Frenchpark
| Frenchpark Dún Gar
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| — Town — | |
 Frenchpark
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| Coordinates: 53°52′00″N 8°24′00″W / 53.8667°N 8.4°WCoordinates: 53°52′00″N 8°24′00″W / 53.8667°N 8.4°W | |
| Country | Ireland |
| Province | Connacht |
| County | County Roscommon |
| Elevation | 82 m (269 ft) |
| Population (2006) | |
| • Urban | 454 |
| • Rural | 793 |
| Time zone | WET (UTC+0) |
| • Summer (DST) | IST (WEST) (UTC-1) |
| Irish Grid Reference | M737908 |
Frenchpark, historically known as Dungar (Irish: Dún Gar, meaning "the fort of favour"), is a village in County Roscommon, Ireland on the N5 national primary road. It was the home of Douglas Hyde, the first President of Ireland. The nearby French Park Estate was until 1952 the ancestral seat of the French family, Barons de Freyne. The estate was sold to the Irish Land Commission in the 1950s and was dismantled by the mid 1970s. An historic smokehouse is now one of the few remaining legacies of this period.
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[edit] Art
The Old Courthouse Art Gallery was opened on 16 July 1993 by the then president of Ireland Mary Robinson and was dedicated to the late Peadar Gallagher whose creative talent and artistic flair inspired the project. Since then it has been utilised by a number of artists and at one stage hosted a theatre company. Presently [May 2011] it is home to Black Hole Studio founded 15 October 2008 by David j. and Mary Duignan. Together they continued the work of the late Peadar Gallagher by hosting a number of exhibits and events: Earthlings, Mind Bomb, and two exhibits for Culture Night in 2009 and 2010. The partners continue to exhibit work from artists, both national and international. File:Studio 01.jpg
[edit] Sport
Frenchpark is home to Western Gaels GAA club. The Club consists of the Parishes of Fairymount/Tibohine and Frenchpark/Bellanagare in the west of County Roscommon. The clubrooms and playing field are located at the heart of this area in the village of Frenchpark, situated on the N5 about 10 miles east of the town of Ballaghaderreen. The Club fields Men’s and Ladies' Gaelic football teams from Under-12 to senior level.
[edit] 2008 Honours
- Senior County Semi Finalists
- Leo Kenny Cup Champions
- Stephen Nolan Memorial Cup Champions 2008
- Minor Ladies Division One Runners Up
- U-12 Division One Runners Up
- Club Colours: Navy Blue & Light Blue
- Founded: 1962
- Home Pitch: Nash Park, Frenchpark
- Previous Club Names: Tibohine, Ballinagare, St. Enda's Frenchpark (Minor Club).
- Official web page: http://www.westerngaels.com/
[edit] History
[edit] Early Irish History
Frenchpark - The Ciarrage groups here were the early lords of Airteach. Mac Donagh is cited as later lords of Airtech. The O'Flanagan here were hereditary stewards to the Kings of Connacht.
[edit] 18th – 20th Century
[edit] The Barons de Freyne, former owners of Frenchpark
At the time of Griffith's Valuation Frenchpark was owned by Rev. John Ffrench, Lord de Freyne and was valued at £60. In the 1749 Census of Elphin it was the residence of Arthur and Lady French. Members of the French family were buried in the graveyard surrounding the ruins of Frenchpark Priory.
Frenchpark House
The ancestral seat of the Barons de Freyne was the French Park Estate, near Boyle, County Roscommon, in the Republic of Ireland. The manor house, originally built in the mid-17th century before being rebuilt in the Georgian style in the 18th century was demolished after the sale of the estate by the French family to the Irish Land Commission in 1952. The Land Commission removed the roof of the buildings in 1953 and eventually demolished the remaining structures in ca 1975.
A distant cousin of the de Freynes was Charlotte Despard (née French) (1844–1939), one of the Frenches of High Lake, a British-born, later Irish-based suffragist, novelist and Sinn Féin activist.[1] Despard spent a lot of time in Frenchpark where her father was born. In 1908 she joined with Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and Margaret Cousins to form the Irish Women’s Franchise League. She urged members to boycott the 1911 Census and withhold taxes and provided financial support to workers during the Dublin labour disputes.
In 1909 Despard met Mahatma Gandhi and was influenced for a time by his theory of passive resistance. She settled in Dublin after World War I and was bitterly critical of her brother, Field Marshal John French, 1st Earl of Ypres, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1919-21, who unsurprisingly tended to ignore her.
During the Irish War of Independence, together with Maud Gonne, she formed the Women's Prisoners' Defence League to support republican prisoners.[2] As a member of Cumann na mBan she opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and was imprisoned by the government during the Irish Civil War. She was buried in the Republican Plot at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.
- Arthur French, 1st Baron de Freyne (1786–1856)
- Despard
- Frenchpark Estate Record
- Baron De Freyne
- French Family
[edit] The Great Famine in Frenchpark (1845–1849)
The Great Famine in Ireland, 1845–1849, was in no small part the result of policies of the Whig government of the United Kingdom under Lord Russell[62][63]. Unlike in Britain, the land in Ireland was owned mostly by Anglican people of English descent, who did not identify culturally or ethnically with the Irish population. The landlords were known as the Anglo-Irish. As the landowners felt no compunction to use their political clout to aid their tenants, the British government's expedient response to the food crisis in Ireland was to leave the matter solely to market forces to decide. A strict free-market approach, aided by the British army guarding ports and food depots from the starving crowds, ensured food exports continued as before, and even increased during the famine period. The immediate effect was 1,000,000 dead and another 1,000,000 refugees fleeing to Britain, Australia and the United States.
'Famine Relief Commission Papers, 1845-1847' from the National Archives of Ireland.
Description:
Rev Thomas O'Connor RCC, secretary of the Frenchpark Relief Committee, enclosing a list of subscriptions, reporting symptoms of extensive failure in the potato crop and indicating that a large proportion of the baronial population of 28859 was surviving on one meal a day.
Date: 20/07/1846
Description:
Fitzstephen French MP forwarding a letter from Rev William French, Protestant minister for Frenchpark, urging the distribution of meal 3 times a week, noting the '...fierce and wicked...' disposition of many men in the area, recent threats against merchants and non payment for work on the public works. Fitzstephen French also requests 10 tons of either biscuit or meal as 1 500 people had had to be provided with meal the previous day, with draft reply, and writes to TN Reddington, under-secretary, stating that he has persuaded several people to have their supply of oats threshed to provide food in the short term, that free timber is being provided for use in kilns and that he had received a refusal from Sir Randolph Routh for his request for a supply of food. Concludes with the argument that food is necessary to '...preserve confidence amongst the people...', especially as there is not a single soldier in the barony.
Date: 8/10-16/10/1846
Douglas Hyde
(Irish: Dubhghlas de hÍde; 17 January 1860 – 12 July 1949), known as An Craoibhín Aoibhinn ("The Pleasant Little Branch"), was a scholar of the Irish language who served as the first President of Ireland from 1938 to 1945. He founded the Gaelic League, one of the most influential cultural organisations in Ireland. In 1867, his father was appointed prebendary and rector of Tibohine, and the family moved to neighbouring Frenchpark, in County Roscommon.
[edit] 20th - 21st Century
Irish War of Independence 1919–1921
23 September 1920: Two RIC men were killed in an ambush by East Mayo and South Sligo IRA brigades, at Ratra near Frenchpark, County Roscommon. One volunteer died in the action; Black and Tans mutilated his body and dragged it through the streets of Ballaghaderreen.
