Honouring local history and heritage

Honouring history and heritage so that the community may be encouraged to continue researching and recording the story of Cloughjordan is the stated aim of the local Heritage Group.

And that aim has been verily fulfilled with the recently-published ‘Cloughjordan Heritage Vol XI’, without doubt one of the best in the series pioneered by Canon Edward Whyte and Danny Grace in 1985.

Paddy Williams, who co-edited the latest volume with May Casey, kicks things off with a humour-filled look at Cloughjordan's contribution to the ‘Showband Era’ of the late 1950s to mid '70s. A key player in the local scene was Tom Williams, who formed the Slick Six (with John Williams, Billy Sheppard, Shay Spain, Billy McCarthy and Michael Glennon) in 1962. Five years later Tom established a new outfit, the Majorca Showband, and in 1971 he joined the Melody Makers with Nenagh’s Michael and Tony Geaney, Brendan Treacy, Sean Hogan and Pat White.

From bands to cars, Dorothy Cavanagh profiles the competitive motor sport successes of the late Billy Cavanagh of Modreeny. And from Southill to Saigon, Mary Maher tells the story of her brother Paddy, who emigrated to Australia in 1968 and was wounded by an exploding land mine while on military service in Vietnam.

Sport forms of a large portion of the Vol XI content, and those interested in hurling history will want to read Paddy Williams' account of the first North Tipperary Hurling Final, which was played in Killurane, Cloughjordan, in 1902. Susan Finnerty profiles Cloughjordan's Philip Heenan - “one of the most extraordinary characters and gifted horsemen to have graced Irish country life” - while an adaption is presented of Dr Máirtín Mac Siúrdáin's research on the association of Fr James Sherwin with Muriel and Grace Gifford and their respective husbands, Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Plunkett.

May Casey studies the Flaherty family of Thornhill House, Ballygibbon, where they lived from 1910 until 1966; remarkably, six daughters of Timothy and his second wife Julia became nuns. There's further intrigue in Karen Deane's account of the Quaker families that arrived in the seventeenth century, and of their descendants, in the area three miles from Ballingarry that became known as Quakerstown.

The new Cloughjordan Heritage book features two articles on the Modreeny Ambush of 1921. Ger Heffernan writes of ambush fatality Constable John Alexander Cantlon, while Brendan Sheehan recalls the widely-praised centenary events held last year.

Ann Cleary reaches back to 1800 in documenting her Kilrea family's ancestors and their contribution to the local community, most notably with regard to farming and hurling. A contribution ‘as Gaeilge’ to the journal comes from the pen of Peadar Kirby, who links MacDonagh's revolutionary vision to Cloughjordan's eco village.

There's another ancestral story from Gerry McCarthy, who tells of Stephen and John McCarthy of Coolnamona, both of whom fought in the First World War; Stephen went on to become a successful businessman in Australia.

Returning to sport, there's a series of articles on handball in the locality; Paddy Collins writes of the teams that first played the game; Martin Spain of the history of Lahorna Ball Alley, while Jim Casey shares memories of handball in Middlewalk, Bantiss, Loughane, Modreeny and Silverstream.

May Casey portrays the life of John MacDonagh, Thomas' younger brother and the last of the famous Cloughjordan family to die. From 1916 Volunteer to Broadway playwright, filmmaker and radio producer, John MacDonagh was indeed a man of many talents in Ireland and the United States, to where he travelled with a letter of introduction written by Éamon de Valera.

Staying with the theme of revolutionary struggle for freedom, Ger Heffernan seeks to explain what happened to two young constables, Thomas Gallivan and Joseph Daly, who were killed at Ardcroney during the War of Independence. Matters then plunge much further into the past with ‘A Pitch for the Ditch’ where Rachel Vaughan seeks to put an age on ditches/hedges; she established that one in Cloughjordan is around 500 years old, and underlines the historical importance of ditches, which can show how, where and when land was divided.

Another article from Paddy Williams looks at the Cloughjordan branch of the National Land League in 1880-1881. Among other activities, he relates how around 500 men with spades tilled a three-and-a-half-acre field for an imprisoned agitator; the field is now Thomas MacDonagh Park, headquarters of Kilruane MacDonaghs hurling club.

Emigration forms the theme of the next chapter, in which Barry Sheppard deciphers what became of his great uncle Philip, who left Cloughjordan for America at the turn of the twentieth century, and his descendants.

The tragic death of 11-year-old William Minchin Stacpoole after the upsetting of a donkey cart at Newtown in 1862 is mentioned by Karen Deane, while Martin G Butler revisits the First World War with an account of his granduncle Martin, killed at the front in 1916.

And then for something completely different - Fr Michael Spain charts his life as a Carmelite priest from ordination in Ardcroney to the missions in Nigeria to parish priest in Buckinghamshire and his present post in Derry.

A local attraction that many will want to read about is the boardwalk at Scohaboy Bog, rendered in these pages by Gearóid Ó Foighil.

In ‘A Full and Contented Life’, May Casey offers a short biography of award-winning wildlife photographer Andy Whelan of Cloughjordan and his many interests, from golf to wood-carving. John Flannery complements Vol XI with a fascinating analysis of Kilruane-born Lord Norbury, the infamous ‘Hanging Judge’, who sent Robert Emmet - and a great many others - to the gallows.

Easter 1916 legacies resurface again in Paddy Williams' chapter about Hollyford native Phil Shanahan, TD, who was along with Thomas and John MacDonagh one of three Tipperary men among the 150 Volunteers in the Jacob's Factory Garrison.

The penultimate section of the book has a sombre tone as it focuses on the Famine with Nenagh Guardian and Tipperary Vindicator reports of crimes committed in the parish in 1847-9, and the coroner's inquest into the death of Patrick Hayden (5) from starvation in 1848. The book concludes with a mapped heritage trail of Cloughjordan, which readers may use to explore to the town's many sights of interest.

Also featuring the poems ‘Cloughjordan’ by Paddy Hyland and ‘Thomas MacDonagh's Kilmainham’ by Mark O'Riordan, this new edition is like its predecessors punctuated with photographs to savour of local life gone by, as well as the not so distant past. It was launched at the recent ‘Cloughjordan Honours Thomas MacDonagh’ weekend and is now available in all the shops in Cloughjordan; in Sullivan's in Ardcroney; in Heenan's in Borrisokane and in Eason, Walsh's and the Book Shop in Nenagh.