History of wilsons school in latest rocht na midhe

The 2015 volume of Ríocht na Midhe, the journal of the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society, has been launched by Most Rev Dr Michael Smith, Bishop of Meath, in the Ardboyne Hotel, Navan, this month.

The journal’s new editor is Peter Connell, a native of Navan, who succeeds Séamus Mac Gabhann. Séamus filled the role with distinction for 20 years. As in previous volumes, this year’s publication contains articles covering a wide range of topics relating to the Meath and Westmeath area, ranging from a report on an archaeological excavation of 15th century burials to an account of a fatal incident that occurred during the War of Independence.

And, as in previous years, there is much of direct interest to the Westmeath reader and five of the edition’s 13 articles specifically deal with the history of the county.

Dr Christopher McCormack contributes an authoritative and comprehensive history of Wilson’s Hospital School, Multyfarnham, founded in 1761. In 1724 Andrew Wilson, of Piercefield, County Westmeath, made provision in his will for the establishment of a “habitation of such number of aged men, being Protestant” and for the erection of a schoolhouse at Multyfarnham.

The author sets the establishment of the school and its changing role through the following 250 years in the wider religious, political, economic and social context. In 1799 the conversion of Wilson’s Hospital to an army barracks was approved in response to the 1798 rebellion, while the evolving curriculum taught at the school reflected huge changes in education through the 19th and 20th centuries.

Multyfarnham also features in Fr Pat Conlan’s history of the Franciscan College, founded in 1899. The establishment of the school is told as part of the wider story of the reform of the Franciscan Order in the second half of the 19th century. Starting with just four students in its first year, the college grew through the first years of the 20th century until it had nearly 70 in 1927.

Fr Conlan includes many fascinating snippets from these early days including the fact that students performed The Merchant of Venice both in the school and in local halls in that part of Westmeath in 1930. In 1947, when the friars successfully bid for Gormanston Castle, to where the college would move in the 1950s, a coded message was sent back to Multyfarnham – “Victory on the Eastern Front”.

Edward Walsh explores the fascinating links between Westmeath and the Falkland Islands in the second half of the 19th century. The affairs of the Ennis family from Adamstown, and Patrick Keating, originally from Kilkenny West, feature in a collection of letters reproduced in an article which casts light on the history of both the Falkland Islands and Westmeath.

The article records the details of a peat slip at Port Stanley in 1886 in which the unfortunate Patrick Keating was killed and his brother’s attempt, back in Kilkenny West, to claim his estate.

In last year’s journal, Jacqueline Killard provided a highly informative study of Mullingar Union workhouse during the famine years. In this year’s journal her equally well researched article focuses on the role of the workhouse in subsequent decades with particular reference to the fate of women and children and its function as an embryonic welfare service. The harsh realities of poor health and child neglect make for compelling reading.

Pádraig G Lane has published widely on the lives of agricultural labourers in the 19th century. In a closely argued article, he recounts the struggles of this class in counties Meath and Westmeath through the 1870s and 1880s at a time when tenant farmers were asserting their interests through the Land League.

Framed by quotations from Brinsley MacNamara’s The Mirror in the Dusk, set in Delvin, he concludes that the county council cottages which were built for landless labourers were one of the few gains they made in those decades.

Among the other articles in the journal is an intriguing report on the excavation of a burial ground near Longwood, with a forensic account of nine skeletons recovered during the dig. Noel French records with great authority the monastic influence of the development of Duleek while Henry Cruise traces changing patterns of land ownership in the Nobber area in the 17th century.

Malachy Hand’s history of Millbrook Mills near Oldcastle includes many interesting photographs and details his own family’s links with the mills. Family links also feature in Daithi Ó Muirí’s article on the first Gaelic League branch in County Meath, founded by his grandfather, Peter Murray, in Dunshaughlin in 1900.

Dr Danny Cusack explores a neglected aspect of the Dublin Lockout of 1913 as he tells the story of Thomas Harten from Castletown Kilpatrick, County Meath, a ‘free labourer’ or ‘scab’ who was beaten to death near Liberty Hall in January 1914. Brian McCabe’s short piece evocatively explores two old and neglected buildings in the Summerhill area and, finally, John F Cogan provides a definitive account of the death of his grand-uncle, Comdt Seamus Cogan, in an engagement with Crown forces at Oldcastle in July 1920.

In addition, the journal carries seven book reviews on publications of Meath and Westmeath interest.

Ríocht na Midhe (2015) is currently being distributed to members of the Society. It can also be obtained from Tom French at Navan County Library. All are welcome to the launch on February 12.