Gleanings from Clooneigh by Shane Gilleran

    Clooneigh Road

Kilteevan’s Garden of Eden are its raised bog-lands. The townlands of Cloonlaur, Cloonmore, Doogara and Annaghmore are its jewel in the crown. Clooneigh is arguably its natural and ancient woodland. The name Clooneigh meaning ‘lawn of the night’ or Cluain (eigh) ‘meadow of the horse’ is a townland that is described as being located ‘at the bottom of Kilteevan’ along the shores of Lough Ree on the River Shannon. This is a townland defined and shaped by Lough Ree, the river Clooneigh and River Shannon. Along this Shannon corridor is a natural bog or oasis of ancient woodland that over time has given away to soft raised bog-land. On-top of these bogs are ‘artificial inland islands’ of fertile pockets of land that could only be accessed by toghers or local causeways through the bogs.

Clooneigh today is uninhabited and has been devoid of settlement for a while now. There is some visible and structural evidence of a cluster townland inhabited in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. While in the civic and administrative parish of Kilteevan, Clooneigh was part of the ecclesiastical parish of Derrane. According to the 1937 Folklore Commission the townland of Clooneigh was exchanged for the townlands of Culleen and Cartron sometime in the mid 1850’s. Hazel Ryan also mentions this in Kilteevan ‘A Look at a School and a Parish’: ‘the Story goes a number of families in Clooneigh had boats and used to take the monks attached to the monastery in Derrane, on the Shannon, anytime they wanted to and because of these houses, they were kept in the parish of Derrane.

As Ireland’s population increased in the 19^th century, so did the desire to acquire land in Kilteevan. We know that the population of Kilteevan pre-famine was 2818, and that 45% of families were living in Kilteevan, in 4^th class houses. From 1841 that there was a push and desire to farm marginalised land, or clochans; particularly on lands around bogs and lakes like Kilteevan. John Longfield in his ‘Bog Commission’ 1815, report for Co. Roscommon noted ‘the population of the county is exceedingly great, so much so that every little island or peninsula in the bogs contains more than an ordinary proportion of inhabitants’. By all accounts during the famine years the locality around Clooneigh was overrun with hungry people roaming, foraging, and scouring the bogs and roads in search of food.

The Tithe Applotment Books from Derrane parish in 1826, list P. McCutcheon as the landlord and owner of 85 acres of land in Clooneigh parish. This would have been land of agricultural value that he would have been paying a tithe on. It was the main source of income for the local clergy. Little is known about the McCutcheon family in Clooneigh. From the Longford landed gentry there was a ‘McCutcheon’ family residence located at Torboy House near Kenagh, Co Longford.

Post famine, Griffiths Valuation of Ireland 1857, details Andrew McCutcheon as the chief landholder with 531 acres and 29 perches, holding the townland of Clooneigh. His estate included a herd’s house, offices and land. He had land sub-letted to a number of tenants. These included Honoria Hanly, Bryan Kilcline, and Michael Martin. Between these three families they farmed 6 acres and 10 perches. The other named tenant was William Flynn, who had land rented from T.A.P. Mapother. The map from Griffiths Valuation 1857, outlines and intrinsically details the entrance to Clooneigh from Grove and crossing over the Clooneigh bridge from Derrinterk. It also outlines a tree lined togher or avenue to the McCutcheon residence, an avenue consisting of Ash and Oak trees. A number of these great Oaks are still standing today.

You would have had to be tough and resilient to live in this part of Kilteevan. This is an area that floods regularly as a result of the Clooneigh River overflowing its banks and flooding the surrounding landscape. Families had to be self-sufficient, people were reliant on what they could grow and source locally. Cattle and sheep were fed on these hay meadow callows during the summer. Potatoes like the Connaught Lumper grew well on the peat soil. Wheat, oats, barley flax, bere, turnips and cabbage were grown as well as fruit trees e.g. crab apples. Some food in the Autumn in the wild was sourced including wild fruits, berries, honey, and nuts. Fishing opportunities a plenty with the Clooneigh and Shannon rivers bursting full of trout, eel and pike. During the winter months hunting, shooting pheasant and snaring were popular sports and supplemented food supplies.

The 1901 census reveals a population of 21 people living in Clooneigh townland. The main families of the area consisted of Hanly, Martin, and Kilcline. The McCutcheon’s had departed by this stage and T.A.P. Mapother was now the landlord and proprietor of the farm-land in the townland. Annie Hanly was living in the former herds house of the McCutcheon’s with a family of seven. The other two families Martin and Kilcline had come into ownership of their dwellings and adjoining property. Similar enough to the 1901 census, the 1911 census lists 18 people now living in Clooneigh. Again the four families inhabiting the townland. James Hanly and his wife Kate Hanly are living in the herds-house and T.A.P. Mapother the name of the land-holder. You have a working home farm with nine out house and buildings listed with stables, cow-house, calf-house, piggery, barn, fowl-house and cart-house all listed and in use on the Clooneigh property.

We now know from military archives and statement witnesses from pension files, that this remote and secluded location was used extensively by the local IRA for hiding, drilling and manoeuvres during the War of Independence 1919-1921. Following the break-up of the local estates and local land division, turbary rights and bogs in Clooneigh were opened up to turf-cutting. The cutting and saving of turf is what many people might remember of summers gone-by in Clooneigh. Sr. Flora Fannon, in her ‘School Reflections’ Kilteevan, A Look at a School and a Parish, vividly recounts: ‘May mornings were exciting for us as the men from the town came out in their asses and carts laden with wheel barrows, and sleans to cut turf in Clooneigh bog’. The great community spirit or meitheal was alive and well in bogs like Clooneigh during the mid-1950’s. Alas as the 20^th century progressed the remaining families moved on or simply died out.

Clooneigh today represents a gateway to a rich rare and vibrant landscape. A wilderness defined by its peat-lands rich in bird and plant species, a unique grassland eco-system with its myriad of wildlife species. A panoply and aroma of smells, colours, and sounds that truly comes alive in spring and summer. It’s a place that soothes the soul in an ocean of serenity and tranquillity.

Posted 14 April 2020