Qualla: Ennistymon

Ennistymon: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chairego apc, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the freezing morning of 25 February 1848, somebody pinned a note to the torn shirt of a barefoot boy and left him at the workhouse gate in Ennistymon. "Gentlemen," the note read. "There is a little boy named Michael Rice of Lahinch aged about 4 years. He is an orphan, his father having died last year and his mother has expired on last Wednesday night, who is now about to be buried without a coffin!! Unless ye make some provision for such. The child in question is now at the Workhouse Gate expecting to be admitted, if not it will starve." The note was signed Rob S, Constable. Michael Rice's name now appears on a memorial in Ennistymon, alongside the carved figures of a child at the workhouse door, his mother's anguished face, and the text of the note that saved or perhaps did not save him.

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Image: Chairego apc | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ennistymon: The Cascades and the Bridge

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MaxPride, CC BY-SA 3.0. Ennistymon sits where the Cullenagh River drops over a series of small rapids - the Cascades - before becoming tidal as the Inagh River and pushing on to meet the sea at Lahinch. The water has been working at this rock for a long time. The town that grew along the river was for c...

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Image: MaxPride | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ennistymon: The Workhouse Memorial

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The Banner, Public domain. The Ennistymon workhouse was one of dozens built across Ireland in the 1840s to house the destitute, just in time to be overwhelmed by the Great Famine. The story of Michael Rice - the four-year-old orphan dropped at the gate with the note pinned to him - survived because someone...

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Image: The Banner | Public domain

Ennistymon: Reprisal at the Lehane House

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eddylandzaat, Public domain. Seventy-two years after Michael Rice's note, Ennistymon was burning. On the night of 22 September 1920, in reprisal for the IRA's Rineen ambush along the road four kilometers southwest of the town, British forces conducted a series of raids across the area. In Ennistymon they kil...

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Image: Eddylandzaat | Public domain

Ennistymon: Brian Merriman and the Submarine

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sheila1988, CC BY-SA 4.0. A statue of Brian Merriman stands outside St Andrew's church, the Gothic Revival Church of Ireland built in the 1830s and converted to a cultural centre called Teach Ceoil in 1989. Merriman was an Irish-language poet and teacher whose great work, The Midnight Court, ran to over a...

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Image: Sheila1988 | CC BY-SA 4.0