Loughmore

Loughmoe Luach Maigh
—  Town  —
[[File: Loughmore |250px|none|alt=|]]
Motto: "Luach Maigh chun tosaigh" (Loughmore to the Fore)
Loughmoe Location in Ireland
Coordinates: 52°45′27″N 7°49′38″W
Country	Ireland
Province	Munster
County	North Tipperary
Time zone	WET (UTC+0)
• Summer (DST)	IST (WEST) (UTC-1)
Irish Grid Reference
Website	www.loughmore.com

Loughmore, officially Loughmoe ( /lɒxˈmoʊ/ lokh-moh; Irish: Luach Maigh or Luachma), is a village in North Tipperary in the province of Munster, Ireland. The village is best known for its castle, seat of the Barons of Loughmoe.

Loughmore is one half of the Roman Catholic parish of Loughmore-Castleiney in the archdiocese of Cashel and Emly. It is also in the historical barony of Eliogarty.

Toponymy

The village's Irish-language name Luach Maigh (earlier: Luach-mhagh) means "reward-field". Today's Loughmore – which would correspond to Irish Loch Mór ("great lake") – is the result of a mistake by British mapmakers of the 19th century. The Purcell family's Loughmoe Castle, near the village, retains a more accurate and older version of the name.

Why certain localities in Ireland were given this name is probably accounted for by the circumstance that "in old times some tenant held them free of direct rent, as a reward for some signal service, or on condition of fulfilling some special duty". However, a local tradition explains that in this particular case the name alludes to the manner in which the Purcells first gained proprietorship of area. Legend has it that a king lived in the Castle, and offered his daughters hand to whomsoever could rid the land of a boar and sow of "gigantic size" who uprooted crops and killed whoever they came into contact with. A youth named Purcell killed the boar with a bow and arrow and thus the area in which the Castle stands is known as "the field of the reward". The legend is alluded to in the Purcell family's coat of arms, which depicts the heads of four boars.

Geography

Historical Loughmore is situated on the banks of the River Suir some 5.5 km south of Templemore, 10 km north of Thurles and a kilometre east of the main N62 road between those towns. Castleiney itself is located some 5 km away and closer to Templemore. The parish is located in the region known as the Golden Vale, one of the richest agricultural areas in Europe. Dairy farming and cattle raising are the principal occupations.

Transport

Loughmore lies on the Dublin – Cork railway line. Although there is no railway station in the village, nearby Templemore railway station has direct trains to Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Tralee operated by Iarnród Éireann.

The N62 highway links Loughmore with the M8 motorway to Cork as well as the M7 to Dublin and Limerick.

Loughmore's very central location means it is within ninety minutes drive of three international airports: Cork, Dublin and Shannon.

View of the Devil's Bit mountain from Loughmore

Loughmoe Castle

History

Loughmoe Castle

Loughmoe Castle

Loughmore Castle was the seat of the Purcell family, who were Barons of Loughmoe. Construction of the castle commenced in 1328: the same year that the family were granted the title of Barons of Loughmoe by James Butler, first Earl of Ormonde. Until the 1980s it was possible to climb the spiral stair in the right hand tower. The monument is now in the care of the Office of Public Works.

The Cormack Brothers

Cottage in Loughmore village

Daniel and William Cormack were executed for the murder of John Ellis, a land agent from Kilrush, near Templemore, County Tipperary. Ellis was greatly disliked in the district for evicting tenants on behalf of the landlords who employed him. One night as he returned to his isolated home he found uprooted bushes and branches blocking the lane. He was shot by a hidden assailant and died an hour later.

The police felt there was no doubt that this was a political murder, because £90 in Ellis’s wallet was left untouched. The brothers William and Daniel Cormack were arrested and convicted at Nenagh Assizes in March 1858, largely, it was felt at the time, on the evidence of an informer – “a villainous character” – who was widely believed to have been in on the murder plot.

The commonly held view was that a local landlord had shot Ellis in a crime of passion involving Ellis' sister, and that the Cormack brothers had been framed for murder. 2,357 people signed a petition protesting the brothers' innocence

The brothers were hanged on Thursday, May 13th, 1858, outside Nenagh Prison.

When Daniel Cormack mounted the scaffold he addressed the audience: “Lord have mercy on me, for you know, Jesus, that I neither had hand, act, nor part in that for which I am about to die. Good people, pray for me.” According to a contemporary report, “the brother having made the same awful declaration, both were in the next moment launched into eternity.”

A man named Michael Gleeson, who had been recently evicted by Ellis later confessed to the murder.

In 1910 a committee was formed in Loughmore to exhume the brothers and rebury them in the local churchyard. Daniel and William's remains were removed from Nenagh Gaol and brought back to Loughmore in a major ceremony, with two hearses drawn by plumed horses and followed by huge crowds. After the procession arrived in the village, the Cormack brothers were buried in a large mausoleum in the churchyard where people still go to see the original oak coffins and the inscription proclaiming the brothers' innocence.

On one side of the mausoleum is inscribed:

Mausoleum in Loughmore Churchyard in memory of McCormack Brothers

By the Irish Race in memory of the brothers DANIEL and WILLIAM CORMACK who for the murder of a land agent named ELLIS were hanged at NENAGH after solemn protestation by each on the scaffold of absolute and entire innocence of that crime, the 11th day of May 1858. The tragedy of the brothers occurred through false testimony procured through GOLD and terror, the action in their trial of JUDGE KEOGH, a man who considered personally, politically, religiously and officially was one of the monsters of mankind, and the verdict of a prejudiced, partisan packed perjured jury. Clear proof of the innocence of the brothers afforded by ARCHBISHOP LEAHY to the VICEROY of the day but he nevertheless gratified the appetite of a bigoted, exterminating and ascendancy caste by a judicial murder of the kind which lives bitterly and perpetually in a nation’s remembrance.

Corpora sanctorum in pace sepulta sunt: et vivent nomina eorum in aeternum R.I.P. [Which translates as: The bodies of the saints are buried in peace; and their names live for evermore. R.I.P.]

Inscribed on the other side:

Loughmore Mill on the banks of the Suir

In commemoration of the removal of the remains of the CORMACK BROTHERS from the jailyard at NENAGH to this mausoleum on May 11, 1910. In the morning a solemn REQUIEM OFFICE and HIGH MASS were celebrated in the Parish Church, Nenagh, Canon McMahon presiding, and an immense number of Killaloe priests being in the choir. The funeral cortege which contained MR JOHN DILLON, M.P., MR J. HACKETT, M.P., and many others of high name and inspiring example, was by magnitude, representativeness and observance unprecedented in IRELAND. At Loughmore, the pastor preached a funeral oration and assisted by priests from IRELAND, ENGLAND, AMERICA and AUSTRALIA, officiated at the placing of the remains here to rest in peace and honour until the day of their vindication by Jesus Christ before the whole human race in the Valley of Josophat.

Visi sunt oculis insipientium mori illi autem sunt in pace. [Which translates as: "In the sight of the unwise they seem to die, but they are in peace". Taken, with some modifications, from the book of Wisdom, chapter 3, verses 2-3]

Sport

McGrath's pub in Loughmore

• Loughmore-Castleiney GAA is the local Gaelic Athletic Association club and has traditionally been a gaelic football club but also has a successful hurling team. The parish is often known as a “football island” in mid-Tipperary as it is surrounded by clubs that play hurling only and as a general rule do not engage in serious football. In 2007, the parish won the Tipperary Senior Hurling Championship for the second time and then went on to win the Munster Club Senior Hurling Championship. It last won the Tipperary Senior Football Championship in 2004.

• Loughmore is the home of many sporting superstars including the All-Ireland Minor Football Championship winning captain Liam McGrath (2011) and two time GAA GPA All Stars Awards winner Noel McGrath. The Club also provided Jim Ryan and Bill Ryan (Laha) to the Tipperary team that played in Croke Park on Bloody Sunday against Dublin in November, 1920 when their playing colleague Michael Hogan of Grangemockler was one of 15 people shot and killed by British forces who opened fire from the sidelines.

View of the village of Loughmore

Famous people

• Denis Leamy, rugby player.
• Kathleen Nesbitt, award-winning fiddler.
• Máiréad Nesbitt, violinist with Celtic Woman.
• Noel McGrath, hurling legend.

See also

• List of towns and villages in Ireland

Notes

Putting the barony in its historico-geographical context.

• Barony - an old administrative division. Eliogarty - one of 14 baronies in the old county, between Ikerrin to the north (whose chief town is Roscrea), Kilnamanagh Upper to the west (whose chief town is Borrisoleigh) and Middle Third to the south (whose chief town is Cashel).

Explanation for the use of "North Tipperary" instead of "County Tipperary".

• Following the abolition of the former county - Tipperary - as an administrative division in 1898, the county of North Tipperary was created. This is still the legal status of the county. See also County Tipperary for further history on the topic.