Monaghan Muineachán (Irish) | |
|---|---|
Town | |
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 Coat of arms | |
  Monaghan Location in Ireland | |
| Coordinates:54°14′52″N06°58′15″W / 54.24778°N 6.97083°W /54.24778; -6.97083 | |
| Country | Ireland |
| Province | Ulster |
| County | County Monaghan |
| Barony | Monaghan |
| Elevation | 71 m (233 ft) |
| Population | |
| • Urban | 7,894 |
| Time zone | UTC±0 (WET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+1 (IST) |
| Eircode routing key | H18 |
| Telephone area code | +353(0)47 |
| Irish Grid Reference | H666337 |
Monaghan (/ˈmɒnəhən/MON-ə-hən;[2]Irish:Muineachán[3][ˈmˠɪnʲəxaːnˠ]) is thecounty town ofCounty Monaghan,Ireland. It also provides the name of itscivil parish andMonaghan barony.
The population of the town as of the2022 census was 7,894.[1] The town is on theN2 road fromDublin toDerry andLetterkenny.[4]
The Irish nameMuineachán derives from a diminutive plural form of the Irish wordmuine meaning "brake" (a thickly overgrown area) or sometimes "hillock". The Irish historian and writerPatrick Weston Joyce interpreted this as "a place full of little hills or brakes".[5]Monaghan County Council's preferred interpretation is "land of the little hills", a reference to the numerousdrumlins in the area.
The Menapii Celtic tribe are specifically named onPtolemy's 150 AD map of Ireland, where they located their first colony – Menapia – on the Leinster coastc. 216 BC. They later settled around Lough Erne, becoming known as the Fir Manach, and giving their name to Fermanagh and Monaghan.[citation needed]Mongán mac Fiachnai, a 7th-century King of Ulster, is the protagonist of several legends linking him withManannan mac Lir. They spread across Ireland, evolving into historic Irish (also Scottish and Manx) clans.
TheBattle of Clontibret, fought between the forces ofThe Earl of Tyrone,An Ó Néill (The O'Neill), ofTír Eoghain, and theEnglish Crown, was fought in northern County Monaghan in May 1595. The territory of Monaghan had earlier been wrested from the control of theMacMahon sept in 1591, when the leader of the MacMahons was hanged by authority of the Dublin government; this was one of the events that led to theNine Years War and theTudor conquest of Ireland.
In 1801, Monaghan Town, along with the rest of the Rossmore Estate, became the property of the Westenra family.[6]: 460 The Rossmore Estate was inherited in August of that year byWarner Westenra, 2nd Baron Rossmore, from his uncle.[6]: 460 The Westenra family remained as the principal landlords of Monaghan town up into the early twentieth-century. Their 'ancestral seat' was established atRossmore Castle (also known as Rossmore Park), a largecountry house mainly built in stages during the nineteenth-century on the south-western edge of Monaghan Town.[6]: 483 The castle was mainly built in theneo-Jacobean style of architecture.[6]
The castle stood on the south-western edge of Monaghan town and was abandoned just after theSecond World War.[6]: 483 The ruins of the castle were blown up byMonaghan County Council in 1974.[6]: 483
TheUlster Canal through Monaghan linking theRiver Blackwater atMoy with theRiver Erne nearClones was built between 1825 and 1842. By the time it was completed, competition in the form of theUlster Railway from Belfast to Clones was already under construction.[7] The canal was never a commercial success and was formally abandoned in 1931.
The Ulster Railway linked Monaghan withArmagh andBelfast in 1858 and with theDundalk and Enniskillen Railway at Clones in 1863.[7]: Map 8 It became part of theGreat Northern Railway in 1876.[7]: xiii Thepartition of Ireland in 1922 turned the boundary withCounty Armagh into an international frontier, after which trains were routinely delayed by customs inspections. In 1957 theGovernment of Northern Ireland made the GNR Board close the line betweenPortadown andthe border, giving the GNRB no option but to withdraw passenger services between the border and Clones as well.[7]: Map 39 CIÉ took over the remaining section of line between Clones, Monaghan andGlaslough in 1958 but withdrew goods services between Monaghan and Glaslough in 1959 and between Clones and Monaghan in 1960, leaving Monaghan with no railway service.[7]: Map 39
In February 1919 the first self-consciously proclaimedsoviet in the United Kingdom was established at Monaghan Lunatic Asylum.[8] This led to the claim byJoseph Devlin in theHouse of Commons of the United Kingdom that "the only successfully conducted institutions in Ireland are the lunatic asylums".[9]
On 17 May 1974 anUlster loyalistcar bomb exploded in the Friday evening rush hour, killing seven people.[10] It was detonated outside Greacen's public house on North Road in a car that had been stolen earlier that afternoon inPortadown,Northern Ireland. The bomb killed Paddy Askin (44), Thomas Campbell (52), Thomas Croarkin (36), Archie Harper (73, died four days later), Jack Travers (28), Peggy White (45) and George Williamson (72).[11] It also injured scores of civilians and caused extensive damage to the fabric of the town with North Road and Mill Street among the areas worst affected. This was one of the few car bombings in the Republic duringThe Troubles, which were centred onNorthern Ireland; three other bombs exploded on the same day in Dublin in what became known as theDublin and Monaghan bombings. The Ulster loyalist paramilitary groupUlster Volunteer Force (UVF) claimed responsibility in 1993.
A monument in memory of the victims was unveiled by the eighthPresident of IrelandMary McAleese on 17 May 2004, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the atrocity. The sandstone and metal column containing seven light wells bearing the names of each of the seven victims of the bombing was designed by Ciaran O'Cearnaigh and stands as a reminder of one of the darkest days in Ireland's modern history.
Monaghan continues to host one of Ireland's most prestigious and established blues festivals,[12] theHarvest Time Blues Festival. It is hosted every September across Monaghan town.[13]
The Fiddler of Oriel Muineachán Competition (also known as Féile Oriel) first held in 1969 returned in 2009 to celebrate its fortieth anniversary.[14] It is held every MayBank Holiday weekend.
Founded in 1974, Monaghan County Museum is recognised as one of the leading provincial museums in Ireland, with a prestigiousCouncil of Europe Award conferred in 1980, among others, to its credit. The museum is located in a mid-Victorian stone building of three stories, formerly two separate town houses, on Hill Street. It aims to acquaint its visitors with the history ofCounty Monaghan and its people.
The Garage Theatre is an arts facility located on the Monaghan Education Campus. It hosts a wide range of activities including drama, music, dance and film.[15]
The town is home toMonaghan United Football Club, formerly of theLeague of Ireland Premier Division.
Local issues are dealt with by the Monaghan Municipal Council which elects six members, all of which are elected as members of Monaghan County Council. The town forms part of the Monaghan ward for local elections for elections to Monaghan County Council and part of theCavan–Monaghan constituency for elections toDáil Éireann.Monaghan Town Hall is a former bank branch dating from around 1880.[16]
The largest party on the municipal council isSinn Féin, which holds two of six seats.Fine Gael andFianna Fáil each hold one seat and there are two independent members.[citation needed]
The centre of the town is made up of four interconnecting squares: Market Square (or Street), Church Square, The Diamond and Old Cross Square.
Dating from the seventeenth century, the oldest remaining architectural feature in Monaghan town is the "Old Cross" – located in Old Cross Square. It is not fully agreed that it is in fact a cross, but may in fact have been a seventeenth-centurysundial. It was originally located in the Diamond, the traditional centre of the town, and was used as a hiring cross and for the attaching of proclamations. It was moved to its present location in 1876 to allow for the construction of the Rossmore Memorial. Two landmark buildings remain from the eighteenth century, Aviemore House (built in 1760) on Mill Street and the "extremely elegant"Market House (from 1792) on Market Square.[17]: 16
Monaghan is notable for the quality of its nineteenth-century architecture, which adds a sense of dignity to the attractive town centre and its environs. Of its Victorian buildings, theMonaghan Courthouse on Church Square, designed byJoseph Welland and built in 1830, is the most stately. With its sandstone facade of Doric columns supporting a pediment that bears the royal arms of the House of Hanover, Monaghan Courthouse constitutes an integral part of Church Square.
The Rossmore Memorial in The Diamond was built in 1876 as a memorial toThe 4th Baron Rossmore, who died after a hunting accident atWindsor Castle in 1874. ThisVictorian monument, described by architectural historian C.E.B. Brett as "formidable and striking"[17]: 10 is octagonal in shape, with central marble columns supporting a fountain. Around it, the eight grey columns support the pinnacled superstructure which rises to a dome. The dome is surmounted by a spire supported by yet more columns. The letters of Rossmore (also eight in number) are spaced out around the monument.
The Gothic-RevivalSt Macartan's Cathedral byJames Joseph McCarthy is recognised as being "one of McCarthy's best works: an excellent example of the High Victorian ecclesiastical style at its best, rich without ever being over-ornate".[17]: 26 The building comprises a delicate rose window and an impressive soaring spire and took over thirty years to complete. Construction work began in 1861 and the cathedral was finally dedicated in 1892. Originally the nave was intended to be two bays longer but lack of funds meant that the design was cut back. The Cathedral sits on an imposing site overlooking the town. Occupying a similarly commanding site on the opposite side of the town isSt Macartan's College for boys (from 1840), a 17-bay classical structure with a bell tower and private chapel, by the Newry-born architectThomas Duff.
Church Square is very much an environment in which the civic pride of Victorian improvers lives on in the satisfying essay in the Ruskinian-Gothic style that is the Bank of Ireland building, as much as in the peaks of St. Patrick'sChurch of Ireland and the Dawson Obelisk. One of the most interesting aspects of Monaghan's Victorian architectural heritage, which also includes the former railway station, the Orange Hall on North Road and the Westenra Hotel on the Diamond, is the rounded corners that connect the town's buildings from one street or square to the next. This practice of rounding corners in order to open up panoramic vistas was carried out with unprecedented frequency in the town of Monaghan, and is still reflected today in the edifices of The Diamond, Church Square and Mill Street, helping to secure Monaghan's status as one of Ulster's more attractive large towns.
The town is a centre for the timber-frame house building industry withKingspan Century being the largest of its kind in Europe. It is also the centre of a thriving agri business most notable of which is the mushroom industry. Engineering also features in the region with both Moffett[18] and Combilift[19] major participants in thematerials handling market.
There is a campaign to boost tourism by reopening theUlster Canal in a scheme which would eventually allow boats to travel from towns inNorthern Ireland, such asNewry, by way of Monaghan to places as far south asLimerick, as well asDublin.
Monaghan once had a thriving furniture manufacturing industry. Since 1990, this has diminished greatly under global competition. However, manufacturers such as Rossmore Furniture (which took its name fromRossmore Forest Park, situated just outside the town) continue to operate from the town.
The town has four primary schools:[citation needed]
There are five secondary schools in the area:[citation needed]
Public transport operatorBus Éireann routes 32 (Dublin/Letterkenny),[21] 65 (Galway/Athlone/Monaghan),[22] 162 (Monaghan/Dundalk),[23] 175 (Monaghan/Cootehill/Cavan),[24] 182 (Drogheda/Collon/Ardee/Monaghan)[25] all service the town.
SeveralTFI Local Link services also serve the town. These include routes M1 (Knockatallon to Monaghan Institute via Monaghan Town Centre),[26] M2 (Ballybay – Monaghan Institute viaMonaghan Hospital),[27] M3 (Mullan Village to Latlorcan via Monaghan Town),[28] and 176 (Cavan Town to Monaghan Town).[29]
Monaghan is twinned withMiramichi, New Brunswick.[citation needed]
Places inCounty Monaghan | ||
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