School: Órán Mór (B) (roll number 4506)
- Location:
- Oranmore, Co. Galway
- Teacher: Micheál Ó agus Máire Bean Uí Shuilleabháin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0032, Page 0400
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- The Blake family were the largest land owners in this district. Their principal residenses were Oranmore Castle, Ardfry Castle, and Frenchfort House. The family who lived in Oran Castle owned all the territory around Oranmore and were very hard on their tenants. They were great spend thrifts and fell into debt very much and their properties were sold in the courts to pay their debts. The Ardfry branch of the family were also hard on their tenants. They evicted all of the people of a village named Gurrane in the Parish of Maree. A member of this family was at one time a member of the Irish Parliament and he sold his vote for the Act of Union with England. He obtained a large sum of money for this Act and was created Lord Wallscourt. The Frenchfort family were very good landlords. They did not evict any tenants. They were also very charitable and great catholics. They never changed their religion like the Oran and Ardfry families. There were other landlords in the district called the "Vesey Fitzgeralds." They were cruel and evicted a large number of their tenants. Another large landlord lived in (Rynn) Renvyle Castle named Athy. He was a good catholic and lived at home amongst his tenants. He owned the land the school is now built on. His people were very kind to the poor. His family an the male is now extinct. He has a daughter, Mrs. Croft, who now lives in Renvyle Castle.
