Qualla: Annaghdown

Annaghdown: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paulkilgill, CC BY-SA 3.0. On Thursday, 4 September 1828, a rotten rowing boat called the Caislean Nua set out from Annaghdown Pier on Lough Corrib carrying about thirty-one people, ten sheep, and a quantity of lumber, bound for the fair in Galway. Two miles short of the city, a sheep put its hoof through one of the planks. A passenger jammed his greatcoat against the leak and stamped on it with his foot. The plank gave way entirely. The boat sank. Twelve people were rescued. Twenty drowned. The blind poet Antoine O Raifteiri composed a lament for them - Eanach Dhuin - that is still sung at funerals in Connacht two centuries later.

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Image: Paulkilgill | CC BY-SA 3.0

Annaghdown: Marsh of the Fort

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paulkilgill, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Irish name Eanach Dhuin means marsh of the dun or fort - the dun being the principal dwelling of a local chieftain in early Ireland. The marshlands around the chieftain's fort of Maigh Seola would have been granted as a church site sometime in the early medieval period. The e...

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Image: Paulkilgill | CC BY-SA 3.0

Annaghdown: Cathedral and Castle

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. By the late twelfth century Annaghdown had a bishop's palace and a cathedral. The title Bishop of Annaghdown is documented from around 1189, when Conn O Mellaigh was one of three Irish bishops attending the coronation of King Richard I at Westminster. The O Meallaig family were t...

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

Annaghdown: September the Fourth, 1828

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paulkilgill, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Connacht Journal reported that the Caislean Nua was 'in such an unsound state as to render her unfit for the passage.' The Galway fair was on, and the boat was overloaded for the journey down Lough Corrib. The sheep, the lumber, the thirty-one people - and a plank already wea...

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Image: Paulkilgill | CC BY-SA 3.0

Annaghdown: John Cosgrove's House

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paulkilgill, CC BY-SA 3.0. John Cosgrove was a lime-burner by trade. When the Caislean Nua went down he saved two women from the water. Trying to save a third, he was drowned. The remains of his house - Teach Chosgardha - can still be seen on what was once the Blake estate. The Connacht Journal listed the ...

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Image: Paulkilgill | CC BY-SA 3.0

Annaghdown: The Lament

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paulkilgill, CC BY-SA 3.0. Antoine O Raifteiri - blind poet, traditionally called the last of the wandering Gaelic bards - composed Eanach Dhuin as a keen for the dead. The poem survives in oral tradition and in printed collections. Its rhythm is the rhythm of an Irish lament, slow and circling, naming the...

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Image: Paulkilgill | CC BY-SA 3.0