Cliffoney
Cliffoney, officially Cliffony, is a village in the north of County Sligo in the west of Ireland. It lies on the N15 national route at its junction with the R279. It is approximately three kilometres from Mullaghmore.
Cliffoney has historical connections to Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, who served as the prime minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-nineteenth century, and Father Michael O'Flanagan, vice-president and later president of Sinn Féin, who was known as 'the Republican Priest'. Brigid MacGonigal, mother of Harry Clarke, was a native of Cliffoney.
There are several megalithic monuments close to the village, including Creevykeel Court Tomb. There are also several ringforts and cashels in the area. Saint Brigit's Well has a cross-slab, probably dating to the eight century, with a swastika carved in the top of the cross.
History
The oldest structures in Cliffoney are the five megalithic tombs close to the village in the townlands of Creevykeel, Creevymore and Cartronplank. Creevykeel Court Tomb, considered one of the finest examples of its kind in Ireland, was excavated by the Harvard Archaeological Mission in 1935. A second monument close to Creevykeel was destroyed completely by 1890. The chamber and back-stone of Cartronplank court tomb still survives, located on a private farm. The other two monuments are overgrown and on private land.The Cliffoney megaliths were visited by a number of antiquarians and researchers, and were illustrated by William Wakeman in 1880. Creevykeel is in state care and is maintained by the Office of Public Works. The other sites are on private property.
Saint Bridget's Well and Cross
A holy well associated with Saint Bridget is located on private land close to the village of Cliffoney. The well is located within a large ringfort some 40 meters in diameter which is mostly ploughed out on the south side, but is in good condition on the north side. Beside the well is an early Christian cross-slab known as the Cliffoney Cross, thought to date to the eighth century and contemporary with the many carved slabs on Inishmurray. The well was the site of an ancient cattle fair held annually on 1 February. A shrine with a statue of Saint Bridget was erected in the 1950s.St Brigid's Well is situated in Mrs Timoney's field about four hundred yards from the main road in the vicinity of Cliffoney. It was called St Brigid's Well, because when she was travelling through Connaught she visited and blessed it.
In its present state it is difficult to locate it, because it is surrounded by briars. In olden days the people used to come from every district and visit it. They used to go round the Well and said the following prayers Our Father and three Hail Marys.
Lord Palmerston
The lands around Cliffoney were granted to James Byrne after the Cromwellian conquests in the mid-1600s. After 1690 the lands were granted to Sir John Temple. The title Viscount Palmerston was created for the Temple family in 1723. The Palmerston family were absentee landlords, leaving the management of their estates to middlemen. Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston reportedly "contributed generously to local charities in Romsey, but he had no feelings of obligation towards his Irish tenants, and never invested any money in his lands in North Sligo".Upon the sudden death of the second Viscount in 1802, the family's North Sligo estates were inherited by his oldest son, Henry John Temple, who then became the 3rd Viscount Palmerston. The young Lord Palmerston visited his County Sligo estates, consisting of some 10,000 acres, for the first time in 1808.
He found a destitute tenantry renting small plots from middlemen, who set the land to tenants in rundale, a system of communal occupation under which an individual tenant might from time to time hold many tiny detached plots. In the early nineteenth century huge tracts of Ahamlish were destroyed by shifting sands, but Palmerston sought to bring the bogs there, as well as the sands ruined by sand, into cultivation.Palmerston began a building programme, renovating the old Market House which became a hotel, the Cliffoney Inn in 1820. A boys school was built next door in 1824 and a girls school at the north end of the village in 1826, replacing the old hedge school in Ahamlish. Palmerston immediately clashed with the Catholic priest Fr. John McHugh, the priest forbidding children attend either school unless a Catholic teacher was employed.
In further improvements, Alexander Nimmo was engaged to construct a pier in Mullaghmore. While Nimmo was in Cliffoney he designed and constructed apartments for Palmerston over an extension at the back of the Cliffoney Hotel. "Nimmo, the designer of Mullaghmore Harbour supervised extensive renovations to the Inn in 1826 at the cost of £385. 15s. 0d. The refurbishment included provision of a stone staircase, yard, stables and gateway".
The Roman Catholic church of Saint Molaise was completed and opened by 1828, slightly ahead of Catholic Emancipation. It replaced an earlier structure called Tempeall Bui, located behind the current village hall and close to Saint Bridget's Well, probably demolished and reused in the new buildings.
"In the build up to Catholic Emancipation, in February 1828, religious tensions caused a riot in Cliffoney with extra police required to calm the 239 strong crowd". A parochial house called Palmerston Glebe was built in Creevymore for the use of the Catholic priests, with four acres of land attached. Palmerston hired an estate manager named John Lynch to oversee drainage and reclamation projects and built a two-story house called Rundale cottage. In the 1830s a tree nursery was established at Rundale.
Fr. Michael O'Flanagan
was sent to Cliffoney at the end of July 1914, shortly before the start of WW1. O'Flanagan, a widely travelled curate with strong nationalist, socialist and republican ideals, may have been moved by Bishop Bernard Coyne for his support of the Sligo Dock Strike in May 1913. One of O'Flanagan's first initiatives was to write to Colonel Ashley of Classiebawn Castle, and he secured the old school house as a community hall for the villagers.Upon discovering social inequality in land redistribution, he led the villagers on a campaign against the Congested Districts Board to secure rights to cut turf on the Cloonerco Bogs adjacent to Cliffoney. This action, which began on 29 June 1915 became known as the Cloonerco Bog Fight. The case simmered on all summer, and the villagers harvested large quantities of turf which was distributed throughout the locality. Eventually the case was settled in favour of the people of Cliffoney.
O'Flanagan was invited to attend the funeral of veteran Fenian Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa in August 1915. He gave a passionate speech at the Reception of Remains in City Hall, where he was photographed with Tom Clarke, Mary Jane and Eileen O'Donovan Rossa. At the graveside O'Flanagan recited the funeral prayers in Irish before his friend Padraig Pearse made his incendiary speech.
In October O'Flanagan attended a tillage meeting held in Sligo Courthouse, where T. W. Russell was campaigning on behalf of the British Government, for increased tillage production to aid the war effort. When a motion to that effect was proposed, O'Flanagan objected and proposed a counter-motion, advising the people to "ignore the Board of Agriculture and adopt their own remedy...... They should 'Stick to the oats.' This call has ever since been associated with the curate of Cliffoney."
O’Flanagan’s speech ended with a rousing call: ‘The famine of 1847 would never have been written across the pages of history if the men of that day were men enough to risk death rather than part with their oat crop. Let each farmer keep at least as much oats on hand to carry himself and his family through in case of necessity till next years harvest.
The speech was widely reported in the newspapers, and within days O'Flanagan was removed from Cliffoney by Bishop Coyne. In response, on 17 October the villagers of Cliffoney locked the door of St. Molaise's church, and refused to allow a replacement to enter, demanding instead that O'Flanagan be sent back to Cliffoney. The standoff, which became known as the "Cliffoney Rebellion" was to last for ten weeks. The people of Cliffoney knelt on the ground outside the locked church and said the Rosary for the return of O'Flanagan. The villagers marched 15 miles into Sligo to have an audience with the Bishop, but he refused to meet them. They also sent a petition to the Pope which was unsuccessful. Eventually the church was re-opened on Christmas Eve, 1915.
An unfinished memoir, written by O'Flanagan in 1920, describes his version of the events that took place during his time in Cliffoney. The memoir was published as "From Cliffoney to Crosna" in 2016 by the Fr. O'Flanagan Memorial Group in Cliffoney.
Cliffoney Volunteers
A company of Volunteers was set up in Cliffoney with the guidance of Fr. O'Flanagan and Alec McCabe.
In November, 1915 I was introduced, with a few other men in the district, into the I.R.B. by the late William Gilmartin and Alec McCabe, then a National Teacher in Sligo. The I.R.B. Circle at that time consisted of eight members and was later increased to twelve William Gilmartin and myself then organized a Company of the Irish Volunteers in Cliffoney area. At that time we had a Catholic Curate the late Father Michael O'Flanagan, a great Irishman and strong supporter of the Republican Movement. He gave us every assistance and encouragement and advised the young men of the parish to join the Irish Volunteers. In all, forty men joined the Cliffoney Company.
The Cliffoney Company took over the Old Boys' School, and renamed it after Fr. O'Flanagan. The building was as a drilling and parade hall, even though it was just across the street from the R.I.C. barracks. The Cliffoney Company were out marching in uniform for Saint Patrick's Day 1916.
In his report at the end of March the County Inspector mentioned that a branch of the Irish Volunteers had been formed at Cliffony and that other branches were in the process of being formed. He reported that the Cliffony Volunteers had paraded to the number of fifty on St. Patrick's Day wearing uniforms. They attended Mass at Cliffony and then "paraded the roads." Their leaders, William Gilmartin and Andrew Conway, carried revolvers, he reported. On the same day, he said. Alec McCabe led a parade of 69 "Sinn Féiners" in Ballymote. McCabe was reported as wearing the uniform of the Irish Volunteers and the others wearing Irish Volunteer armbands.They were ready for action a month later for the Easter Insurrection 1916, with orders to march along the route to Sligo capturing R.I.C. barracks along the way, but stood down when Eoin MacNeil's countermanding order came from Dublin.
The Cliffony Volunteers mobilised in the early hours of Easter Monday, 60 strong, including Fianna boys. At the break of day they were ready to advance on Sligo when a messenger arrived cancelling all active operations pending further orders from H.Q. The Volunteers remained in readiness for over a week in the hope of taking part in the rebellion but with the surrender in Dublin all hope ended and they disbanded."On Sunday April 30th, the day after the surrender in Dublin, a parade was held by the Irish Volunteers in Cliffony. No arms were carried." On 6 May some sixty soldiers from the North Staffordshire regiment arrived in Sligo by train. They proceeded by car to Cliffony on the morning of 7 May with orders to arrest any Volunteers at large in the area. The Cliffoney Company were forewarned, but fifteen men were arrested and subsequently deported first to Sligo Goal, then Dublin and finally Wandsworth prison close to London.