Connemara (, ; ) is a region on the Atlantic coast of western County Galway, in the west of Ireland. The region has a strong association with traditional Irish culture and containing most of the Connacht Irish-speaking Gaeltacht, a key part of its identity and the largest Gaeltacht in Ireland. Historically, Connemara was part of the territory of Iar Connacht (West Connacht). Geographically, it has many mountains (notably the Twelve Pins), peninsulas, coves, islands and small lakes. Connemara National Park is in the northwest. It is mostly rural and its largest settlement is Clifden.
Etymology
"Connemara" derives from the tribal name , which designated a branch of the , an early tribal grouping that had a number of branches located in different parts of . Since this particular branch of the lived by the sea, they became known as the (sea in Irish is , genitive , hence "of the sea").
Definition One common definition of the area is that it consists of most of west Galway, that is to say the part of the county west of Lough Corrib and Galway city, contained by Killary Harbour, Galway Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Some more restrictive definitions of Connemara define it as the historical territory of , i.e. just the far northwest of County Galway, bordering County Mayo. The name is also used to describe the (Irish-speaking areas) of western County Galway, though it is argued that this too is inaccurate as some of these areas lie outside of the traditional boundary of Connemara. There are arguments about where Connemara ends as it approaches Galway city, which is definitely not in Connemara – some argue for Barna, on the outskirts of Galway City, some for a line from Oughterard to Maam Cross, and then diagonally down to the coast, all within rural lands.
The wider area of what is today known as Connemara was previously a sovereign kingdom known as , under the kingship of the , until it became part of the English-administered Kingdom of Ireland in the 16th century.
History The main town of Connemara is Clifden, which is surrounded by an area rich with megalithic tombs.
The famous "Connemara Green marble" is found outcropping along a line between Streamstown and Lissoughter. It was a trade treasure used by the inhabitants in prehistoric times. It continues to be of great value today. It is available in large dimensional slabs suitable for buildings as well as for smaller pieces of jewellery.
Clan system
Before the Tudor and Cromwellian conquests, Connemara, like the rest of Gaelic Ireland, was ruled by Irish clans whose Chiefs and their derbhfine were expected to follow the same code of honour also expected of Scottish clan chiefs.
In his biography of Rob Roy MacGregor, W.H. Murray described the code of honour as follows, "The abiding principle is cast up from the records of detail: that right must be seen to be done, no man left destitute, the given word honoured, the strictest honour observed to all who have given implicit trust, and that a guest's confidence in his safety must never be betrayed by his host, or vice versa. There was more of like kind, and each held as its kernel the simple ideal of trust honoured... Breaches of it were abhorred and damned... The ideal was applied 'with discretion'. Its interpretation went deeply into domestic life, but stayed shallow for war and politics."W. H. Murray (1982), Rob Roy MacGregor: His Life and Times, Barnes & Noble Books. p. 30.
The east of what is now Connemara was once called , and was ruled by Kings who claimed descent from the Delbhna and Dál gCais of Thomond and kinship with King Brian Boru. The Kings of Delbhna Tír Dhá Locha eventually took the title and surname Mac Con Raoi (since anglicised as Conroy or King).Medieval Ireland: Territorial, Political and Economic Divisions, Paul MacCotter, Four Courts Press, 2008, pp. 140–141.
The Chief of the Name of Clan Mac Con Raoi directly ruled as Lord of Gnó Mhór, which was later divided into the civil parishes of Kilcummin and Killannin. As was common practice at the time, due to the power they wielded through their war galleys, the Chiefs of Clan Mac Conraoi also fulfilled their duty to be providers for their clan members by demanding and receiving black rent on pain of piracy against ships who fished or traded within the Clan's territory. The Chiefs of Clan Mac Conraoi were accordingly numbered, along with the Chiefs of Clans O'Malley, O'Dowd, and O'Flaherty, among "the Sea Kings of Connacht". The nearby kingdom of Gnó Beag was ruled by the Chief of the Name of Clan Ó hÉanaí (usually anglicised as Heaney or Heeney).
The (Kealy) clan were the rulers of West Connemara. which is a transcription of: Like the Chiefs of Clan clan, the Chiefs of Clan (Conneely) also claimed descent from the .
During the early 13th century, but all four clans were displaced and subjugated by the Chiefs of Clan , who had been driven west from into by the Mac William Uachtar branch of the House of Burgh, during the Hiberno-Norman invasion of .
According to Irish–American historian Bridget Connelly, "By the thirteenth century, the original inhabitants, the clans Conneely, Ó Cadhain, Ó Folan, and MacConroy, had been steadily driven westward from the Moycullen area to the seacoast between Moyrus and the Killaries. And by 1586, with the signing of the Articles of the Composition of Connacht that made Morrough O'Flaherty landlord over all in the name of Queen Elizabeth I, the MacConneelys and Ó Folans had sunk beneath the list of chieftains whose names appeared on the document. The Articles deprived all the original Irish clan chieftains not only of their title but also all of the rents, dues, and tribal rights they had possessed under Irish law."
During the 16th century, but legendary local pirate queen Grace O'Malley is on record as having said, with regard to her followers, () ("Better a ship filled with MacConroy and MacAnally clansmen, than a ship filled with gold").Ordnance Survey Letters, Mayo, vol. II, cited in Anne Chambers (2003), The Pirate Queen, but with spelling modernised.
Even though she has traditionally been viewed as an icon of Irish nationalism, Grace O'Malley, in reality, sided with Queen Elizabeth I against Red Hugh O'Donnell and Aodh Mór Ó Néill during the Nine Years War, after which her known descendants became completely assimilated into the British upper class. Even though O'Donnell and O'Neill were seeking primarily to end the religious persecution of the Catholic Church in Ireland by the English Queen her officials, O'Malley almost certainly considered herself completely justified under the code of conduct in siding with the Crown of England against them.
The feud began in 1595, when O'Donnell re-instated the Chiefdom of Clan MacWilliam Íochdar of the completely Gaelicised House of Burgh in County Mayo, which had been abolished under the policy of surrender and regrant. Instead, however, of allowing Clan a Burc to summon a gathering at which the nobles and commons would debate and then choose one of the derbhfine of the last chief to lead them, O'Donnell instead chose to appoint his ally Tiobóid mac Walter Ciotach Búrca as Chief of the Name. By passing over the claim of her son Tiobóid na Long Búrca to the Chiefdom, O'Donnell made himself a permanent and very dangerous enemy out of his mother's former ally; Grace O'Malley. The latter was swift to retaliate by launching an English-backed regime change war, in which she fought against Hugh Roe in order to wrest the White Wand of the Chiefdom away from Tiobóid Mac Walter Ciotach and give it to her son. She was joined in this by the Clan O'Flaherty and the Irish clans of Connemara who followed their mantle.
Irish clan chief, historian, and refugee in Habsburg Spain Philip O'Sullivan Beare later went on the record as a very harsh critic of Niall Garbh O'Donnell, Tiobóid na Long Búrca, Grace O'Malley, and other members of the Gaelic nobility of Ireland who similarly launched regime change wars within their clans with English backing. Having the benefit of hindsight regarding the long-term fallout from Tiobóid na Long Búrca's uprising against his Chief and many others like it nationwide, O'Sullivan Beare wrote, "The Catholics might have been able to find a remedy for all these evils, had it not been that they were destroyed from within by another and greater internal disease. For most of the families, clans, and towns of the Catholic chiefs, who took up arms in defense of the Catholic Faith, were divided into different factions, each having different leaders and following lords who were fighting for their estates and chieftaincies. The less powerful of them joined the English party in the hope of gaining the chieftainship of their clans, if the existing chieftains were removed from their position and property, and the English craftily held out that hope to them. Thus, short-sighted men, putting their private affairs before the public defence of their Holy Faith, turned their allies, followers, and towns from the Catholic chiefs and transferred to the English great resources, but in the end did not obtain what they wished for, but accomplished what they did not desire. For it was not they, but the English who got the properties of and rich patrimonies of the Catholic nobles and their kinsmen; and the Holy Faith of Christ Jesus, bereft of its defenders, lay open to the barbarous violence and lust of the heretics. There was one device by which the English were able to crush the forces of the Irish Chiefs, by promising their honours and revenues to such of their own kinsmen as would seduce their followers and allies from them, but when the war was over the English did not keep their promises."Philip O'Sullivan Beare (1903), Chapters Towards a History of Ireland Under Elizabeth, pages 57-58.
Religious persecution Before the Suppression of the Monasteries was spread to Connemara, the Dominican Order had a monastery about to the north of what is now Roundstone ().roundstonevillage.ie, Retrieved 17 March 2020.
During the centuries of religious persecution of the Catholic Church in Ireland that began under Henry VIII and ended only with Catholic emancipation in 1829, the Irish people, according to Marcus Tanner, clung to the Tridentine Mass, "crossed themselves when they passed Protestant ministers on the road, had to be dragged into Protestant churches and put cotton wool in their ears rather than listen to Protestant sermons."Marcus Tanner (2004), The Last of the Celts, Yale University Press. Pages 227-228.
According to historian and folklorist Seumas MacManus, "Throughout these dreadful centuries, too, the hunted priest -- who in his youth had been smuggled to the Continent of Europe to receive his training -- tended the flame of faith. He lurked like a thief among the hills. On Sundays and Feast Days he celebrated Mass at a rock, on a remote mountainside, while the congregation knelt on the heather of the hillside, under the open heavens. While he said Mass, faithful sentries watched from all the nearby hilltops, to give timely warning of the approaching priest-hunter and his guard of British soldiers. But sometimes the troops came on them unawares, and the Mass Rock was bespattered with his blood, -- and men, women, and children caught in the crime of worshipping God among the rocks, were frequently slaughtered on the mountainside."Seamus MacManus (1921), The Story of the Irish Race, Barnes & Noble. pp. 462-463.