The main town of Connemara is
Clifden, which is surrounded by an area rich with
megalithic tombs. The famous "
Connemara Green marble" is found outcropping along a line between
Streamstown and
Lissoughter. It was a trade treasure used by the inhabitants in prehistoric times. It continues to be of great value today. It is available in large dimensional slabs suitable for buildings as well as for smaller pieces of jewellery.
Clan system and
gallowglass armed with
pikes,
longswords, and the
Lochaber axe. Drawing by
Albrecht Dürer, 1521. Before the
Tudor and
Cromwellian conquests, Connemara, like the rest of
Gaelic Ireland, was ruled by
Irish clans whose
Chiefs and their
derbhfine were expected to follow the same
code of honour also expected of
Scottish clan chiefs. In his biography of
Rob Roy MacGregor,
W.H. Murray described the code of honour as follows, "The abiding principle is cast up from the records of detail: that right must be seen to be done, no man left destitute, the given word honoured, the strictest honour observed to all who have given implicit trust, and that a guest's confidence in his safety must never be betrayed by his host, or
vice versa. There was more of like kind, and each held as its kernel the simple ideal of trust honoured... Breaches of it were abhorred and damned... The ideal was applied 'with discretion'. Its interpretation went deeply into domestic life, but stayed shallow for war and politics." The east of what is now Connemara was once called , and was ruled by Kings who claimed descent from the
Delbhna and
Dál gCais of
Thomond and kinship with King
Brian Boru. The Kings of
Delbhna Tír Dhá Locha eventually took the title and surname Mac Con Raoi (since anglicised as Conroy or King). The
Chief of the Name of
Clan Mac Con Raoi directly ruled as
Lord of Gnó Mhór, which was later divided into the civil parishes of Kilcummin and Killannin. As was common practice at the time, due to the power they wielded through their
war galleys, the Chiefs of Clan Mac Conraoi also fulfilled their duty to be providers for their clan members by demanding and receiving
black rent on pain of
piracy against ships who fished or traded within the Clan's territory. The Chiefs of Clan Mac Conraoi were accordingly numbered, along with the Chiefs of Clans
O'Malley,
O'Dowd, and
O'Flaherty, among "the Sea Kings of Connacht". Like the Chiefs of Clan clan, the Chiefs of Clan (Conneely) also claimed descent from the . During the early 13th century, but all four clans were displaced and subjugated by the Chiefs of Clan , who had been driven west from into by the
Mac William Uachtar branch of the
House of Burgh, during the
Hiberno-Norman invasion of . According to Irish–American historian Bridget Connelly, "By the thirteenth century, the original inhabitants, the clans Conneely, Ó Cadhain, Ó Folan, and MacConroy, had been steadily driven westward from the Moycullen area to the seacoast between Moyrus and the
Killaries. And by 1586, with the signing of the
Articles of the Composition of Connacht that made
Morrough O'Flaherty landlord over all in the name of
Queen Elizabeth I, the MacConneelys and Ó Folans had sunk beneath the list of chieftains whose names appeared on the document. The Articles deprived all the original
Irish clan chieftains not only of their title but also all of the rents, dues, and tribal rights they had possessed under
Irish law." During the 16th century, but legendary local pirate queen
Grace O'Malley is on record as having said, with regard to her followers, () ("Better a ship filled with MacConroy and MacAnally clansmen, than a ship filled with gold"). Even though she has traditionally been viewed as an icon of
Irish nationalism, Grace O'Malley, in reality, sided with
Queen Elizabeth I against
Red Hugh O'Donnell and
Aodh Mór Ó Néill during the
Nine Years War, after which her known descendants became completely assimilated into the
British upper class. Even though O'Donnell and O'Neill were seeking primarily to end the
religious persecution of the
Catholic Church in Ireland by the English Queen her officials, O'Malley almost certainly considered herself completely justified under the code of conduct in siding with the Crown of England against them. The feud began in 1595, when O'Donnell re-instated the Chiefdom of
Clan MacWilliam Íochdar of the completely
Gaelicised House of Burgh in
County Mayo, which had been abolished under the policy of
surrender and regrant.
Religious persecution Before the
Suppression of the Monasteries was spread to Connemara, the
Dominican Order had a monastery about to the north of what is now
Roundstone (). During the centuries of
religious persecution of the
Catholic Church in Ireland that began under
Henry VIII and ended only with
Catholic emancipation in 1829, the
Irish people, according to Marcus Tanner, clung to the
Tridentine Mass, "
crossed themselves when they passed Protestant ministers on the road, had to be dragged into Protestant churches and put cotton wool in their ears rather than listen to Protestant sermons." , 1883. The custom of priests saying
Mass secretly in people's homes dates to the
penal laws-era. It was especially common in rural areas. According to historian and
folklorist Seumas MacManus, "Throughout these dreadful centuries, too, the hunted priest -- who in his youth had been smuggled to the Continent of Europe to receive his training -- tended the flame of faith. He lurked like a thief among the hills. On Sundays and Feast Days he celebrated Mass at a rock, on a remote mountainside, while the congregation knelt on the
heather of the hillside, under the open heavens. While he said Mass, faithful sentries watched from all the nearby hilltops, to give timely warning of the approaching
priest-hunter and his guard of British soldiers. But sometimes the troops came on them unawares, and the
Mass Rock was bespattered with his blood, -- and men, women, and children caught in the crime of worshipping God among the rocks, were frequently slaughtered on the mountainside." According to historian and folklorist Tony Nugent, several
Mass rocks survive in Connemara from this era. There is one located along the
boreen named
Baile Eamoinn near
Spiddal. Two others are located at Barr na Daoire and at Caorán Beag in
Carraroe. A fourth,
Cluain Duibh, is located near
Moycullen at Clooniff. The cartographer
Tim Robinson has written of a fifth Mass rock, located in the Townland of "An Tulaigh", which also includes two
holy wells and, formerly, a
Christian pilgrimage chapel dedicated to
St. Columkille, who is said in the oral tradition to have visited the region. The Mass rock was built from several of the many boulders scattered by glaciers around
Lough Clurra and is named in Irish
"Cloch an tSagairt" ("Stone of the Priest"), but which was formerly marked as "
Druid's altar" and
dolmen on the old
Ordnance Survey maps. After taking the island in 1653, the
New Model Army of
Oliver Cromwell turned the nearby island of
Inishbofin, County Galway, into a prison camp for
Roman Catholic priests arrested while exercising their religious ministry covertly in other parts of Ireland.
Inishmore, in the nearby
Aran Islands, was used for exactly the same purpose. The last priests held on both islands were finally released following the
Stuart Restoration in 1662. One of the last
Chiefs of
Clan O'Flaherty and
Lord of
Iar Connacht was the 17th-century historian
Ruaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh, who lost the greater part of his ancestral lands during the
Cromwellian confiscations of the 1650s. After being dispossessed, Ó Flaithbheartaigh settled near
Spiddal wrote a book of
Irish history in
Neo-Latin titled
Ogygia, which was published in 1685 as
Ogygia: seu Rerum Hibernicarum Chronologia & etc., in 1793 it was translated into English by Rev. James Hely, as
Ogygia, or a Chronological account of Irish Events (collected from Very Ancient Documents faithfully compared with each other & supported by the Genealogical & Chronological Aid of the Sacred and Profane Writings of the Globe).
Ogygia, the island of
Calypso in
Homer's
The Odyssey, was used by Ó Flaithbheartaigh as a poetic allegory for Ireland. Drawing from numerous ancient documents,
Ogygia traces
Irish history back before
Saint Patrick and into Pre-Christian
Irish mythology. .
Daniel O'Connell is depicted in the centre addressing the gathered masses. In 1843,
Daniel O'Connell, the mastermind of the successful campaign for
Catholic emancipation, held a Monster Meeting at
Clifden, attended by a crowd reportedly numbering 100,000, before whom he spoke on
repeal of the
Act of Union. Connemara was drastically depopulated during the
Great Famine in the late 1840s, with the lands of the
Anglo-Irish Martin family being greatly affected and the bankrupted landlord being forced to auction off the estate in 1849: The
Sean nós song Johnny Seoighe is one of the few Irish songs from the era of the Great Famine that still survives. The events of the Great Irish Famine in Connemara have since inspired the recent
Irish-language films ''
Black '47, directed by Lance Daly, and Arracht'', which was directed by
Tomás Ó Súilleabháin. The
Irish Famine of 1879 similarly caused mass starvation, evictions, and violence in Connemara against the abuses of power by local
Anglo-Irish landlords, bailiffs, and the
Royal Irish Constabulary. According to Tim Robinson, "
Michael Davitt, founder of the
Land League... visited An Cheathrú Rua [in 1879] and... found that the tenantry was reduced to eating the seed-potatoes on which the next seasons crop depended. In January 1880 after another tour of Connemara, he reported that the Poor Law Unions of the coastal areas were providing no outdoor relief (i.e. road-building schemes, etc.), and that the people faced starvation in the months before the summer. Not only was
potato-blight prevalent, but it seems the
kelp market had failed, and for most small tenants of the coastal areas it was the price they got for their kelp that paid the rent." In response, Father Patrick Grealy, the
Roman Catholic priest assigned to Carna, selected ten, "very destitute but industrious and virtuous families", from his parish to emigrate to America and be settled upon frontier homesteads in
Moonshine Township, near
Graceville, Minnesota, by Bishop
John Ireland of the
Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Paul. In 1880 efforts by landlord Martin S. Kirwan to evict his starving tenants resulted in "The Battle of Carraroe" (), which Tim Robinson has dubbed, "the most dramatic event of the
Land War in Connemara." During the famous battle, Mr. Fenton, the landlord's process server, arrived to serve evictions with the protection and support of an estimated 260 officers of the
Royal Irish Constabulary. They were met by the violent resistance of an estimated 2000 members of the local population. Tim Robinson writes, "Local
Seanchas has it that there were many unfamiliar faces in the crowd – the dead, come up from the Old graveyard at Barr an Doire to protect the homes of their descendants, it was said." () After escalating violence forced him to retreat to the RIC barracks before completing the third eviction, Mr. Fenton wrote a letter to the land agent at
Roundstone (); announcing his refusal to serve more evictions. According to historian Cormac Ó Comhraí, between the
Land War and the
First World War, politics in Connemara was largely dominated by the pro-
Home Rule Irish Parliamentary Party and its ally, the
United Irish League. At the same time, though, despite an almost complete absence of the Sinn Fein political party in Connemara, the militantly
anti-monarchist Irish Republican Brotherhood had a number of active units throughout the region. Furthermore, many
County Galway veterans of the subsequent
Irish War of Independence traced their belief in
Irish republicanism to a father or grandfather who had been in the IRB. The first transatlantic flight, piloted by
British aviators John Alcock and Arthur Brown, landed in a boggy area near Clifden in 1919.
War of Independence At the beginning of the
Irish War of Independence, the IRA in Connemara had
active service companies in Shanafaraghaun,
Maam, Kilmilkin,
Cornamona,
Clonbur,
Carraroe,
Lettermore,
Gorumna,
Rosmuc,
Letterfrack, and
Renvyle. The
Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), on the other hand, was based at fortified barracks at Clifden, Letterfrack,
Leenane, Clonbur, Rosmuc, and Maam. IRA veteran Jack Feehan later recalled of the region at the outbreak of the conflict, "In South Connemara from
Spiddal to
Lettermullen the brewing (of
poitín) was very strong and it went out as far as
Carna. The people there were against the RIC more or less because they used to search for poitín, save in the
Leenane area where the tourists came and
Clifden were there were tourists and people who wanted to be friendly to law and good money." According to both historian
Kathleen Villiers-Tuthill and former West Connemara Brigade IRA O/C Peter J. McDonnell, one of the IRA's most valuable intelligence officers during the ensuing conflict was Letterfrack native Jack Conneely, who had served as a Sergeant in the
Royal Engineers during the
First World War. Following the Armistice, Conneely had returned to Connemara and accepted a position as the driver for the
Leenane Hotel. Due to his war record, Conneely was trusted completely by oblivious Special Constables of the
Black and Tans. Crown security forces often requested rides from Conneely, who covertly used the opportunity to ask questions about secret military operations during the drive. On one occasion, two Special Constables accepted a ride to Leenane from Conneely without realizing that they were sitting the whole time next to crates filled with guns and ammunition. After dropping both men off, Conneely delivered the arms shipment to a safe house along
Killary Harbour, where the arms were picked up and carried by sea to the IRA in
County Mayo. But the national leadership of the
Irish Volunteers was so dissatisfied by the inefficiency and internal squabbling of the IRA in Connemara that, in September 1920, Brigade Commandant
Peter McDonnell was summoned to a secret meeting at Kilmilkin with
IRA Chief of Staff Richard Mulcahy, who promoted MacDonnell on the spot to
Officer Commanding of the West Connemara Brigade.
Burning of Clifden The assassination of 14
British Intelligence officers from the
Cairo Gang in Dublin on
Bloody Sunday, was followed by the arrest and
court-martial of Connemara-native
Thomas Whelan for
high treason and the
first degree murder of Captain B.T. Baggelly at 119 Lower
Baggot Street. Whelan, however, was a Volunteer in the IRA's Dublin Brigade but was not involved with
Michael Collins'
Squad, which had carried out the assassinations that morning. Therefore, in a break from typical IRA practice in such trials, Whelan recognized the court, pled not guilty, and accepted the services of a defense attorney, who introduced the sworn testimony of multiple alibi witnesses who stated that Whelan had attended a late morning
Mass and had been seen to receive
Holy Communion in Ringsend on Bloody Sunday. Despite this testimony and the efforts of the Archbishop of Dublin and of Monsignor Joseph MacAlpine, the parish priest of St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Clifden and
Irish Parliamentary Party political boss of the surrounding region, to save his life out of a firm believe that he had not been involved in Captain Baggelly's assassination, Whelan was found guilty and subjected to
execution by hanging on 14 March 1921. In retaliation, Peter J. McDonnell and the West Connemara Brigade decided to follow the IRA's "Two for One" policy by assassinating two
Royal Irish Constabulary officers in Whelan's birthplace of
Clifden, which until then had been, according to Rosmuc IRA commander Colm Ó Gaora,
"gach uile lá riamh dílis do dhlí Shasana", ("ever single day that ever was, loyal to England's law"). According to Peter McDonnell, the night of 15 March 1921 was selected, "to go into Clifden, get grub, and have a crack at the patrol." At the time, between 18 and 20 policemen were always stationed in the town. After finding the police had returned to barracks, the IRA withdrew temporarily, spent the night at, "the little lodge of Jim King near Kilcock" (
sic), and, on the evening of 16 March 1921, the patrol reentered Clifden from the south. A party of six IRA men then approached RIC Constables Charles Reynolds and Thomas Sweeney near "Eddie King's Pub". McDonnell later recalled, "I saw two RIC against Eddie King's window and they noticed us. One of them made a dive for his gun as I passed and we wheeled and opened up. They were shot." As both officers lay dying, the IRA men were seen to bend over them and remove their weapons and ammunition, before withdrawing from the scene with other RIC Constables in pursuit. Peter Joseph McDonnell later recalled, "They had a rifle and a revolver, fifty rounds of ammo, and belts and pouches." Canon Joseph MacAlpine was immediately summoned and gave both Constables the Last Rites before their deaths. Believing that an attack on their barracks was imminent, the Clifden RIC sent out a request for assistance over Clifden's Trans-Atlantic Marconi wireless station. In a
British war crime that is still known as "The Burning of Clifden" and in response to the request, a trainload of "Special Constables" from the
Black and Tans arrived via the
Galway to Clifden railway in the early hours of
St Patrick's Day, 17 March 1921. While making a half-hearted search for
Sinn Féin supporters, the Tans committed arson and burned down fourteen houses and businesses. Other Clifden residents later testified about being beaten and robbed at gunpoint and were granted compensation by the courts. John J. McDonnell, a decorated former
sergeant major in the
Connaught Rangers during World War I, was shot dead by security forces; most likely for the incorrigibly bad luck of having the same surname as the O.C. of the IRA West Connemara Brigade. Local businessman Peter Clancy was shot in the face and neck, but survived. Before leaving the town, British security forces left
graffiti outside Eddie King's pub, "Clifden will remember and so will the RIC", as well as, "Shoot another member of the RIC and up goes the town".
The Kilmilkin ambush In the
Irish folklore of Connemara, it was often said that one of last battles in a successful struggle for Irish independence would be fought in the hills near Kilmilkin. The IRA West Connemara Brigade's ambush of a
Royal Irish Constabulary convoy on 21 April 1921 was later seen as the fulfilment of that legend.
Irish Civil War The Truce Shortly after the signing of the
Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921, Connaught IRA commanders Peter J. McDonnell, Jack Feehan, and
Michael Kilroy had a meeting with
Michael Collins at the
Gaelic League headquarters. McDonnell later recalled, "There was a conference on and he (Collins) had arranged to meet us. Jack had been in
Dublin as he was the Divisional Quartermaster and he told us why we should accept the Treaty for we out of ammunition and the only choice we had was to accept the Treaty. All he wanted himself, Collins said, was to accept the Treaty for six months,
get in arms, and then we could tell the British to go to blazes. We couldn't carry on the fight for we had no hope of carrying it out successfully. I represented West Connemara, was Brigade O/C and Deputy O/C of the Division; Jack Feehan was Divisional Quartermaster; Michael Kilroy, O/C Western Division there. We told Collins we didn't agree with what he said and he didn't say much." In the lead up to the
Irish Civil War, Pro-Treaty rallies were held in Clifden,
Roundstone, and Cashel, while a massive anti-Treaty rally was addressed by
Éamon de Valera at Market Square in
Oughterard on 23 April 1922. Following the
anti-Treaty IRA's occupation of the
Four Courts in Dublin on 13 April 1922, however, local anti-Treaty IRA units took action to raise money by simultaneous
armed robbery of the post offices in
Ballyconneely, Clifden, and
Cleggan on
Good Friday. Furthermore, after Anglo-Irish landlord Talbott Clifton fled the country following a gun battles against local anti-Treaty IRA members, his home at
Kylemore House was requisitioned and barricaded against expected attack by soldiers from the newly founded
Irish Army. Mark O'Malley later recalled that he deeply regretted that the anti-Treaty IRA never found Mr. Clifton's supply of guns and ammunition, which were widely believed to be hidden nearby.
Hostilities Renvyle House was burned down by the
Anti-Treaty IRA during the
Irish Civil War, but later rebuilt by
Oliver St John Gogarty and turned into a hotel. ==Geography==