Granard

Granard
Gránard
Town

Market Street
Motto: Féile, Flúirse, Fáilte
Granard

Location in Ireland

Coordinates: 53°47′N 7°30′W / 53.78°N 7.5°W / 53.78; -7.5Coordinates: 53°47′N 7°30′W / 53.78°N 7.5°W / 53.78; -7.5
Country Ireland
Province Leinster
County County Longford
Elevation 82 m (269 ft)
Population (2016)
 • Total 1,371
Time zone WET (UTC+0)
 • Summer (DST) IST (WEST) (UTC-1)
Irish Grid Reference N324814
Website www.longfordcoco.ie
Look up Longford in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Granard (Irish: Gránard) is a town in the north of County Longford, Ireland, and has a traceable history going back to AD 236. It is situated just south of the boundary between the watersheds of the Shannon and the Erne, at the point where the N55 national secondary road and the R194 regional road meet.

History

The town has been a centre of population since Celtic times, probably because of its elevated position offering a view over the surrounding countryside. It is mentioned in the ancient Irish epic, the Táin Bó Cuailgne, as being one of the places where Queen Medb and her army stopped on their journey to take the Donn Cuailnge (the Brown Bull of Cooley). The name of the town is itself so ancient as to be unclear even in Irish; the 11th-century writers of the Lebor na hUidre (containing the oldest written version of the Táin) refer to it by means of a gloss as "Gránairud Tethba tuaiscirt .i. Gránard indiu" ("Gránairud of northern Teathbha, i.e. Gránard of today"). According to the Tripartite Life of Saint Patrick, Patrick appointed Guasacht, a son of his former master Milchú, as first bishop of Granard, but the diocese did not survive as a separate entity. The surname Sheridan was first recorded in Granard in the 8th century.[6]

Granard Motte

Granard is known for the motte built by Risteárd de Tiúit. It stands 166 m (543 ft) above sea level, located at the head of the town. A statue of St Patrick was erected on the motte in 1932 to commemorate the 1500th anniversary of the coming of the saint to Ireland for the second time.[7] Due to the location between the three rivers and near Lough Sheelin, it is also a centre for trout and coarse fishing. The Gaynors (Mag Fhionbharra, from Fionnbharr Ó Géaradháin[8]) were once the Gaelic lords of Granard.

Granard was the location of an annual Harp festival from 1781 to 1785. This had been due to the financial support of James Dungan, an Irish merchant then residing in Copenhagen, and a native of Granard, who had heard of similar events being organised in Scotland. Many of the harpists who won prizes at these festivals, including Charles Fanning, Arthur O'Neill, and Rose Mooney went on to perform at the Belfast Harp Festival in July 1792. There has been a revival of the festival since 1981.

During the Irish War of Independence, on 31 October 1920 a police officer, District-Inspector Philip Kelleher was shot dead by two masked men in the bar of the Greville Arms Hotel, Granard. As a reprisal, a motor convoy of Crown forces entered the town four days later and systematically destroyed the main business premises of the town, including the Greville Arms Hotel.[9]

Transport

Granard is within the catchment area for Edgeworthstown railway station. The station is about a fifteen-minute drive; there is no bus link.

Bus Éireann Expressway route 065 provides one service a day to Monaghan (with onward connections to Belfast) and one service a day to Athlone (with onward connections to Galway). On Fridays there is a second service each way.[10] Bus Éireann local route 111 between Cavan and Athboy (with onward connections to Trim and Dublin) serves Granard and operates four times a day each way, thrice each way on Saturdays and once each way on Sundays.[11]

Donnelly's Pioneer Bus Service, a longstanding local bus company based in Granard, operate a route from Granard to Longford via Ballinalee. There are three journeys each way daily (no Sunday service)[12]

Notable people

See also

References

  1. ↑ Census for post 1821 figures.
  2. ↑ http://www.histpop.org
  3. ↑ Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency - Census Home Page
  4. ↑ Lee, JJ (1981). "On the accuracy of the Pre-famine Irish censuses". In Goldstrom, J. M.; Clarkson, L. A. Irish Population, Economy, and Society: Essays in Honour of the Late K. H. Connell. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
  5. ↑ Mokyr, Joel; O Grada, Cormac (November 1984). "New Developments in Irish Population History, 1700–1850". The Economic History Review. 37 (4): 473–488. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.1984.tb00344.x.
  6. ↑ Sheridan Clan (2007). "Clan History". WSI Ballsbridge. Retrieved 2010-06-01.
  7. ↑ Lehane, Brendan (2001) The Companion Guide to Ireland; rev. ed. Woodbridge: Companion Guides ISBN 1 900639 34 3; pp. 101-02
  8. ↑ http://www.sloinne.ie/surname/en/gaynor/
  9. ↑ Anglo-Celt, Saturday, November 13, 1920
  10. ↑ http://buseireann.ie/pdf/1360942461-065.pdf
  11. ↑ http://buseireann.ie/pdf/1307702393-111.pdf
  12. ↑ http://www.journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/TTB/EFA03__00004495_TP.pdf
  13. ↑ Comment: Emily O'Reilly: The unfinished business of Anne Lovett and what we never managed to learn, Emily O'Reilly, The Times, 30 March 2003, retrieved 3 July 2009
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