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| No Mean Village |
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By Liam O’ Ceallaigh
“Bailieborough is a very mean village in the same barony”
(Clonkee).
Sir Charles Coote in his Statistical Survey of Co. Cavan
prepared for the Royal Dublin Society, 1801.
“I know of no town more neglected or which has better
capabilities than Bailyborough.” (lbid.)
The story of Bailieborough goes back to the early years
of the 17th century. In 1610 William Bailie, a native
of Ayrshire, was given a grant of 1000 acres in the
proportion of Toneregie, now Tandragee, in the Barony
of Clankee in Co. Cavan. Under the terms of the grant
he was required to enclose a demesne of 350 acres. On
this he was to build a bawn and within the bawn to erect
a strong house or castle. He was also required to settle
upon his estate a number of families of English or Scottish
extraction. He was further required to establish fairs
and markets, and also to establish courts for the administration
of the law etc.
In the Pynnar (Survey of 1619) we are told that William
Bailie had taken possession of his lands in Cavan and
that his castle was in the course of erection. It was
also reported that a number of Scottish families had
been settled on the estate. At a commission held in
Castle Aubigny (Shercock) in 1629 to enquire into the
progress being made by Bailie and the other grantees
in the area in carrying out of the conditions set out
in the terms of their several grants it was found that
William Bailie had his castle completed and was living
therein together with his wife and family, and that
28 British families had been settled on his estate.
William Bailie had two sons, William and Robert. William
was educated in Trinity College, Dublin, and was later
ordained a minister. He served as rector in a number
of parishes in Co. Cavan. In 1644 he received the degree
of D.D. and two years later he was made bishop of Clonfert.
His brother, Robert, entered the army. In 1640 he was
reported as having command of a troop of Scottish soldiers
in Cavan.
During the rising of 1641 Bailie’s Castle was attacked
and captured by a body of Irish soldiers under Colonel
Hugh O’Reilly. They held the castle and its inmates
for a month and then departed carrying off a large number
of cattle and horses.
William Bailie, senior, died about 1648 and his son,
William inherited the castle and estate. The bishop
had one daughter, Anne, who married James Hamilton,
third son of John Hamilton of Coroneary Castle, and
on the bishop’s death in 1666, Bailieborough Castle
and estate passed into the hands of the Hamiltons. James
Hamilton’s son Henry, succeeded his father. He was M.P.
for Cavan, and during the Jacobite war he took the side
of King William and was killed at the siege of Limerick.
His successor was his son, another James Hamilton, of
whom more later.
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During the years that the Bailies lived in Bailieborough
Castle, a small hamlet or village grew up in Lower
Drumbannon, near where the Castle River emerges from
the Castle Lake. The houses were likely built of timber
or mudwall and roofed with thatch. Later in the century,
the Hamiltons demolished the village and had it rebuilt
in Upper Drumbannon, overlooking the Town Lake. It
is likely that this was the village that Sir Charles
Coote wrote of in his survey in 1801.
In 1720, James Hamilton was granted a charter for
the holding of fairs and markets on stated dates “in
Newtown, alias Bailieborough” but he seems to have
had a change of mind, for in 1724, he sold his castle
and estate at Bailieborough and went to live on his
estate at Hamilton’s Bawn in Co. Armagh.
The new owner of the Bailieborough estate was Major
Charles Stewart of whom we know very little. His son,
William Stewart, was High Sheriff of Co. Cavan, and
later M.P. for the county. On his death, his son,
another Charles Steward, a Dublin lawyer, succeeded
him. He, in turn, became M.P. for Cavan. He had the
reputation of being a good landlord. He was killed
in a street accident in Dublin in 1795, and his estate
passed into the hands of his nephew, Thomas Charles
Stewart Corry of Rockcorry, Co. Monaghan. Mr. Corry
was a minor when he inherited the Bailieborough estate.
He never took much interest in the estate. In 1814
he sold out to Colonel William Young of Loughgall,
Co. Armagh.
Colonel Young was a man of considerable wealth, and
he wasn’t very long in residence in Bailieborough
Castle when he decided to plan and develop a new town
at Bailieborough. He began by laying out the present
Main Street to its present width. Previous to that
time what is now the Main Street, was merely a continuation
of what we now refer to as the Institute Road. In
1817 he arranged for the building of the Courthouse
in its present position and in the following year
arranged for the erection of the new Market House
at the top of the main street, to replace an old market
House which had stood at the centre of the Main Street
between the present post office and the Northern Bank.
Soon the modern town of Bailieborough began to take
shape as new houses were built on each side of the
newly laid out Main Street. A number of these houses
still show the date of their erection over their doors.
Colonel Young was knighted in 1828, and died in 1835.
He was succeeded by his eldest son Sir John Young,
whose wife was a daughter of the Marquis of Headfort.
During Sir John’s political career he held many positions
of importance under the various English governments.
At one period he was Chief Secretary for Ireland,
and at a later period, Governor of Canada. He later
received a baronetcy and took the title of Baron Lisgar.
He retired from active politics in 1870, and died
in 1876. During his retirement he practically rebuilt
Bailieborough Castle. Lady Lisgar died in 1895, and
after her death the estate went into Chancery. It
was later sold to the tenants under the Ashbourne
Act.
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The Castle was sold to Sir Stanley Cochrane,
who later sold it to his nephew, the late Mr. W.L.B. Cochrane,
a well known Bailieborough solicitor. In 1910 the major
portion of the demesne was sold to the Forestry Section
of the old Department of Agriculture. In 1915 the castle
and about 100 acres of the demesne were sold to the Marist
Brothers form Athlone who required it as a Juniorate for
their Order. Three years later the castle was accidentally
destroyed by fire. Portion of the Castle was rebuilt in
1920, and the work of the Juniorate was carried on in
the new building until 1936 when the Brothers decided
to close the Juniorate and return to Athlone. They sold
the land and buildings to the Forestry Division of the
Department of Lands and a few years later the remains
of the once beautiful castle were sold for demolition
purposes, and today nothing remains but a heap of rubble
covered with briars and undergrowth.
During the period from 1830 to the end of the century
many important buildings were built in and around Bailieborough.
St. Anne’s Church was built in 1835, when the Rev. Philip
O’Reilly was P.P. of Killan. The Parochial House was built
shortly afterwards. The new church replaced an old building
known to the older generation of Bailieborough people
as “the thatched chapel”. The present church of Ireland
was also built in 1835, though it wasn’t opened for public
services until 1848. Like St. Anne’s it also replaced
an older church which had been built about 1760.
Following the passage of the Local Government Act and
the Poor Law Act through the British Parliament in the
eighteen thirties the old workhouse was built between
the years 1839 and 1843, on a site close to the Town Lake.
It was originally intended to provide accommodation for
about 600 inmates, but it is on record that during the
Famine years it often had to accommodate up to 1,500 hungry
and fever stricken inmates within its walls. It served
Bailieborough as a local hospital up to 1920, but it always
bore the stigma of the Workhouse.
Trinity Presbyterian church, on the Virginia Road, was
built in 1887 to replace an older Church which had been
built in the townland of Urcher in 1770. The Methodist
Church was built in Adelaide Road in 1835. The Northern
Bank on the Main Street was built in 1874, and the Bank
of Ireland or the Hibernian Bank, as it was then called,
was built in 1927.
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In a report, written by the Rev. John Gumley, the rector
of Bailieborough, in 1814, it was stated that there
were then two schools in the town, one for Catholics
and the other for Protestants, and each had about 50
scholars, all of whom were taught reading, writing and
arithmetic. It is likely that both these schools were
absorbed into the National School system following the
enactment of the Education Act of 1831.
Bailieborough Central Model School was built in 1848
on a site donated by Sir John Young as he then was.
The two schools mentioned above were closed and the
pupils, Protestant and Catholic, were transferred to
the new Model School. At the same time the building
known as the Model House, and also a head master’s residence,
were built on a site on the Kells Road. Attached to
the Model House was a farm of 48 acres. The Model House
was originally built as an Agricultural Training School,
and six or eight students were boarded there and were
given instruction in the theory and practice of Agriculture
under the direction of a qualified instructor. In addition
to the students of agriculture, a group of pupil teachers
were boarded in the Model House.
These were young men who intended to become teachers
and did their studies and practice teaching under the
guidance of the Headmaster. The Agricultural School
closed down in the early seventies and later when the
new Training Colleges were established in Dublin and
other centres, the Model House was closed down and afterwards
became the residence of the Principal and the farm was
taken over by the landlord, Baron Lisgar.
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In 1875 a school for poor children was
opened in a house in Thomas Street, but was closed down
after 10 years. It was usually referred to as the Ragged
School. St. Anne’s Boys’ and Girls’ School were built
in 1886, and they continued in existence until 1958, when
new schools were built on an adjoining site.
After the Vocational Educational Act became Law in 1930
a Vocational School was established in a portion of the
Old Workhouse building. Three years later this school
was transferred to the Model House on the Kells Road.
In 1965 a new Vocational School was built on the same
site. Lourdesville, a secondary school for girls and run
by the Presentation Sisters, was opened in 1964. Boys
were admitted to this school at a later date. In the early
seventies, when it became obvious that the two existing
schools were inadequate for the growing young population
without extension or replacement, the Department of Education
proposed a Community School to replace both. Following
protracted negotiation
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The Story of Bailieborough
