Qualla: Manorhamilton

Manorhamilton: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. Sir Frederick Hamilton was, by all contemporary accounts, deeply unpopular. So when the soldier-of-fortune received O'Rourke lands in 1620 and built himself a fortified house at a place called Cloneen on the River Owenbeg, he made sure the walls were stout. The walls were not stout enough. In 1652 the castle was burnt out during the Cromwellian wars, and what survives today is a roofless shell on Castle Street, hidden in plain sight in a town that took Hamilton's name and now mostly forgets him. Manorhamilton has only 1,700 people, but it is the only town of any size between Lough Allen and the Atlantic coast in north County Leitrim. It is also the gateway to a district full of waterfalls, dance halls and a lake monster called the Dobhar-chu.

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Image: Kenneth Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Manorhamilton: Hamilton's Plantation

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Darrin Antrobus, CC BY-SA 2.0. Before 1620, this stretch of the River Owenbeg held a small Gaelic settlement called Cloneen on the west bank. After the Plantation of Ulster, Sir Frederick Hamilton arrived from Scotland with a grant of lands seized from the O'Rourkes. He built up the castle on the east bank, la...

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Image: Darrin Antrobus | CC BY-SA 2.0

Manorhamilton: Yeats's Waterfall

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:FoekeNoppert, CC BY-SA 3.0. Eight kilometres west of Manorhamilton off the N16, Glencar Lough straddles the boundary with County Sligo, and at its northeast end the Glencar Waterfall drops down a wooded cliff into the lough. W.B. Yeats turned the place into one of his best-known poems, 'The Stolen Child,' d...

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Image: User:FoekeNoppert | CC BY-SA 3.0

Manorhamilton: The Ballroom of Romance

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) Plug at wts wikivoyage, Public domain. At the junction of the N16 and R281 stands the Rainbow Ballroom of Romance, a preserved dance-hall from the showband era of 1950-70. The ballroom is now a museum of those Brylcreem evenings when bands like the Royal and the Capitol toured rural Ireland and young couples drove for...

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Image: User: (WT-shared) Plug at wts wikivoyage | Public domain

Manorhamilton: Sean Mac Diarmada's Cottage

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit National Party from Dublin, Ireland, CC BY 2.0. Down a back lane parallel to the R281 stands a small farmhouse that is one of the most quietly important pilgrimage sites in modern Irish republican history. Sean Mac Diarmada, born here in 1883, was one of the seven signatories of the 1916 Proclamation and one of the leaders of ...

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Image: National Party from Dublin, Ireland | CC BY 2.0

Manorhamilton: The Pig and the Border

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. Stretching across several counties is a strange linear earthwork known as the Black Pig's Dyke, a ditch with embankments that probably once supported a wooden palisade. Sections near Kiltyclogher and Rossinver are well preserved. One stretch in County Monaghan has been dated to 3...

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Image: Kenneth Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0