WE INTEND PUBLISHING HERE MANY OF THE PAST TALKS GIVEN TO THE SOCIETY BY GUEST SPEAKERS

ALONG WITH DETAILS OF OUTINGS.

Beara Historical Society outing to Allihies

    For the first outing of 2008, the members of Beara Historical Society went to the Allihies area on Sunday 27^th April 2008. The first stop was in Reentrusk where members Theo Dahlke and his wife Barbara recently found a Bronze Age copper mine, similar to the mines on Mount Gabriel, while out walking in the rugged landscape near Cod Head. Theo explained how the ancient miners found traces of copper ore in a quartz vein at the base of a large rock outcrop. They collected wood and lit a fire against the face of the rock and when it was very hot they threw cold water on it. This caused a thin layer of the surface to shatter. They broke the surface with rounded stone hammers or mauls and removed the copper ore and dumped the waste material. They smelted the ore, mixed it with tin and poured it into moulds to make bronze axes and other artefacts. Over time the waste material formed a large mound in front of the mine. Broken stone hammers, bits of charcoal and black soil can be seen on the exposed parts of the mound. Theo suggests that the stone hammers came from the stony strand in the seashore in Eshavaud to the west. This was the first time most of the people present were in this remote area. They were enthralled by the rugged unspoilt scenery and believed that similar prehistoric mines are awaiting discovery in the general Allihies area.

    The North Engine, Allihies

    The next stop was at the roadside above the cliffs of Dooneen where ‘Copper’ John Puxley began copper mining in 1812. In the following years copper mines were opened in several other locations around the village of Allihies. In the early years the copper ore was exported in copper schooners from Ballydonegan and sold to the smelters in Swansea. Later the copper ore was carted to the sheltered harbour at Dunboy for export. On the return voyage the schooners brought coal for the steam engines which pumped water out of the mines as well as hauling the blasted ore bearing rock to the surface for processing. As the mining expanded the number of men, women and children employed grew from 300 to a peak of 1,200. During the Great Famine in the 1840s, Puxley bought potatoes in Devon, transported them in the returning schooners and sold them at cost to his workers. By 1880 the amount of copper ore was declining and the mines closed down in 1884. This was followed by large scale emigration to Michigan and later to the newly opened copper mines in Butte, Montana.

    There was a brief stop at the burial place of the legendary Children of Lir on the roadside near Allihies. White quartz stones mark the graves.

    The final stop was at the recently opened Allihies Copper Mining Museum. This building was originally a Methodist Church built for Cornish copper miners who were brought over to help open the mines. About ten years ago The Allihies Mining Museum Committee was set up to restore the then roofless building. Theo Dalke was one of those deeply involved in the development. With the help of working models and artefacts collected from the mines, he explained the various mining processes underground and over ground in the 1800s.

    All those present agreed that this was one of the best laid out and easiest to follow museums they had been to visit and complemented the Museum Committee on their years of hard work. Then after a cup of tea or coffee and sandwiches and cakes in the Museum café, the members headed home after an informative and enjoyable outing. The museum is now open to the public.

Beara Historical Society Outing to Adrigole

    Local historian Sean Nicholson was the guide for a large gathering of members who visited Adrigole on Sunday 29 June 2008. The first stop was at Kilcaskan where St Cascan set up the first Christian church in Adrigole. An old graveyard surrounds the ivy-covered ruins of the church. Beside the church is an ogham stone. After being exposed to the elements for almost two thousand years, the inscriptions along on side of the stone are now very faint. Across the road is a large boulder with a bullaun-type hollow on its upper surface. It is known locally as a holy well and has been visited by generations of local people. It is the custom to inscribe a cross with a stone or a coin on the rock surface beside the well and on the bottom of the well. Sean pointed out a series of rocks leading to the nearby river to the south and said this was a processional way used by druids in pre-Christian times as part of the rituals at the bullaun stone.

    Ogham Stone, Kilcaskan Church

    The next stop was at Canshanavoe, where Sean and local farmer Donie O’SuIlivan pointed out a ‘Comhla’ or fairy door leading to the ‘other world’. It is reddish in colour and is at the foot of a steep cliff. Donie then led the group up the hillside to a Bronze Age copper mine, which has been dated to 1600BC. He noticed the shallow drivings under a large rock years ago, but was not sure what they were for. (A local Pisoeg told to children at bedtime long ago was of a witch that lived behind the red door and who would sprit naughty children away to the underworld)

The red Door, Canshanavoe

    The ancient miners in Adrigole found traces of copper ore in the base of a large rock outcrop. They collected wood and lit a fire against the face of the rock and when it was very hot they threw cold water on it. This caused a thin layer of the surface to shatter. They broke the surface with rounded stone hammers or mauls and removed the copper ore and dumped the waste material. They smelted the ore, mixed it with tin and poured it into moulds to make bronze axes and other artefacts. Over time the waste material formed a very large mound in front of the mine. Broken stone hammers, bits of charcoal and black soil can be seen on the exposed parts of the mound. Donie suggested the rounded stone hammers were brought up from the seashore near Adrigole Harbour. Chairman of the Historical Society, Connie Murphy thanked Sean and Donie for a most interesting and informative afternoon.

National Heritage Week 24^th - 31^st August 2008

A Town Walk

    A very good number of people met at the Square, Castletownbere at 2 pm on Sunday 24th August and moved east of the town to near St. Joseph’s Hospital which was the site where the Castletownbere Coast Guard Station once stood.

    Coastguard Station

    Here the guide for the day, Gerdie Harrington, told the group of an attack made on the station by the local Unit of the IRA in 1920. He told how two of the IRA men wearing British Army uniforms came to the gate where they handed over a large envelope to the guard and as he took it they overpowered him and the rest of the attacking force rushed the main part of the building. But from then on things went wrong for them, because of gunfire all the Coastguards in the station were alerted and the British Army stationed at Furious Pier three miles east of the town were alerted.

    Three of the attacking party were wounded the worst was Johnny McCarthy who had a bullet close to his heart. He was carried across the road to the nuns’ quarters of the Workhouse where one of the nuns placed a nuns cloak on him and placed him in a nun’s bed with a hood over his face and a prayer book in his hand. When the British arrived to search for him they mistook him for a nun and left. Johnny carried that bullet throughout his life and later went to the US and on returning fought with O’Duffy’s Irish Brigade in the Spanish Civil War.

     Castletown Berehaven Union Workhouse

    The next stop made by the group was the site of the Old Workhouse which they were told was at one time the town’s main centre as it was here the Castletown Rural District Council and the Castletown Board of Guardians, met for their fortnightly meetings in what was known as the Town Hall. They were told the history of the Workhouse and how it opened just after the Great Famine of 1847. It also had a hospital, school and farm, and was used by the Free State Army following the Truce. The only remaining part of the workhouse is the seven foot high wall surrounding the property which now contains St. Martin’s and St. Joseph’s Villas.

    The group stopped at the Creamery and were told how it began in 1936 and at one time employed some twenty people, winning several awards for its butter.

     Brandy Hall School

    Moving on then to the Old Brandy Hall National School, where they learned of some of its famous pupils such as Tim and Ned Harrington, MPs, Judge Adams, and many others. How it got the Brandy Hall name from the nearby building on the sea front which was the old presbytery and before that was where smugglers brought in brandy and other goods.

    The group’s next stop was at the wreck of an old sailing vessel named “Trafalgar” which lay in the foreshore just across the road from the site of the Bridewell which was a kind of a holding for prisoners found guilty in the local court pending going to Cork Jail. The building was demolished some years ago and a block of apartments built on the site. The group were told the story of the “Trafalgar” how she was at one time known as a “Coffin Ship” because of her voyages to the US during the Famine years.

     Murphy's Store

    The group next moved to the town and starting at Murphy’s Corner to the Beara Bay they learned what the town was like some fifty or so years ago with its bustling main street, once full of family owned shops and stores. The town lost over fifty family businesses in those years. They learned of the number of shoemakers, tailors, dressmakers, harness makers and public houses which have disappeared, the number of bakeries, shoe shops, fish curing stations.

     Berehaven Hotel & St Peter's Church

    At St. Peter’s Church of Ireland they learned that it was built in 1845 and had a large congregation in the area. It has been closed for several years.

     Beara Bay Hotel

    The final stop was at the Beara Bay Hotel, which was built as a Coast Guard Station and of its history as the Berehaven Hotel. The building is to be demolished in the near future and a shopping precinct and apartments built on the site. The face of Castletownbere is fast changing.

Cloontreem Valley

    On Thursday evening 28^th August a large group of Beara Historical Society members, under the guidance of the Society’s chairman Connie Murphy, travelled into Cloontreem valley, 3km north-east of Castletownbere.

    Long stretches of stone walls protrude intermittently above the surface of the remaining bog all along the sloping eastern side of the valley. In the course of turf cutting over many years, several sections of pre-bog stone walls have been exposed here. These were the fields of the prehistoric farmers of this valley. Several circular hut sites where they lived and fulachtaí fia where they boiled water and cooked meat are found throughout this eastern side of the valley.

    At the head of the valley stands an impressive Early Bronze Age wedge tomb (c. 4,000 years old), with a commanding view over Castletownbere and Berehaven Harbour. Just below the wedge tomb are the well preserved lower stone courses of a large circular house as well as the remains of two smaller huts, probably the dwelling places of the ancient chieftains of Cloontreem.

Beara Historical Society Heritage website

    The website of Beara Historical Society was officially launched on Friday night 29th August in Twomey’s Lounge Bar, Castletownbere. One of its members, John Kinns, the Society’s webmaster has been putting the website together for the past few months and gave the audience a live demonstration of its wealth of contents using a data projector running from a server to simulate how the website would be viewed on the Internet.

    Here you can access information on the Society’s activities, publications, outings, early history, map of Beara and a list of the townlands and their translation for each Beara parish.

    Another feature of this invaluable resource includes a Section of past reminiscences by local Author and Journalist Gerard Harrington mainly taken from his most popular series ‘Down Memory Lane’ penned over many years for the ‘Southern Star’, West Cork's weekly newspaper. 

    Of special interest is the Heritage Photograph Section, where people can upload interesting old photographs. Several Beara school groups, football teams and photos of the peoples of Beara, in many cases with names are already on the site. So far this section has over 400 photos and is fast becoming a growing, living snapshot of Beara’s past which will continue to be developed as time goes on.

    One of the Society’s aims is to make information on our history available not only to local communities but also a wider audience through the World Wide Web. Ways of doing this is through our website, publication of books on Beara's past heritage and locally with regular outings and indoor talks. The website would also be of interest to local schools who are involved in local history projects.

    As in past years, members of the Society are available to visit local schools and community groups to promote a better understanding of our past.

  Connie Murphy (Chairman, Beara Historical Society) thanked all the members for their continued support and John Kinns for his informative, entertaining talk, especial thanks went to Mine Hosts John and Kathleen Twomey for their support and hospitality.

Princess Beara

    In the early centuries AD, Conn Céad Cathach (Con of the hundred battles) fought a fierce battle against Owen Mór, King of Ireland at Cloch Barraige. Owen was badly injured in the battle. Those of his followers who survived took him to Inis Greaghraighe (now known as Bere Island) as a safe place for him to recover. There, the fairy Eadaoin took him to her grianán (bower) where she nursed him back to full health. Nowadays, this place is known as Greenane.

    Owen and his followers then sailed southwards until they reached Spain. There he met and married Beara, daughter of the King of Castille.

    Later Owen, Beara and a large army sailed from Spain and landed in Greenane. Owen took his wife to the highest hill on the island and looking across the harbour he named the island and the whole peninsula Beara in honour of his wife. Rossmacowen, Kilmacowen and Buaile Owen most likely are named after Owen Mór and his son. According to local tradition Owen’s wife, Princess Beara, died and was buried in Ballard Commons in the remote and peaceful valley between Maulin and Knocknagree Mountains.

    John O'Sullivan Green and Connie Murphy

    John and Peter O’Sullivan Green, Filane, who were shown the site by their late father, Michael, pointed out the location of the burial some time ago. As part of Heritage Week events, and with the help of John Green, his nephew Finbarr, and their friend Joe Kelly, the memorial plaque provided by Beara Historical Society was fixed to the large rock-face beside the burial place of Princess Beara and was unveiled on Sunday 31st August.

  Members of the Society

    Connie Murphy, chairman of the Society welcomed the large gathering and outlined the story of Princess Beara. John Green then unveiled the memorial plaque and spoke of the respect his family had for this burial going back over several generations. His son David then recited a poem passed on to him by his Grand-aunt Annie. Ashley Whoulihan and Fachtna O’Donovan played traditional music and Norelene O’Dwyer sang Maidin i mBéara. Finally, all joined in singing Amhrán na bFiann.

Fachtna O'Donovan, Ashley Whoulihan, Norelene O'Dwyer, John O'Sullivan Green and Joe Kelly                                                 

   Fachtna O'Donovan, Ashley Whoulihan, John O'Sullivan Green, Joe Kelly and David O'Sullivan Green

Poem passed down in the O’Sullivan Green family

Queen Bealach Bodhrai was buried near Knorknagree

All her jewels were buried there

She married a chief that died with grief

In the Parish of Kilmackowen

Beara Historical Society Winter Meetings

    The Society's first winter meeting took place in Twomey’s Lounge Bar on Monday 27^th October. Michael Hall, a member of our Society, who has been researching documentary information on Beara for some time gave an illustrated talk on: -

'The castle and lands of the Clandermot McCarthys of Berehaven in the wake of the Desmond Rebellion’

©Beara Historical Society 2009