Clogheen

History

The first substantial records of the village date from the Cromwellian period, but the village did not come to note until the 18th and 19th centuries. It then became a local centre of trade and commerce. The village takes its modern form from the 19th century with a wide area that was formerly the Market Square (and still named so) and a number of townhouses in the Georgian style. Evidence of its former economic activity exists in the form of a number of ruined mills and accompanying mill-streams in the environs of the village, as well as several large estates. A former Catholic parish priest of Clogheen, Nicholas Sheehy, is buried at Shanrahan graveyard just outside the village, having been executed in 1766. Sheehy had been a vocal opponent of Anglican Church tithes. When a secret oath-bound society known as the Whiteboys, formed in the parish, elements of the Protestant Ascendancy conspired to make him an example to those who questioned or threatened their powers. After a kangaroo trial in Clonmel, he was hanged for murder and treason, crimes with little basis, no reliable witnesses, and no proof. The stately Shanbally Castle was situated 4.5 kilometres outside the village. It was built circa 1820 for the 1st Viscount Lismore, designed by the architect John Nash, and was demolished by the State in 1960. Daniel O'Connell addressed a crowd of up to 50,000 people in the town on 28 September 1828, as part of a public demonstration to demand Catholic emancipation. Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of 1837 notes Clogheen as being located in the barony of Iffa and Offa West and reported that there were 1,928 inhabitants, a military barracks for the accommodation of two troops of cavalry, an extensive brewery, plus seven flour mills in the town and neighbourhood. Clogheen…