Kilcrohane Parish

Cottage in Killarney from Lawrence Collection

Theo Stoakley just talked about the geographical divisions of Ireland, and James Reilly discussed the purpose of Griffith's Valuation. But what about our family in Loughane? What was life like for them?  That's what I wanted to find out. We can guess from what we have learned that they lived in houses made with stone and mud walls with thatched roofs like the cottage above. They most likely had a garden to grow potatoes. Maybe a pig or a cow or some chickens.

At this time, I was talking with my grandmother as well as with my mother and father about what life was like in Ireland and also what it was like for the Irish when they came to the U.S. I was also researching the Sneem area at the Boston Public Library, local libraries, and any other source I might hear about. These were the days when you actually went to a library, a town hall, a cemetery  to look up something - nothing online in those days or at least I didn't know about it.

In the Belmont Library I found The Topographical Dictionary of Ireland written in 1837 by Samuel Lewis – this was shortly before the famine - he described Kilcrohane parish where Sneem is located. This is the earliest information that I could find of this area.

http://www.spirited-ireland.net/map/kerry/kerry1.gif

Lewis writes that Kilcohane Parish is situated 14 miles along the Kenmare River/Kenmare Bay - from Blackwater River in the east (near Kenmare in the above map) to Ballinskelligs Bay in the west.

Kilcrohane is nestled below a mountain range on the north. The parish is nearly 90,000 acres of rocky mountain, bog, and waste. In 1837 only a small portion is being tilled and that mainly for potatoes – sea weed is used as fertilizer. 

Although this postcard shows Glengarriff, I’m sure it was the same in the Sneem area. Mollie Crowley - Ma's first cousin - told me that she used to walk from her home near Glenlough Church down by Ma's house to Loughane pier. There she would collect seaweed and take it home in baskets carried by her donkey. Her father would use the seaweed in their garden.

In 1837 the main road coming from Kenmare through the parish is unpaved. The Kenmare to Waterville road is still the main road going through Sneem - it merges with the old road in places. The old road was much straighter. We know the part of it that branches off to the right as you leave Sneem. It goes out through Moneyflagh and Gortdromagh. Some of us have walked that part of the old road into Sneem. At Ardmore/Dennehy's cross, an old road climbs up to the top of Loughane cross - some of us have walked that as well. Someone said the power lines follow a lot of the old road from Kenmare to Waterville. It is this way that Daniel O’Connell, the Liberator/King of the Beggars, traveled by coach from Derrynane to Dublin or to the British Parliament. The Kerry Way - a signposted walk - now follows along this old road.

But in 1837 a road was recently built over the mountains from Killarney to Kenmare. Now plans are underway to build a road from the South Square in Sneem to Moll’s Gap where it will meet the new Killarney-Kenmare road. (This road from Killarney is the winding, twisting, narrow road that passes Ladies View.) It is hoped that the new road will bring some opportunity/prosperity to Sneem - “…it is expected that the new road from Sneem will tend materially to develop the agricultural resources of this wild and mountainous district.” Early in the century Alexander Nimmo had surveyed the area and thought that the widespread bogs could be reclaimed and used for agriculture.  

1993 Ladies View - JB, Donie, Dan, Joan Keohane, Mike, Cynthia Keohane, Mairead

Lewis also mentions Francis Christopher Bland, the local Sneem landlord who lives in Deryquinn Castle.  The Blands’ land in 1837 extends past the Blackshop to the cross for Staigue Fort.  Derriquin Castle is situated in a wooded demesne (manor) along the Kenmare River - the Parknasilla Hotel is located on land that formerly belonged to the Blands.

Derryquinn Castle from the Lawrence Collection in the National Library of Ireland. What a contrast with a house made with mud walls and a thatched roof!

Lewis writes in 1837 that there are two separate Roman Catholic districts. The eastern part of Kilcrohane parish, called Ballybog, contains the chapels of Sneem and Tahilla  (Catholic churches were called chapels since the time of the Penal Laws.) The western end, called Derrynane, contains Derrynane and Lohurt. Mr. Lewis comments on the “neat modern” chapel at Derrynane that was built by the late General Daniel Count O’Connell, Mr. O’Connell, and Mr. Hartop who was another local landlord. 

Lewis writes that the Protestant church in Sneem  “is a plain structure, erected about 1790.” The tithes paid to the Protestant church in Sneem were over 258 pounds annually. Our relatives, local Catholics, were forced to pay tithes in some form to the Church of Ireland until the early 1870s.

Church of the Transfiguration - Protestant church in Sneem - from the Lawrence Collection in the National Library of Ireland.

Mr. Bland, the local Sneem landlord, and the local Protestant minister support the parochial or public school in Sneem in 1837.  The parish priest in Sneem conducts a Catholic school in the Sneem chapel/church.  I wonder if our relatives attend it?

Compared to Sneem, a free school at Derrynane is supported by a bequest of £10 per year from the late General Daniel Count O’Connell. The O'Connells from Derrynane were local Catholic landlords in this area. Lewis reports about 250 children are educated in these schools. That doesn't sound like very many scholars!

“The ruins of Aghamore or Derrynane Abbey, founded in the seventh century by the monks of St. Finbarr, at Cork, … stand on a peninsula which becomes insulated at spring tides, and has therefore acquired the name of ‘Abbey Island.’ A portion of the walls has been washed away by the violence of the waves, but the remains are still considerable, and the eastern window nearly entire. Here is the family vault of the O’Connells.” 

MEM at O'Connell grave at Derrynane Abbey

“At Coode are the ruins of the old church, and on a hill about a mile from it is a curious hermitage, hewn out of the solid rock, said to have belonged to St. Crohane, the patron saint of the parish.” Brendan Galvin of the Blackshop organized a festival in St. Crohan’s honor in Castlecove every August. Mass was said at St. Crohane’s holy well, and then there was music and dancing outside the Blackshop. I enjoyed the music and dancing there many times!

1997 Helen Murphy McCarthy dancing with Brendan Galvin, and Patrick Murphy at the Blackshop - I've had the best times here.

(Brendan Galvin’s aunt Bridie was married to Mike Shea of Loughane who sent my father to Foley’s Pub in Inch in search of information about Jim Moriarty, my mother’s uncle.)

Lastly, Lewis mentions that “one of the most remarkable ancient structures in Ireland is Staigue Fort, which is generally considered to be unique. It stands on a low hill nearly in the centre of an amphitheatre of barren mountains ... The building, which is nearly of a circular form, is constructed of the ordinary stone of the country, but bears no mark whatever of a tool, having been evidently erected before masonry became a regular art. The only entrance is by a doorway barely five feet high, through a wall upwards of 13 feet thick … The fort is surrounded by a broad fosse (ditch or moat.) Various conjectures have been formed as to its origin and use, the most probable of which appears to be that it was erected as a place of refuge for the inhabitants and their cattle from the sudden inroads of the pirates of former times.”

We've all been to Staigue Fort - 1993 Mike, Julie, Keryn Schiavoni, Katherine Breen, Yvonne Burns hiding from pirates! The O'Connells were said to be involved in smuggling ...

So Lewis covered a broad area - Kilcrohane parish is 14 miles long. We know there are still a lot of mountain, rock and bog. Lewis talks about landlords. But what about Sneem and in particular Loughane?