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"An Clochán or Clifden, founded by John D'Arcy (1785-1839) was one of the last towns to be built in Ireland. D'Arcy's vision was to create a thriving commercial centre in a resource-rich, but poverty stricken region..."
"It was very easy to run a pub in 1947. The whole scene was very uncomplicated and relaxed. I could close up the pub at the blink of an eye, any time of any day during the week, if I so desired, without fear of criticism from the general public..."
"Its name translates from the Irish as Conneelys Village, and is based on the old civil parish of Ballindoon which in turn was named from the old fort or cashel on Doon Hill built by the McGeogegan family to celebrate the restoration of free trade in the late eighteenth century.
A description of conditions in the Clifden
Workhouse on Christmas Day 1847, taken from a report by John Deane, Poor
Law Inspector for the Clifden Union, to the Relief Commission dated 25th
December, 1847 and reproduced in Connemara's own Kathleen Villiers-Tuthill's book "Patient Endurance: The Great Famine In Connemara."
See also
Using St Mary's Church, Clifden's first Roman Catholic Chapel, and the nearby graveyard, as a focal point, Kathleen Villiers-Tuthill traces Clifden's history from 1812 right up to the present day.
written by himself, on Jürgen Kullmann's Irelandman.de site.
"...built on land that had been farmed by the Whelan family who were tenants on the D'Arcy estate and resident in the area since before the famine." From coastguard-station.com.
The Truelight is the last of the Claddagh Hookers built originally about 1920. It is one of the most famous of the Galway Hookers; after a colourful history, which includes surviving the Cleggan Disaster in 1927 and Hurricane Debbie of 1961, An Truelight came to Carna in Connemara where, in 1999, the present owners undertook major restoration. This restoration was completed in early 2000 and The Truelight took to the sea in its present guise on April 15 2000.
Today, the descendants of Stone Age men still work stone in the form of polished marble tiles and slabs. The village of Recess, in the heart of Connemara, is home to a company dedicated to working what is possibly the best - and certainly the most beautiful - marble in the world.
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