A small pier outside Ballylongford is part of Shannon heritage

Small boats in the harbour at Saleen Pier … the ruins of Lislaughtin Abbey are above the bank in the distance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday was a rain-soaked day, and after the church services in Askeaton and Tarbert on Sunday morning, and the Easter Vestry meeting in Tarbert, two of us decided against going on to Ballybunion in the rain. Instead, we headed west along the old coast road past the church ruins at Kilnaughtin, and we found ourselves for the first time at Saleen Pier, just north of Ballylongford, below the ruins of Lislaughtin Abbey.

Ballylongford (Béal Átha Longphurit) in north Co Kerry is a little inland from the south side of the Shannon Estuary. Among the people born in Ballylongford are the poet Brendan Kennelly, the general Lord Kitchener, and Michael Joseph O’Rahilly (1875-1916), a key figure in the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 who called himself ‘The O’Rahilly.’

Ballylongford first developed in the late 18th century as small ports developed as safe havens along the shores of the Shannon Estuary in counties Limerick, Clare and Kerry.

Old Ordnance Survey maps show Saleen Pier and a boat quay, with a Collector’s Office and a Coast Guard station. In some illustrations the name Saleen is spelt ‘Sawline.’

The new pier was part of the work on the ‘First Division’ or ‘Lower Shannon’ undertaken by the Commissioners for the Improvement of the Navigation of the River Shannon. Commander William Mudge RN (1796-1837), the admiralty surveyor, was one of the three members of the Commission for the Improvement of the Navigation of the Shannon, appointed in October 1831. Captain Mudge reported on the Shannon estuary, downstream of Limerick. Thomas Rhodes covered the river upstream from Limerick, while Colonel John Fox Burgoyne co-ordinated their work.

Mudge’s father was General William Mudge (1762-1820), a godson of Samuel Johnson. General Mudge was an artillery officer and the surveyor who was an important figure in the work of the Ordnance Survey and the principle figure in the development of measuring the degrees of longitude and the arc of the meridian.

Many of the harbours and quays along the Shannon Estuary were planned by the admiralty surveyor Commander William Mudge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Commander Mudge was appointed to conduct the survey of the coast of Ireland around 1825. He first proposed building or improving piers or quays at Ballylongford and also at Kilrush, Carrigaholt, Tarbert, Querrin, Glin, Foynes, Kilteery, Cahercon (Kildysert), Clare (now Clarecastle), the River Deel to Askeaton and the River Maigue to Adare.

Saleen Pier was planned as the new port for Ballylongford, and the works at Saleeen cost £1,811. Of this, almost half (£891) came as a government grant and the rest came from the three principal landed proprietors in the area: Stephen Edward Colles, £504; the representatives of M Black, £185; and Trinity College Dublin, £230. The amounts omit shillings, so there is a difference of £1 between the total and the sum of the contributions.

When Commander Mudge died in Howth on 20 July 1837, he was buried in the churchyard at Howth. In the decade that followed, Saleen Pier was completed around 1843-1844 at a point where Ballyline River flows into the Shannon Estuary at Ballylongford Creek. The crane at Saleen was built by Clarke of Ringsend, Dublin.

The crane at Saleen Pier was built by Clarke of Ringsend, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Two stones at Saleen are marked S↑C. They hace a slightly different design to stones at other quays built by the Shannon Commissioners, but they show that the Shannon Commissioner built this quay.

Saleen Pier continued to serve commercial traffic on the Shannon for over a century, with boats and trading vessels travelling to and from Scattery Island, Kilrush, Limerick and other points along the river. There are even accounts of emigrant boats leaving Ballylongford for North America.

Saleen Pier was in commercial use at least until 1953. The Limerick Harbour Commissioners maintained a register of vessels trading on the Shannon in 1945-1953. This register shows that the last trading vessel to use Saleen Pier was the St Senan. It left Limerick on 29 September 1953 for Kilrush and Ballylongford, carrying 55 tons of general cargo.

Unlike other piers and harbours, Saleen Pier seems never to have been transferred to the local authorities by the Commissioners of Public Works or Board of Works under the terms of the Shannon Act 1885.

Kerry County Council tried to take over the pier from Waterways Ireland in recent years, but Waterways Ireland found the pier was stilled owned by the Board of Works.

Opposite the pier, the ruins of Lislaughtin Abbey stand above the bank of the Ballyline River, around the riverbend below Saleen Pier. Further downriver, to the north, the ruins of Carrigafoyle Castle can be seen closer to the Shannon Estuary.

Ballylongford Boat Club leases the shed at Saleen Pier, the Crane and Pontoon remain in place, and the Customs Office is still in use.

Carrigafoyle Castle is north of Saleen Pier, closer to the Shannon Estuary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

From Saleen Pier, we continued on to Lislaughtin Abbey, strolling through the mediaeval ruins and the graves, including the high cross erected to the memory of the family of ‘The O’Rahilly.’

On our way back to Tarbert, a brown road sign pointed to Kilcolgan Strand. But the narrow road ended in a cul de sac, with a gate blocking any further journey and no apparent path to shoreline below.

We stopped for coffee at the museum in Foynes before returning to Askeaton late on Sunday afternoon.

Ballylongford Boat Club is based at the shed at Saleen Pier (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Kilnaughtin Church, west of Tarbert, may stand on a Druidic site

Kilnaughtin Church takes its name from a fifth or sixth century saint but is said to stand on the site of a druids’ sanctuary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

During my Christmas rounds of the parish this week and last week, I also visited the ruined, mediaeval church at Kilnaughtin that is said locally to stand on the site of an earlier sanctuary used by Druids that was converted into a church in the decades immediately after Saint Patrick.

Kilnaughtin is the ancient name of the parish of Tarbert and the name is derived from the Irish, meaning the Church of Saint Naughtin or Neachtain. The name Kilnaughtin is now attached to Saint Brendan’s Church on Steeple Road, at the east end of Tarbert, off the road to Glin and Foynes.

However, the original church at Kilnaughtin stands about 4 or 5 km west of Tarbert (52.571200, -9.422000), at Cockhill, Carrowdotia, a little south of the coast road (L1010) to Ballylongford.

A replica of the fifth century Ogham stone found at Kilnaughtin and now in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The regular discovery of the roots and stumps of ancient yew and holm oak trees during burials and the survival of an ancient Ogham stone bearing the inscription ‘Mac I Broc’ (‘son of Broc’ or ‘son of the Badger’), that once stood about four feet to the south east of the church, suggest to some that this site may once have been a Druidic sanctuary.

The present mediaeval structure stands on the site of an earlier cillín (small church) or oratory that may have been built originally by the saint who gives his name to this place. Saint Naughtin is said to have been a nephew of Saint Patrick and a disciple of Saint Senan (ca 488-544), an important early church leader in this region.

Saint Senan established his monastery and cathedral ca 534 on Scattery Island in the mouth of the Shannon estuary, to the north-west of this site. From there, he and his monks brought Christianity to the northern and southern shorelines of the Shannon, in areas that are now north Co Kerry and south Co Clare.

The original church at Kilnaughtin is west of Tarbert off the coast road to Ballylongford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

In reality, little is known about Saint Naughtin, although he was venerated alongside Saint Senan, Saint Erc, Saint Lughach, Saint Ita, Saint Eithne, Saint Eiltín and Saint Brendan, among the early saints of north Kerry and west Limerick.

A holy well nearby, known as Tobernaughtin, is dedicated to Saint Naughtin. It is said the well dries up during the Summer, but some water comes in during Winter.

From the late sixth century until the early twelfth century, Kilnaughtin was one of the termons or sanctuary lands of the monastic Diocese of Scattery.

After the reorganisation of the Irish Church at the Synod of Rath Breasail in 1111-1112, Kilnaughtin was transferred to the Diocese of Ardfert and Aghadoe, although it retained its links with Scattery.

Following the death of the last Abbot-Bishop of Scattery, the monastery on Scattery Island was reconstituted as a college of the Augustinian Canons Regular of the Lateran, and the former cathedral on the island became a collegiate church with a chapter of 24 canons, of whom 12 were appointed by the Bishop of Limerick and 12 by the Bishop of Killaloe. The 12 canons appointed by the Bishop of Limerick were supported by the income from the termon or sanctuary lands at Kilnaughtin, and they served the churches and oratories in the district.

Inside the church at Kilnaughtin, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The list of rectors of the parish dates back to at least 1347, when a priest named Maurice FitzPeter was presented by the Crown on 4 September to the Church of Kylnathyn in Mynnour in the Diocese of Ardfert.

After that, there is a long gap in the records until 1418, when Donald O’Kynnelyoe is appointed Rector of Killreachtayn. The parish seems to have been vacant for a long time, and it is noted that Killreachtayn is commonly called the Church of Dunchacha and Dryseach and Tearmundscanayn. There were objections to his appointment too, and he needed a dispensation in those pre-Reformation days because he was the son of a priest.

Inside the church at Kilnaughtin, facing west (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

During the 15th century, John O’Connor Kerry, Lord of Carrigafoyle and Tarbert and the founder of the Franciscan Friary at nearby Lislaughtin, oversaw extensive rebuilding of the church at Kilnaughtin.

This rebuilding included the elegant pointed gothic arched doorways, ogee lancet windows, a cinquefoil piscina and an interior architrave. The traces of a porch can also be seen over the south door.

On the exterior wall, over the east window, there is a carved head wearing a chapeau de seigneur, which may represent the local lord, John O’Connor Kerry, whose patronage financed the present structure.

The exterior east wall of Kilnaughtin church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

As the FitzGeralds, Earls of Desmond, extended their power in this area, Dermot O’Connor, Lord of Tarbert and kinsman of John O’Connor Kerry of Carrigafoyle Castle, forfeited his lands in Tarbert to James FitzGerald, 6th Earl of Desmond, the ‘Usurper’ Earl, in 1450. Within a decade, the Earl of Desmond built a castle or tower house in Tarbert, probably located on the north side of the present-day Square.

Following the Tudor Reformations, the church became an Anglican parish church. However, Roman Catholics continued to use the churchyard for burials, and maintained a clandestine chapel nearby.

For almost 200 years, the 15th century church at Kilnaughtin served as the Church of Ireland parish church, with some occasional interruptions. In 1587, following the defeat of the Earl of Desmond, the Manor and Castle of Tarbert and the adjoining lands were granted to Sir William Herbert (1554-1593), a Welsh colonist, religious writer and politician.

Herbert became an ‘undertaker’ for the plantation of Munster in 1586, and he applied for three ‘seignories’ in Kerry. In 1587, he was allotted many of the lands confiscated the Earl of Desmond. These included Castleisland and its neighbourhood, and covered 13,276 acres. He wished to see Kerry colonised by English settlers, he had the articles of the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments translated into Irish, and he directed the clergy on his estate to read the services in Irish.

After almost two years at Castleisland, Herbert acted as vice-president of Munster. But his work was severely attacked by Sir Edward Denny, High Sheriff of Kerry and owner of Tralee and the neighbourhood, who complained of Herbert’s self-conceit, and who said his constables were rogues.

Herbert finally returned to England in 1589, and died in 1593. His only daughter and heir, Mary, married her cousin, Edward Herbert (1583-1648), 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury, when he was 15 and she was 21; his brother was the priest-poet George Herbert (1593-1633).

The south door show traces of a Gothic porch (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The Herbert family lost its estate in Tarbert soon after, and in 1607, the Lord Deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester, asked the Privy Council to grant Tarbert to Patrick Crosbie of Leix. The grant was made subject to families from the ‘Seven Septs’ of Leix being settled there.

Local lore says that monks who fled Kilnaughtin Church were the monks whose earns were shorn of their ears by Cromwellian soldiers in Glouncloosagh in the mid-17th century.

The Crosbie family sold Tarbert to the Roche family of Limerick in 1653. The lands were eventually bought by Daniel O’Brien, Lord Clare, who held them until the Battle of the Boyne and the Treaty of Limerick in 1690. As a Jacobite, he was obliged to flee to France, and in 1697 John Leslie, a supporter of King William III, was granted the confiscated Tarbert estate of Lord Clare.

The Leslie family began building Tarbert House in 1700, and John Leslie was the Church of Ireland Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert and Aghadoe in 1755-1770. Sir Edward Leslie laid out the village of Tarbert in 1775. Around this time, the first Palatine settler, Peter Fitzell moved from Rathkeale to Tarbert as a tenant farmer on the Sandes estate at Sallowglen.

Kilnaughtin Church was ‘in ruins’ by 1778 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

By 1778, Kilnaughtin Church was ‘in ruins’ and the Vestry Minutes record a discussion in Kilnaughtin that year on the need to move the church from Kilnaughtin to Tieraclea or Steeple Road, which was closer to the town and port of Tarbert. From 1779 on, the Vestry Minutes for Kilnaughtin are written from the ‘church of Tieraclea,’ so the new church probably dates from 1778.

But the new church was destroyed in a ‘violent hurricane’ in 1789, and an enlarged church was built on Steeple Road. The Vestry Minutes from Kilnaughtin for 1812 and later show that the present church, Saint Brendan’s Church, which has the date 1814 inscribed above the porch, is a rebuilding and extension of the existing church at Tieraclea.

Around the same time, Sir Edward Leslie established an Erasmus Smith School on the Glin Road in 1790. The school has 75 Roman Catholic pupils (56%) and 44 Protestant pupils (44%) on the roll book. When Sir Edward Leslie died at the age of 73 in Weymouth in 1818, the title of baronet he had received in 1787 died out and a considerable fortune of between £3,000 and £4,000 a year devolved on his first cousin, Robert Leslie of Leslie Lodge, Tieraclea.

Old tombs and graves at Kilnaughtin, where the churchyard is still used for burials (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Samuel Lewis in his Topographical Directory of Ireland (1837) notes that the Rectory of Kilnaughtin was impropriate in Anthony Raymond, who was receiving two-thirds of the tithes, while the vicar received only one-third.

The church was remodelled again in the 1850s and 1860s under the influence of the Oxford Movement, giving it the present unusual shape and structure. In 1867, the architects William John Welland (1832-1895) and William Gillespie (1818-1899) designed and laid out new pews for the T-plan church of 1814.

The Kerry-born architect James Franklin Fuller (1835-1924) prepared plans for additions to the church in 1876. The work was in progress in November 1877, and the chancel was completed by September 1878. The contractor was a Mr Crosbie of Tralee.

Fuller’s alterations and additions realigned the church, so that the original east-west church became the transepts, while the chancel area or top of the church is now at the south end of the building. The Irish Ecclesiastical Gazette, the forerunner of the Church of Ireland Gazette, reported during this renovation: ‘A correspondent tells us that a very handsome stone cross, which was to have been placed on the new porch, has been thrown aside, the incumbent objecting to its erection.’

The inscriptions on the church plate include ‘Tarbert Church 1857’ and ‘Kilnaughtin Church 1866.’ The plaques in the church commemorate many prominent local families, including the Fitzell, Leslie and Sandes families, and one plaque was moved from the former Methodist Church in Tarbert into the church.

The former chancel area at the east end of Kilnaughtin Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Meanwhile, when a new Roman Catholic parish church was built in Tarbert in 1833, a stone from the old church in Kilnaughtin was incorporated in the foundation of the sanctuary.

The Ogham stone found in the old churchyard at Kilnaughtin in 1836 was donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford in 1884, where it is on display. Known as the ‘Cockhill Stone,’ is dates from the early fifth century. The Ogham inscription ‘Maqi Broc’ commemorates someone who was the son of an important local man named Broc (‘Badger’).

The tradition of this ancient church at Kilnaughtin is kept alive in the two parish churches in Tarbert.

The tradition of this ancient church at Kilnaughtin is kept alive in the two parish churches in Tarbert (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

An island parish and a parish of islands and rocky outcrops

Counting the islands and islets in the estuary of the River Shannon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017; click on images for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

Island parishes make for great television and seem to be an alluring and enduring concept culturally on all these islands.

The BBC2 documentary An Island Parish has run to 12 series. It began with Series 1 and 2, looking at the life of the Church of England parish on the Isles of Scilly, which is part of the Diocese of Truro.

Series 3 and 4 looks at the work of the Methodist Church on the Isles of Scilly, seen through the eyes of the Revd David Easton.

Series 5 is about Father John Paul’s first year as the Roman Catholic priest at Castlebay on the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides. Series 6 returned to Barra.

Series 7 and 8 follow the Anglican priest and Methodist minister on Sark in the Channel Islands. Series 9 and 10 focus on the Falkland Islands, Series 11 is set on the Shetland Islands, and Series 12, broadcast earlier this year [2017], is based on Anguilla.

I suppose all priests in Ireland work on an island parish, and my concept of an island parish depends on my idea of what constitutes an island.

How big is an island before it becomes the mainland?

How small is an island before it becomes an islet?

How small is an islet before it becomes a rocky outcrop?

During the summer, I visited the tiny white-washed church of Agios Nikolaos Church on a rocky islet off Georgioupoli, 22 km west of Rethymnon, one of the most photographed and most beautiful churches in Crete and a popular location for weddings.

Agios Nikolaos, administratively, is part of the municipality of Georgioupoli. It has no houses, no residents, and no parishioners, but is still officially listed among the more than 84 Cretan islands.

Desmond Castle in Askeaton stands on a small island in the middle of the River Deel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

I suppose the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes is an island group of parishes. Although I do not think any of the islands in the parish is inhabited, I have tried and failed to count up the number of islands in the parish.

The town of Askeaton is built around an island on which stands the tall and majestic ruins of the Desmond Castle, built on a secure rock on an islet where the River Deel splits on its way down to the Shannon Estuary.

The best-known islands in the parish are in the estuary of the River Shannon, and these include Aughunish Island, Foynes Island and Tarbert Island. But there are seemingly countless other, smaller islands in the estuary too.

Foynes Island provides a shelter for the harbour at Foynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

At the east end of the parish boundaries are Pigott’s Island, Waller’s Island and Bushy Island, close to Castletown Church and Pallaskenry. Waller’s Island has an area of 0.17 hectares or less than half an acre (0.41 acres or 1 rood, 26 perches).

Pigott’s Island is also in the parish of Kilcornan and is just three acres in size, yet is a townland all on its own.

As a townland, Bushy Island in Kilcornan Parish includes not only a tiny island joined to the mainland, but a large part of the mainland so that together they make up a townland that extends to 64.33 hectares or 0.6433 sq km (0.25 square miles or almost 159 acres).

Greenish Island and the mouth of the River Deel, where it flows into the Shannon Estuary immediately north of Askeaton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

In the mouth of the River Deel, where it flows into the Shannon Estuary immediately north of Askeaton, Greenish Island is the largest of the small islands, islets, rocky outcrops and raised mudflats and sandbanks that are marked on maps. Close by in the river are Greenish Island, are White’s Island and the little island of Lan Tighe. In 1876, Henry Blackwell had 71 acres on Greenish Island, Askeaton, Co Limerick.

Aughinish Island is in the Shannon estuary, between Askeaton and Foynes. Rusal Aughinish, Europe’s largest bauxite refinery, is located on the island. The site includes a deep-water jetty in the Shannon through which the refinery imports bauxite from Guinea and Brazil and exports alumina to be refined into aluminium metal.

Aughinish, which extracts millions of tonnes of alumina, leaves huge amounts of distinctive red-coloured bauxite residue, which is stored as red mud on 450 acres of land near Askeaton.

‘It is a red island now,’ Jim Long, a former Mayor of Limerick, told the Irish Times some years ago. And he asked: ‘What if there is freak flash flooding or increased rainfall in the area? I would be concerned about the River Shannon if vast amounts of this stuff got into it.’ He described the red coloured landscape as ‘completely out of sync’ with the estuary’s natural habitat, that is home to protected wildlife including dolphins, otters and birds.

Although most of the island is occupied by chemical industries, I was surprised to learn also that this is also the site of Ireland's first butterfly sanctuary, located in an abandoned quarry.

Island Macteige was once an island off Aughunish, but it is now joined to the mainland and is now a peninsula.

Further west, Foynes Island is a townland of its own too and has an area of almost 128 hectares (1.28 sq km), or a half square mile (316 acres). There are two houses on Foynes Island and a few industrial silos. The 1911 census shows 28 people living on the island, but I believe no-one has lived there for a number of years.

The lighthouse is a landmark on Tarbert Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

When I continue west into the Diocese of Ardfert and Co Kerry, Tarbert Island is linked to the neighbouring town of Tarbert and the mainland by a short isthmus. The island covers 27.61 hectares (0.2761 sq km) or 0.11 square miles (68 acres). A car ferry runs between the island and the Killimer, near Kilrush, Co Clare. The island also has a small lighthouse and an electricity plant.

Carrigafoyle Castle stands on its own islet or rocky outcrop (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Further west, Carrigafoyle Castle stands alone on its own tiny island, or is it an islet? Climbing the spiral stairs inside the castle, there is a full view from the parapets at the top up and down the Shannon Estuary and across to Carrig Island, linked to the mainland by a long causeway.

There are other islands in the estuary, including Lisilaun, known in Irish as An Leis Oileán, Rincawinaun and Sturamus Island, as well as numerous other islets, rocky outcrops, mudflats and sandy banks that only see the light of day at low tide.

So that’s more than a dozen islands … and I’m still counting.

Looking across to Carrig Island from the battlements of Carrigafoyle Castle in Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Westward Ho! and an Irish theologian’s plans to visit the Kerry coast

Fenton Hort … enjoyed ‘Westward Ho!’ but never realised his hopes to visit his ancestral Kerry

Patrick Comerford

Recently I have been putting the finishing touches to a chapter on Fenton Hort for a book to be published next month.

Fenton Hort (1828-1892) was one of the three members of the ‘Cambridge Triumvirate,’ a group of Biblical scholars who worked tirelessly to produce a definitive version of the Greek New Testament that has influenced all subsequent English translations of the Bible.

The other two members of the Cambridge Triumvirate were BF Westcott and JB Lightfoot, but it is often forgotten that Hort was born in Dublin, grew up in Leopardstown, and had strong family connections in Dublin, Kildare and Kerry.

His close friends in Cambridge included the Christian socialists FD Maurice and Charles Kingsley, who strongly influenced his views on working class politics, the hymn writer John Ellerton, who was born to Irish parents and librarian Henry Bradshaw, whose father was from Milecross, Co Down.

Fenton Hort lived at Saint Peter’s Terrace, Cambridge, where his neighbours included Charles Kingsley and FD Maurice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

On my way into Limerick for last night’s debate in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, once again I passed Westward Ho!, the landmark pub in Mungret that sadly has been closed for some time and is now surrounded by fencing. Once again, I was reminded of Hort’s friend, Charles Kingsley, who was the author of Westward Ho! (1855), a novel that I found exciting as a schoolboy, although it had been published almost a century before I was born.

Hort and Kingsley were close friends and neighbours in Cambridge, and when Westward Ho! was about to be published Kingsley sent the printer’s proofs to Hort, perhaps seeking not just a second opinion but approval too.

Hort was particularly engaged by Chapter 5, with its descriptions of the Desmond rebellion in Limerick and Kerry, including references to Hort’s ancestors in the FitzMaurice family and the destruction of Carrigafoyle Castle.

Others would later accuse Kingsley of anti-Irish racism, in this book and in The Water Babies. But Hort could hardly suppress his excitement at this pre-publication reading, and wrote eagerly about the new book to his friend the bibliophile Henry Bradshaw (1831-1886), who had moved to Dublin the previous year and had been appointed a master at Saint Columba’s College, Rathfarnham (1854-1856).

Writing to Bradshaw in Rathfarnham from Cambridge in February 1855, Hort said he had ‘just been reading in the sheets of Kingsley’s Westward Ho!, a capital description of the attempt of the Spaniards to effect a lodgement in Munster in 1580, and have been so much interested by it that I daresay I shall some day make an effort to discover what your books may contain about it. Kingsley’s novel is the very thing to come out now, — judging by so much of it as I have read; and I think you will enjoy it thoroughly. The only fault I have to find with it is that he will not leave those poor Stuarts alone.’

Another of Hort’s close friends in Cambridge was the Revd Gerald Blunt (1827-1902), later Rector of Chelsea. In March 1855, Hort wrote to Blunt telling him he was reading ‘a large number of books.’ But the one he was most engrossed in was ‘Kingsley’s Westward Ho! which is published tomorrow.’

He could hardly restrain himself in his praise for the book, believing Kingsley ‘has quite surpassed himself; all his old energy and geniality, tempered with thorough self-restraint and real Christian wisdom. The suffering and anxiety he has endured now for some time have obviously much purified and chastened him, and rather increased than lessened his strength and elasticity.’

He was brimming in his praise for the book: ‘I hardly know a more wholesome book for anyone to read. Personally, I feel deeply indebted to it, though I suppose its lessons, like most others, will prove transitory enough. Don’t smile; but my first impulse, after reading it, was to wish myself chaplain of the Dauntless.’

However, despite his personal enjoyment of the book, Hort had his doubts. He told Blunt: ‘I ought to say that Westward Ho! will very possibly not be popular. Some will say that it is too like a book of travels; others, like a common novel, etc. etc. Its great fault is its dearness, so that I must wait for the cheap edition.’

Soon after these letters and the publication of Westward Ho!, Bradshaw returned to Cambridge to work in the library and as Dean of King’s College (1857-1858 and 1863-1865), and he was appointed the Cambridge University Librarian in 1867.

Many years later, in 1884, Blunt’s daughter Else married the Revd Joseph Newenham Hoare, a son of Archdeacon Edward Hoare (1802-1877) of Trinity Chapel, Limerick. At the time, Joseph Hoare was the curate of Holy Trinity Church, Muckross, a new church in Killarney, Co Kerry.

Hort was her godfather and when he visited Dublin four years later to accept an honorary doctorate in Trinity College Dublin, he was eager to visit Kerry and the Atlantic coast, perhaps because he was descended through Lady Elizabeth FitzMaurice, his great-grandmother, from the Earls of Kerry, perhaps because he wanted to visit Else Hoare in Killarney.

But the weather was inclement that June, and Hort never got out of Dublin beyond Glendalough and the Wicklow Mountains. Last night, as I returned through to Askeaton through Mungret, I wondered whether Hort’s planned journey to Killarney would have brought him out of Limerick on the same road, past Westward Ho!, and whether it would have brought back memories of his first reading of Kingsley’s swashbuckling novel, with its ‘capital description of the attempt of the Spaniards to effect a lodgement in Munster.’

‘Westward Ho!’ in Mungret, Co Limerick … now fenced off but still a landmark heading west from from Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

‘Every meadow in this island Gives a good crop of hay’

The Causeway linking Carrig Island with the north Kerry coast near Carrigafoyle Castle, near Ballylongford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017; click on image for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

During a weekend visit to Carrigafoyle Castle, two of us climbed to the battlements and saw a causeway leading out to Carrig Island, one of the many islands in the Shannon Estuary that lie within the bounds of this group of parishes.

Carrig Island is an island in the River Shannon off the north Kerry coast and joined to the mainland by a causeway.

The island has a circumference of about 1.5 miles, is 106.83 ha (1.06 sq km) or 261 acres (0.41 sq miles) in land size, and its highest point is 6 metres above sea level.

It is really a tiny island, and Carrig Island is a townland in its own right. It is No 1,578 down the list in terms of the size of townlands in Co Kerry and 27,425 on the list for the whole island of Ireland.

Today it has a population of six, although back in 1841, before the Great Famine, it had a population of 105.

Local accounts speak of a holy well, the ruins of a mediaeval abbey church founded by the O’Connor Kerry family who also built Carrigafoyle Castle, and a Napoleonic battery in the area. But on a wet autumn afternoon I failed to find them last weekend.

When it was a wooded island, Carrig Island provided shelter for Carrigafoyle Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017; click on image for full-screen view)

As a wooded island, Carrig Island provided extra shelter for neighbouring Carrigafoyle Castle, built on a rocky islet in a marsh in an inlet in the Shannon Estuary.

In his survey of Ireland in 1837, Samuel Lewis notes that Carrig Island then it belonged to Trinity College Dublin, and was farmed by the Revd S.B. Lennard of Adare, and was ‘in a high state of cultivation.’

Lewis said the island was ‘pleasantly situated for bathing, and abounds with a variety of water-fowl.’ He also noted the battery and bomb-proof barrack for 20 men, and a coastguard station. The blockhouse at Corran Point once had two coastal defence howitzers a six-gun battery on the scarp above the low cliffs.

The north shore was the only place where ships of heavy burden could pass in safety, with shallow waters at low tide on the south, west, and east shores. Lewis described an excellent oyster bed off the island where there was also a good plaice and mullet fishery.

Although there are several abandoned farm cottages, Carrig Island is still populated and actively farmed, and visitors can stay on the island at Castle View House B&B, run by Patricia and Garrett Dee, as they stop to appreciate this part of the Wild Atlantic Way. The house faces the causeway bridge and Carrigafoyle Castle, and offers early breakfasts for golfers and reduced green fees at Ballybunion Golf Course.

Brendan Kennelly’s poetry quoted on a gate into a field on Carrig Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017; click on image for full-screen view)

Carrig Island is celebrated in song as ‘Charming Carrig Isle.’ But the spirit of the place is best caught in poetry of Brendan Kennelly, who was born in nearby Ballylongford. The island features in his The Boats are Home, and in particular in his poems ‘The Bell,’ ‘Living Ghosts’ and ‘The Island Man.’

His haunting poem ‘My dark fathers’ tells how Ballylongford was devastated during the Great Famine. ‘The Island Man,’ which recalls the influence Ballylongford had on the poet, is quoted in the metalwork on a gate into a field near the east beach on Carrig Island:

Names of martyrs never die
O’Scanlan, Hanrahan, O’Shea,
Every meadow in this island
Gives a good crop of hay.

The East Beach on Carrig Island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017; click on image for full-screen view)

Carrigafoyle Castle: a castle with a commanding position on the Shannon estuary

Carrigafoyle Castle stands on a rocky islet in a marsh on the south side of the Shannon Estuary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

On the way back from Ballybunion to Askeaton at the weekend, two of us stopped near Ballylongford on the Shannon Estuary to visit Carrigafoyle Castle, Co Kerry.

Ballylongford, between Ballybunion and Tarbert, is the birthplace of the poet Brendan Kennelly, the World War I general Lord Kitchener, the 1916 leader ‘The O’Rahilly,’ and Detective Garda Gerry McCabe who was murdered by the IRA in Adare in 1996.

Carrigafoyle Castle is 3 km north of Ballylongford, between the high-water and low-water marks on the shore of the Shannon Estuary, set on a small rocky islet in the marsh. its name comes from the Irish, Carraig an Phoill, ‘Rock of the Hole.’

Although the castle was wrecked in a series of bloody sieges, it remains a remarkable castle with its large tower built by the O’Connors of Kerry between 1490 and 1500. In size and grandeur, it compares with Blarney Castle, and was once one of the strongest fortresses in Ireland. It rises to 26.4 meters (86.6 ft) and immediately conveys strength.

Across the broad estuary of the Shannon are Carrig Island and Scattery Island, which provided shelter for the island and enhanced its strategic location.

We stepped across to the castle from the road along across a raised path of stones that are often submerged at high tide. Although there are no facilities, visitors can engage with the mediaeval experience, climb the circular stone staircase to the top and take in.

The sweeping, majestic panorama from the turrets and battlements Carrigafoyle Castle on the Shannon Estuary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Carrigafoyle Castle was built by Connor Liath O’Connor of Kerry at the end of the 15th century on what was originally an island, using a design borrowed from the Anglo-Normans.

Carrigafoyle Castle is five storeys high. There is an unusually-wide, spiral staircase of 104 steps in one corner of the tower, leading to the battlements, and small rooms and the main living spaces opening off the stairs, including vaults over the second and fourth storeys.

Within the bay, the castle-rock was defended on the west and south sides by a double defensive wall; the inner wall enclosed a bawn, and surrounding this was a moat covered on three sides (the east lay open) by the outer wall, where a smaller tower stood. The precipitous sides of the castle-rock were layered with bricks and mortar.

The spiral staircase leads to the top of Carrigafoyle Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The stone bawn wall at the foot of the castle once contained a boat dock where boats could dock and tie up safely at high tide. This was important in the 1500s while the O’Connors of Kerry continued to ‘inspect’ ships passing to and from the port of Limerick – others would have called it piracy.

Carrigafoyle Castle was the main stronghold of the O’Connor Kerry family, who for 400 years were the key family in north Kerry. From here, they intercepted ships making their way up the Shannon to Limerick, 32 km upriver, boarded them and took a part of their cargoes. This practice continued into the mid-16th century.

The Siege of Carrigafoyle Castle during the Desmond Wars in 1580 was part of the crown campaign against the forces of Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th Earl of Desmond, during the Second Desmond Rebellion.

During the rebellion, the castle was held by 50 Irish, along with 16 Spanish soldiers who had landed at Smerwick harbour the previous year in the 1579 Papal invasion; women and children were also present. Months earlier, an Italian engineer, Captain Julian, had set about strenthening the castle’s defences under the direction of the Countess of Desmond. By the time of the siege, she had retreated Castleisland while Captain Julian remained at the castle.

Inside the ruins of Carrigafoyle Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The castle was attacked by naval artillery on land and sea, under the command of Sir William Pelham. Pelham had marched through Munster with Sir George Carew and took command of an additional 600 troops. He was supported by a fleet of three ships under the command of Sir William Winter. It was the largest army ever seen in the west of Ireland.

The bombardment of the castle was carried out over two days, six hours each day. On Palm Sunday, Pelham ordered a party of troops to cross to the sea-wall, where they were pinned down by gunfire and had boulders hurled at them from the battlements. The Earl of Ormond described seeing the sea-channel fill with wreckage as the sides of the castle-rock became slippery with blood.

The final assault was led by Captain Humfrey Mackworth and Captain John Zouche. The tower cracked under the impact of two or three shot, and the great west wall collapsed on its foundations, crushing many people inside the castle. The survivors fled through the shallow waters, but most were shot or put to the sword. The rest, including one woman, were brought back to camp and hanged from trees. Captain Julian was hanged three days later. All the castle occupants, including 19 Spanish and 50 Irish, were massacred.

The strategic significance of the siege is shown in the swift way in which other Desmond strongholds fell once news of the destruction had spread. The castle at Askeaton was abandoned, and the garrisons at Newcastle West, Balliloghan, Rathkeale and Ballyduff fled soon after.
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In 1583, the Earl of Desmond was killed at Glenageenty in the Slieve Mish mountains near Tralee.

Brendan Kennelly’s poem ‘Small Light’ was inspired by the story of the servant girl who is said to have betrayed Carrigafoyle Castle during the siege.

The castle was later recovered by John na Cathach (John of the Battles) O’Connor Kerry. In 1600, this John na Cathach surrendered the Castle of Carrigafoyle and his estates into the hands of the Earl of Thomond, President of Munster, and obtained a regrant of them from Queen Elizabeth. When he died in 1640 he had five daughters but no sons and his titles and estates passed to his kinsman, Donal Maol O’Connor.

Carrigafoyle Castle was known as ‘the impregnable castle’ because of its long resistance to Cromwell’s attacks. It was one of the last castles in Ireland taken by the Cromwellians, and the 12 people found in it were hanged. By 1659, Carrigafoyle Castle had a garrison of 40 to protect the south shore of the Shannon. But the castle was so damaged it was never properly repaired. Despite its wrecked condition, it was occupied in the early 20th century by a Dr Fitzmaurice and his family.

Opposite the castle is the ruined mediaeval Church of Carrigafoyle, built in the same style.

Carrigafoyle Castle is now a listed National Monument, and is managed by the Office of Public Works. In recent years, the castle has hosted the O’Connor Kerry Clan gatherings. Although it remains in its ruined state, it has been restored in parts and is open to the public from June to September from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Climbing to the top in Carrigafoyle Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)