School: Dún Gar (Frenchpark) (roll number 3961)

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1. South of Portahard are Ráth Fhallaigh and Cloigearnach (continued)

   

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   division of Belanagare. I suppose this is because it was never on the De Freyne estate perhaps because it was not worth having. The lords of the soil were the Plunketts to whom the mill belonged. Near theirbig house is the beautiful well Tobar na Grádh(a) which supplied our village with water. I must look up the alternative meanings of that word, for it occurs twice in the area (see page 11). In the sixties under the embarassed estates act
   it was purchased by by a Dublin business man who never saw it, but took good care to see the rents were sent to him. It was the wonderful fight made by these associated estates Murphy and De Freyne under the leadership of
   John Fitzgibbon, Jasper Tully and Pat Webb that caused the Wyndham Land Act to be passed. I shall never forget one sight I saw during that time. As I said before the bogs belonged solely to the landlords and it was only as a privilege turf could be cut on them. Now the greater part of the turf was on the Murphy estate, and our village depended on the Mullen
   people for their supply of fuel. But the landlord gave orders to his bailiff that his tenants should not be allowed cut such an amount of turf as they could have surplus enough to sell. Those people had no other way of living than by selling turf so how he expected to get his rent I don't know. There wasn't a tail on one of the marshes for they

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Languages

   Irish

   English

   Location

   Raheely, Co. Roscommon