshanny were amalgamated in the 1980s. The current parish priest is Father Conor Cunningham.

The Church of Corpus Christi in Lisdoonvarna, the main church in the parish, was built in 1868. This is a gable-fronted, single-bay, double-height Gothic Revival church, with single-bay a four-stage tower and spire to the left, a single-bay single-storey chapel and sacristy to the left and eight-bay side elevations.

The church is oriented on a west-east axis, instead of the traditional, liturgical east-west axis, to allow street access directly from Church Street. The six-bay, single-storey flat-roofed side aisle added ca 1900.

The high altar and sanctuary in Corpus Christi Church, Lisdoonvarna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Corpus Christi Church was remodelled ca 1940 and the polygonal former apse was altered for use as an entrance porch, with a cut-stone doorcase. There are pitched slate roofs with vents at the main ridge, and a spire with pyramidal copper sheeting.

Inside, the church has leaded coloured and stained-glass windows, exposed roof beams, a fluted chancel arch, a marble altar and altar railings with brass gates.

The other three churches in the parish are Saint Augustine’s Church in Kilshanny (1894), the Church of our Lady of Lourdes, Toovaghera (1878), and the Church of the Holy Rosary in Doolin (1821), celebrating its bicentenary this year.

A pair of stained-glass windows depicting Saint Colman of Kilmacduagh and Saint Enda of Aran in Corpus Christi Church, Lisdoonvarna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Corcomroe Abbey: the Cistercians’ fertile abbey in the barren Burren

Corcomroe Abbey stands on the edge of the Burren, about 7 km east of Ballyvaughan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

During my visit to the Burrren last weekend, my postings from Kilfenora Cathedral, Ballyvaughan and other places in Co Clare attracted strong recommendations that I should also visit Corcomroe Abbey.

I put the abbey on my to-do list, forgetting that I had visited Corcomroe four years ago. But during the past week I came across my notes from that visit, and the photographs I had taken.

Corcomroe Abbey stands on the edge of the Burren, at the end of a road about 800 meters east of the village of Bellharbour, in a valley about 7 km east of Ballyvaughan.

Corcomroe was founded for Cistercian monks between 1195 and 1210 as a daughter house of Inisloughnaght Abbey, Co Tipperary. It was once known as Sancta Maria de Petra Fertilis (Saint Mary of the Fertile Rock), a reference to the Burren rocks and soil. Although there was no stream at the site, several wells probably provided water to the monastery.

Evidence of earlier religious settlements is found nearby in the deserted churches at Oughtmana, suggesting a long history of church life in the valley.

Corcomroe Abbey was founded by the O’Briens of Thomond and was once known as ‘Sancta Maria de Petra Fertilis,’ ‘Saint Mary of the Fertile Rock’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Some accounts say the abbey was founded by Donal Mór Ua Briain (Donald O’Brien), the patron of a number of other religious foundations in Thomond, who died in 1194. He was also involved in the foundation of other important churches in Thomond, including Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe, Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, and Holy Cross Abbey, Co Tipperary.

Other accounts say Corcomore Abbey was founded by his successor Donough Cairbreach. Architectural evidence indicates the abbey was founded around 1205-1210.

Another local legend says the building was commissioned later by King Conor na Siudane Ua Briain, and that he executed the five masons who completed the abbey to prevent them from building a rival masterpiece elsewhere.

However, the documentary evidence for Corcomroe Abbey is scanty. Because the Cistercians did not engage in extensive pastoral work, few traditions relating to the abbey were maintained in local folklore.

The double sedilia in the chancel at Corcomroe Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The church was built of local limestone in the early 13th century and consists of a nave with an aisle on the south side. There may have been plans to build a similar aisle on the north side of the nave, but this was never completed, perhaps because funds were insufficient. Nothing remains of the cloister arcade, but this abbey was once a magnificent example of the best architecture of its time.

Cistercians were traditionally divided into two parts, the chancel and the nave, separated by a screen. This church is cruciform in plan although the north and south transepts are quite short. There was a chapel in each transept, and a thick nearly-central wall topped by a small tower, built probably in the 14th to 16th century.

At the east end of the church, the chancel has a decorated ribbed vault in the Romanesque style and is lit by three tall lancet windows, with a single lancet window above

The tomb niche with the effigy of Conor O’Brien, King of Thomond, who died in 1268 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The chancel has a highly decorated double sedilia and a tomb niche with the effigy of Conor O’Brien, King of Thomond, who died in 1268, a descendant of the founders and benefactors of the abbey.

Conor O’Brien, or Conor na Siudane Ua Briain, King of Thomond, fought a battle at Siudáine, close to Corcomroe, in 1268. On the battlefield, he was surprised by Conor Carrach O’Loughlain and slain with many of his retainers. His body was retrieved and was buried at Corcomroe by the monks. His tomb is one of the few remaining examples of the tomb an Irish Chieftain. The effigy is believed to be a copy of the figure at Roscommon Friary of Felim O’Conor, who died in 1265.

Where the chancel and transepts meet, several crossing arches feature capitals with carvings of human masks and dragons’ heads and flowers, including poppies, lily-of-the valleys and lotus leaves.

The capitals at the crossing are with carved of human faces (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The west gable has two tall lancet windows over a pointed-arch door.

In 1226, a papal mandate addressed to the Bishop of Kilfenora and the Abbot of Corcomroe shows that the abbey was integrated into the Cistercian network at that time and that the abbot was an important functionary in the local church.

The relationship with the mother-house at Inislounaght came to an end in 1228, and Corcomroe became subject to Furness Abbey in Lancashire. This was part of a move among Cistercians to bring the order’s more remote houses in Ireland under closer control.

In 1227, 1280 and 1287 there were complaints that the abbot of Corcomroe had failed to appear at the Cistercian General Chapter at Citeaux for a long time.

The chancel has decorated ribbed vaulting in the Romanesque style (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In another battle nearby in 1317, involving feuding between the O’Briens and their allies, the abbey was used as a barracks by Dermot O’Brien.

By the end of the 14th century, tis part of the Burren was held by a branch of the O’Cahans (O’Kane or Keane) from Derry, and they became stewards of the abbey lands.

Papal letters in the early 15th century refer to issues around appointments at Kilfenora and Killilagh, and John, the Abbot of Corcomore, became Bishop of Kilmacduagh in 1419.

A figure of a mediaeval bishop with mitre and crozier in the church ruins (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Papal correspondence became more frequent after this time, dealing mainly with local abuses of order, rules notably the ban against marriage. Church dynasties had become quite common in Ireland at that time, and were also present at Corcomroe. Through the 15th century, the abbey and several parishes were controlled by the Tierney family.

The custom of hereditary abbots and the use of abbey resources and lands by powerful families brought about a decline in the fortunes of monasteries. The number of monks fell, monastic churches were reduced in size, and the church in Corcomroe was shortened by 13 meters in the 15th century. There is also evidence that suggests that at the time the monks' dormitory had fallen into disuse.

With the dissolution of the monastic houses at the Reformation, Corcomore Abbey and its lands were granted in 1554 to Murrough O’Brien, Earl of Thomond. For some time, the monks tried to continue to tend the fields and to maintain their presence in the area.

Titular abbots continued to be appointed for almost a century after the Reformation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daniel O’Griffy of Dysert O’Dea was appointed the ‘commendatory abbot’ or titular abbot of Corcomroe in 1625. John O’Dea, a monk of Salamanca, was appointed the last titular abbot in 1628.

The property is last mentioned in the O’Brien family papers in 1702, when they were mortgaged by William O’Brien (1662-1719) to Donat O’Brien of Dromoland.

A late addition is the neo-classical tomb of ‘O’Loughlin King of the Burren Family Tomb,’ dating from the late 18th or early 19th century. It is in the floor in front of the niche with Conor O’Brien’s tomb.

The church is largely intact, but few traces remain of the domestic buildings. Parts of the high wall surrounding the five acre monastery precinct can still be seen.

Tthe Office of Public Works acquired the ruins in 1879, and today Corcomore Abbey is a popular place to visit on day tours through the Burren.

Corcomroe Abbey was brought back to life several years ago with a Dawn Mass on Easter morning initiated by the late John O’Donoghue, author of Anam Cara.

The lancet windows at the East End of the chancel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

From island hopping in Doolin to the drama of the Cliffs of Moher

Flowers try to burst through the rocky Burren landscape at the harbour in Doolin, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

As we drove through the rugged scenery of the Burren district in north Co Clare, Galway Bay was constantly in view, and as we moved on to see the Cliffs of Moher it was inevitable that we would end up at Doolin, a popular departure point for the Aran Islands and also the village that is at the heart of Irish traditional music.

Doolin is a seaside village on the north-west coast of Co Clare, surrounded by the rugged in Burren district and facing out to the Aran Islands and the Atlantic Ocean.

Doolin was once a fishing village, but today it is a base for exploring the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren. It is a busy place in these summer months, with people catching ferries to the Aran Islands or boarding boats for tours of the Cliffs of Moher.

Doolin is also at the heart of Irish traditional music, with a reputation built on the work of musicians like Micho Russell and continuing in the live music and spontaneous singing in pubs and bars. But the range of restaurants, shops and accommodation makes Doolin popular all year round.

Doolin also offers many activities ranging from sea angling, caving and scuba diving to pitch and putt, rock climbing and hill walking. Doolin is also surfing destination, and a break that generates Ireland’s biggest wave, Aill na Searrach, is just off the Cliffs of Moher.

There are many archaeological sites nearby, some dating to the Iron Age or earlier. Doonagore Castle and Ballinalacken Castle are also in the area.

Most of the activity in Doolin takes place in the original areas of Fisher Street and Roadford. In fact, Doolin is scattered village, comprising four parts:

The harbour at Doolin is busy with boat trips to the Aran Islands (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The harbour at Doolin is the departure point for boat trips to the Aran Islands and the Cliffs of Moher.

Fisher Street has a pub and several shops and hostels.

Fitz’s Cross has a hostel, campsite, hotels and a pub.

Roadford has pubs, restaurants, hostels and accommodation, and trips to Doolin Cave also run from here. The Great Stalactite in Doolin Cave measures 7.3 metres. When it was discovered in 1952, it was recognised as the longest stalactite in the Northern hemisphere.

Crab Island is barren except for the remains of a 19th-century stone police outpost (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

A short distance out from Doolin Harbour, Crab Island is barren except for the remains of a 19th-century stone police outpost.

The Aran Islands can be seen further out from the harbour and Doolin is one of three places with ferry services to the Aran Islands – the others are Galway and the village of Rossaveal on the north-west shore of Galway Bay.

From Doolin we drove 7 km south to the Cliffs of Moher on the south-west edge of the Burren.

The Cliffs of Moher continue for about 14 km. At their southern end, they rise 120 metres (390 ft) above the Atlantic Ocean at Hag’s Head, and reach their greatest height – 214 metres (702 ft) – just north of O’Brien’s Tower, and then continue at lower heights, always with the edge abruptly falling away into the churning Atlantic below.

O’Brien’s Tower was built as an observation tower on the Cliffs of Moher in 1835 by Cornelius O’Brien (1782-1857), a benevolent local landlord who was MP for Co Clare (1832-1847, 1852-1857).

Local lore says O’Brien was a man ahead of his time, believing that the development of tourism would benefit the local economy and bring people out of poverty. It is said locally that he ‘built everything around here except the Cliffs.’

When O’Brien built the tower, he planned it as an observation tower for hundreds of tourists who then visited the Cliffs of Moher, so they could see out to the Aran Islands. Today, the Cliffs of Moher are among the most visited tourist sites in Ireland, attracting about 1.5 million visitors a year.

The Cliffs of Moher are one of the most visited tourist sites in Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The harbour at Ballyvaughan is the entrance to the Burren

The Harbour at Ballyvaughan … owes much to the work of Alexander Nimmo in the 1830s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018; click on image for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

One of the many pretty villages we visited on Saturday afternoon [21 July 2018] as part of our journey through the Burren was Ballyvaughan, the most northerly place in Co Clare and close to the border with Co Galway.

This traditional and beautiful fishing village stands at the entrance to the Burren and looks over Galway Bay to the coast of south Connemara. It is set in wooded a vale and was once a small fishing and trading port. It is now an ideal base for exploring the Burren, and the Corkscrew Hill outside the village gave us spectacular views of the sea and the barren mountain landscapes.

The name Ballyvaughan comes from the Irish Baile Ui Bheachain, meaning ‘Behan’s Town’ or ‘Vaughan’s Town.’

Ballyvaughan owes it origins to Ballyvaughan Castle, which once stood at the edge of the harbour, on the promontory where the Irish Cottage scheme is located today.

For centuries, the castle belonged to the O’Loghlen family, apart from a brief period in the 16th century when it was held by the O’Brien family. A stolen cow was found at the castle in the 1540s, and heavy fines were levied on the O’Loghlens, including the loss of cattle, goats and sheep and of the town of Ballyvaughan.

The Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney (1529-1586) – brother of Lady Frances Sidney Sussex, founder of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge – attacked the castle in 1569, but the O’Loghlens managed to hold on to the property.

Ballyvaughan Castle stood at the edge of the harbour, where the Irish Cottage scheme stands today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The present village grew up around the harbour in the 19th century, when this was a thriving port for just a short time. Three older piers had been built by the villagers, who used them for herring fishing. But these piers were unusable at high tide, and the Fishery Board built a new quay in 1829.

The new quay was designed by the Scottish engineer Alexander Nimmo (1783-1832), who had been working in Ireland from 1811. He designed a new harbour at Dunmore, Co Waterford, in 1814, and improved the navigation on the River Lee in Cork and improved the harbour at Cobh in 1815. From 1820, Nimmo worked on making extensive surveys and recommendations for Ireland’s fishing harbours.

The Knight of Kerry commissioned Nimmo in 1830 to design a new village on Valentia Island, Co Kerry, that was later named Knightstown. He also designed the road from Galway to Clifden and the harbour of Roundstone in Connemara.

Nimmo redesigned over 30 harbours on the west coast of Ireland in the 1830s. One of his major projects was the Wellesley Bridge in Limerick, built in 1824-1835 and now known as Sarsfield Bridge. Nimmo died at his home at 78 Marlborough Street, Dublin, in 1832.

By 1831, turf from Connemara was landed at the quay in great quantities, despite the shallow depths in the bay. To facilitate the turf trade, another quay was built in 1837, apparently also based to a design by Nimmo, who had died five years earlier.

The new quay was of great importance, as it allowed Ballyvaughan to export grain, bacon and vegetables and to import supplies from Galway, and also allowed Ballyvaughan to benefit from the herring fishing boom.

Exports from the Burren valleys included grain, lamb, pork, bacon and vegetables, while turf boats from Connemara crossed Galway Bay bringing much-needed peat because the Burren was without trees and lacked fuel.

Meanwhile, Ballyvaughan Castle was in ruins by 1840, and only the foundations remain today. The local landlord, Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (1797-1861), 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, was declared bankrupt in 1847 with debts of over £1 million, and he was forced to sell vast tracts of land in the Burren in 1848.

The Buckingham estates in the Barony of Burren, Co Clare, extended to 2,800 ha (7,000 acres). They were bought for £30,000 by Richard Samuel Guinness, acting as agent for Henry White (1791-1873), MP for Longford, whose father had made his fortune as a lottery operator in Dublin. White became a peer in 1863 when he was given the title of Baron Annaly, of Annaly and Rathcline in the Co Longford.

As a benevolent landlord, Lord Annaly built a reservoir outside Ballyvaughan in 1872 to supply water to the farms in the valley. This water supply was extended to the town in 1874, and in 1875 a fountain was built by the Coyne brothers from Connemara when they were stranded in town after their ship sank at Gleninagh pier.

For a while, Ballyvaughan was the official capital of this region of Clare, with its own workhouse, coastguard station and a large police barracks. But over time, as the roads improved and the piers fell into disrepair, the town lost its importance as a fishing harbour.

Ballyvaughan is a centre for water sports and a base for exploring the Burren (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

During the recent economic boom in Ireland, Ballyvaughan became known as Ireland’s ‘Gold Coast’ because of a boom in property prices in the area. Today, the economy of Ballyvaughan is based mainly on tourism. The new pier and slipway, built in 2006, have opened up the area to boating, fishing, scuba diving and other maritime activities.

Today the village bustles with visitors rather than fishermen as a base for exploring the Burren’s landscapes, unique flora and its archaeological and Christian heritage. Looking at the yachts and surfboarders on the blue waters beneath blue skies in the harbour at Ballyvaughan at the weekend, I wondered whether I could be closer to a summer scene in Greece.

But on another Facebook forum, commenting on my photographs from Saint Fachan’s Cathedral, Kilfenora, another poster reminded me of lines from John Betjeman’s poem, ‘Ireland with Emily,’ first published in New Bats in Old Belfries (1945):

Stony seaboard, far and foreign,
Stony hills poured over space,
Stony outcrop of the Burren,
Stones in every fertile place,
Little fields with boulders dotted,
Grey-stone shoulders saffron-spotted,
Stone-walled cabins thatched with reeds,
Where a Stone Age people breeds
The last of Europe’s stone age race.

A scene at Ballyvaughan Harbour that was reminiscent of holidays in Greece last month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)