Banagher
Banagher is a town in Ireland, located in the midlands, on the western edge of County Offaly in the province of Leinster, on the banks of the River Shannon. The town had a population of 3,000 at the height of its economic growth in the mid-19th century. According to the 2022 census, its population was 1,907.
Banagher was historically an important strategic location on the River Shannon and was one of the few crossing points between the provinces of Leinster and Connacht. It thus became a natural focus for a number of historical buildings, including a 19th-century Martello Tower and a number of castles around the town, which were built in the 14th and 15th centuries. The town used to be the focus of thriving river business and was an important stop on the Dublin to Limerick navigation. It supported a number of industries, including a maltings and distillery, which are now defunct. Tourism has supplanted this to a certain extent with a modern marina providing support for river cruisers and watersports facilities and the town is an angling centre, with particular attraction for pike anglers. Banagher is the centre of the Shannon Callows, grassy meadows which flood in winter and provide living space for waterfowl.
Etymology
There are more than twenty places in Ireland called Banagher or a version thereof. Banagher can be derived as the anglicised version of the Irish 'Beannchor' or 'Beannchar'. Most Irish placenames relate to topographical features and this is the case with 'Beannchor' - in this sense 'beann' refers to or means a 'peak' or 'top' and is widely used in the names of hills and mountains while 'cor' also appears in numerous placenames and refers to or means a rounded or curved hill, such as Cor Hill, Cormore, Corbeg Corbane and many others. A related interpretation uses the Irish form in its two-word version, understood in English as "the place of the pointed rocks on the Shannon".History
The settlement originated at a ford due to an esker which crosses the Shannon at that location and as a consequence a narrow neck of land was flood-free all year round. Travellers intending to cross the Shannon converged on this point along tracks which were the forerunners of the modern roads, and a community grew at this crossing point.St. Rynagh
It is thought that St. Rynagh, after whom the local parish of Gallen and Reynagh is named, was a sister of St. Finnian of Clonard. According to research, they came from a place near New Ross in County Wexford. It is known that contact was maintained between Rynagh's Wexford home and her foundation at Banagher, and her mother came to live there. It is recorded that Reynagh's mother, Talech, or Talacia, became Abbess of the Banagher convent. The death of St. Finnian is assigned to 563, but there does not seem to be an authoritative statement as to the date of St. Rynagh's death, although according to St. Rynagh's Parish Church in Banagher, St. Rynagh died about 610. The place of her burial is uncertain but it is likely to have been in either Banagher or Kilmacduagh near Gort, the monastery founded by her son, St. Colman.Annals and pilgrims
At Banagher, there are esker ridges on both sides of the river and roads were built along these many centuries ago. The first bridge was built over the Shannon at that point as early as 1049. It was a place of great strategic importance because the Shannon and its lowlands provided a natural barrier between Connacht and Leinster. An army that wanted to cross the river in the area of the Shannon Callows had few choices; apart from Banagher, the only other suitable places were Athlone, Shannonbridge and Portumna.Áth Cróich was the earlier recorded Irish name for the town - this name first appears in the Irish annals in 1120, when one of three principal bridges in Ireland was built there by King Turlough O’Connor. Historical sources, including the writings of Sir Mathew De Renzy, indicate that Áth Cróich and Banagher refer to the same location; the Locus Gaelic Placenames project confirmed that Banagher and Áth Cróich are synonymous and will be recorded as such in future editions of the definitive dictionary of Gaelic placenames.
Many of the early travellers were pilgrims. North-west of Banagher, on the Connacht side of the river, was the monastic establishment of Clonfert, with the more famous Clonmacnoise a short distance further north. Not far to the south-west on the same side was another monastic foundation, at Meelick. At Meelick, the three provinces, Leinster, Munster and Connacht meet and just south of Banagher in the direction of Birr, the four dioceses of Clonmacnoise, Meath, Killaloe and Clonfert meet.
Military history and charter
The importance of Banagher as a military position on the Shannon and the highway from Leinster and Munster to Connacht was early appreciated by the English, whose forces seized it about the middle of the 16th century, coming up the river to do so. They constructed some fortifications which they called Fort Frankford and held the place in spite of the fact that the part of Offaly for some miles around Banagher was in the hands of the MacCoghlan clan. The MacCoghlans, aided by boundaries of bog and river, held their territories against all comers for about 500 years, even maintaining a footing by open defiance well into the 17th century. Garry Castle, Clonony Castle, and Moystown Castle are remains of MacCoghlan strongholds. Sometime after 1554, when Queen Mary married Philip II of Spain, Offaly County was named King's County in honour of Philip, but it is doubtful if the royal jurisdiction extended to any of the MacCoghlan areas except Banagher. Ultimately, the MacCoghlans were overthrown and their lands were planted by order of James I issued in 1621.The town was incorporated by charter of Charles I on 16 September 1628. The corporation was allowed to elect two members to Parliament and hold two fairs per year, amongst other wide-ranging powers.
In 1628, a permanent military garrison was established which continued with slight interruptions until 1863. The defences were further strengthened and it was officially named Fort Falkland, after Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland who was Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1622 to 1629. The forces of the Confederate Catholics took Banagher in 1642, but it was retaken by the Cromwellian Army in 1650, under the command of Henry Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law. By 1652 the Cromwellian conquest was completed and the transplantation of the Catholic landholders to Connacht began in 1654. Cromwell's castle, built in 1653, and still standing, helped control access and egress on the mid Shannon. The lands from which they were expelled were divided among the adventurers and the soldiers of Cromwell's army.
During the Williamite Wars of 1690–1691, the garrison espoused the cause of James II in contrast with that of Birr, which took the side of William. A stone bridge across the Shannon was erected in 1685, and a Williamite army advancing from Birr in 1690 attempted to break it down but abandoned the attempt as too risky in consequence of the presence of Sarsfield's Army on the Connacht side. A broken arch of this bridge is still to be seen on that side a few yards below the present bridge of seven arches, which was erected by the Commissioners for the Improvement of Navigation of the Shannon in 1841–1843. The square tower on the lower side of the bridge at the Galway end was erected to protect the old bridge, as was the Salt Battery, with emplacements for four cannons facing west and north, a few hundred yards from town along the Crank Road.
The Irish garrison remained in Banagher without further molestation until the Battle of Aughrim, after which Banagher was evacuated. The English re-occupied the town, where they remained until the middle of the 19th century when Banagher ceased to be a garrison town.
Economic growth
In the 17th century, Banagher was the centre of a flourishing wool trade. In 1699, the impost placed on the export of woollen goods to England practically killed the wool trade. At the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775, an embargo placed on the export of foodstuffs to the American Colonies dealt another blow to the trade of Banagher. In 1780, the British Parliament withdrew all these restrictions and Banagher's economy began to improve rapidly.From 1800 to 1847, Banagher enjoyed a period of prosperity unequalled in its history. Corn growing had long been one of the chief agricultural activities of the district and the opening of the Grand Canal at the end of the 18th century brought cheap and efficient water transport to the district, and gave easy access to the cities of Dublin and Limerick. Banagher became the outlet for the grain raised in a wide area around the town, and the Banagher corn market on Fridays was one of the largest of such fairs in Ireland.
With the water transport facilities stimulating the growth of existing industries and encouraging the establishment of new ones, neat two and three-storey houses were built on each side of the road in Banagher to provide shops and dwellings for the merchants and other people who came to live there for the canal business. In 1834, there were many businesses, including a distillery, a brewery, two tanyards, a malthouse and corn mills in full operation in the town. Several craftsmen carried on industries in smaller workshops and their homes. With the increase in trade and manufactures went a corresponding increase in population. In 1800, the population was estimated at 1500; in 1841, it was 2836, and in 1846, it was estimated at 3000.
Decline
In sharp contrast with the flourishing state of trade in the first half of the 19th century was the rapid and sustained decline during the second half. In the period of 40 years from 1841 to 1881, the town's population fell from 2836 to 1192, a loss of over 57%. By the end of the century, all that remained of the major industries of the town was the malthouse of F.A. Waller & Co., while all smaller industries had vanished completely. Various causes contributed to this decline. The abolition of the Corn Laws in 1846 allowed the free importation of grain into these islands. Unable to compete with foreigners, the Irish farmer turned land over to pasture and grew only sufficient grain for family use. The Banagher corn trade rapidly declined, and would have completely vanished were it not that barley growing was kept alive by Waller's malthouse. The clearances in East Galway in the years immediately succeeding the Great Irish Famine adversely affected the trade of the town while the smaller industries were unable to compete against the highly organised industries of Britain.The opening of Banagher Railway station in 1884, as the terminus of the Clara to Banagher branch of the Great Southern & Western Railway Company, brought some improvement, with several passenger and goods trains every day.
In March 1920, Resident Magistrate Alan Bell, from Banagher, was killed. He was pulled from a tram in south Dublin and shot at point blank range by Collins' IRA "Squad". His death was instantaneous. He was tasked by the British to track down Sinn Féin funds; he had successfully confiscated over £71,000 from Sinn Féin's HQ and, by investigating banks throughout the country, was set to seize much more.
The fuel crisis of 1947 caused passenger services to be withdrawn from the line and it closed altogether in 1963. Although the site of the station is now covered by the marina, the trackway can still be seen, minus the track, at the gateway at the eastern corner of the marina.