John Arnold: History is embedded into the names of our lands and fields
Yes, there are families in the greater Cork city area who bear the name, but as far as I can discern, they’re not related to us although further research is needed.
Some few years back, I got a bit of a shock when I found out about a Captain John Arnold who served in Cromwell’s Army in Ireland in the late 1640s and early 1650s. Was it possible, I thought, that we were descended from this English soldier? Perish the thought!
Anyway, my fears proved foundless when I discovered the family had been in the Rathcormac area at least 30 years before the arrival of Cromwell.
As well as the stories of families and their descent, place names always fascinate me.
In Ireland, we have apparently more than 60,000 recorded individual townland names. They are a brilliant ‘database’ of ancient information and it mystifies me how the divisions were made.
Thankfully, that’s not the way ’twas done in Ireland.
Our 34 townlands vary from 738 acres right down to nine. That tiny nine-acre townland, Commons, had four claimants when surveyed in 1846 - Leahys, Marks, Cronans and Queen Victoria - the English Royal family has long relinquished it’s claim - but the Leahys are still there!
Our townland, Garryantaggart, has just over 100 acres. The first time I came across ‘Garintagurt’ was when Neville Bath did a Survey of Cork County for the Grand Jury (forerunner of the county council) in 1811. Before that, it was often called Bartholomew or Bartholomew Well -after the Holy Well in the corner of the townland.
In a survey done of forfeited land in the late 1640s, we find no mention.
Now, the Church of St Bartholomew of The Holy Well - to give it its full title - was built probably in the 1820s in a corner of what we call our Chapel Field. Garryantaggart is widely translated as the priest’s garden or priest’s enclosure.
The proximity of the church gives credence to the link between the townland and the ecclesiastical building.
Of course, when we use the word ‘priest’ we automatically think of an ordained Christian priest, but then in olden times druids were called priests also!
Places like Holly Hill, Hightown and Mellifontstown are kind of self-explanatory, but names like Knockeenagroagh and Curraghphilibode -well, there are great history and lore behind them.
I met a man from Ballycurraginny (Killeagh) on Monday night - now there’s a townland name for you!
As ye know, Ireland is dotted with Holy Wells, over 3,000 have been recorded and no doubt many more have been forgotten in the mists of time.
Truly, we have a historical ‘conundrum’ here locally – a hen and an egg situation surely! Was it a pagan ‘holy’ well that attracted crowds, maybe 1,000 years ago, and from this ‘Pattern’ did a huge horse fair grow up? Or was the fair older - it got a Royal Charter in 1723 but more than likely it was in existence for centuries before that.
In olden times, the two September fairs were held in a field named the ‘Faiche Mhor’ - the big flat field -called the Fohure today! That location was just alongside the Holy Well.
Apparently, the carry-on in and around the well was anything but ‘holy’, with excessive drinking and, according to a contemporary account, ‘lecherous debauchery’.
A serious clash arose between Church and State and eventually a compromise was reached whereby the fair field was ‘moved’ about a mile from the well! That was in the early 1800s and the fairs continued unabated until the early 1900s.
On Tuesday this week, I spent the day working over in the Orchard and Well Fields. With lots of ancient trees on the ditches, these are two of the warmest fields on the farm - even on a cold March day.
Before our family came here in the 1870s, there were Hegarty, Barry, McGrath and Buckley families here. I think they all left their mark on the place - yes, truly gone but not forgotten.
I was fencing and tidying up gaps and putting up stakes, all in preparation for the leaving out of livestock next week. They’ve been indoor since early December - they’ll welcome the freedom, fresh air, and the chance to graze again.
The crows were busy building their nests - plenty twigs and cipíns under every tree as ‘building materials’ falls from busy beaks.
These two fields look down on the Glen, with hundreds of ash trees dying from the scourge of die-back.
Below the trees is the little River Cnapog - a tributary of the Flesk which itself flows into the River Bride.
The first Ordnance Survey Map of this country was produced between 1829 and 1842. On it, the river is marked. A few years later - in 1846 or ’47 as part of the Famine Relief Measures - public works were started to employ people so they could earn a little money to buy food -if it was available. A ‘New Line’ of road was built from Ballinwilling Bridge to join the Rathcormac to Cobh ‘old road’.
Strangely, there seems to be no collective ‘folk memory’ of the devastation wreaked by the famine in this area, but the population figures speak for themselves. Between 1841 and 1851, the number living in Desert went from 237 to 41, Mellifontstown from 176 to 77, and Lackabeha went from 107 to 43. Did hundreds die or leave? Probably both.
I recall Mrs Barry, of Kill St Anne, Castlelyons, telling me stories her father told her. She was born at Hightown, Bartlemy, and her father remembered being told of locals coming to work on the construction of the New Line road - he saw some of them dead from starvation by the ditch later in the day.
Just over from the well is the stoutly-built Ballinwilling Bridge. Some say it marks the ‘division’ between East and North Cork. It was the scene of a terribly bloody and vicious faction fight around 1825.
Reputedly fought between two local groups, the Shanavests and the Carawats, it resulted in several deaths. One account written in the 1930s claimed it was a family ‘feud’ between the Aherns and the Roches -they might have been ‘the leaders’ but both families had plenty backers.
Patsy Barry NT. Bartlemy Holy Well
App?
