© Donal G. Burke 2024 William de Burgh, younger son of William an concur de Burgh, died in England in 1248 and his body was brought back to Ireland. He was buried at the Augustinian abbey at Athassel in Conty Tipperary, founded by his father. Surviving records and genealogical references would suggest that he had […]

© Donal G. Burke 2019 Much erroneous material has been circulated both in book form and subsequently repeated online regarding the construction date and original ownership of Ballymore Castle in the east of County Galway. The castle itself is a tower house situated on the western plateau of Redmount Hill, on the outskirts of the […]

© Donal G. Burke 2019 Lissanacody is a townland in the parish of Donanaghta on the southern slope of Redmount Hill, near the village of Eyrecourt. A list of castles of County Galway, believed to date from about 1574, makes no reference to a castle at Lissanacody within the Barony of Longford (the O Madden’s […]

© Donal G. Burke 2017 A minor and obscure family of the O Maddens of Síl Anmchadha (ie. the barony of Longford in the east of Galway) was based on the lands of Esker and Killaltanagh in the parish of Clonfert in the late medieval period. Donogh mcCogh ‘of Easker’ was among numerous O Maddens […]

© Donal G. Burke 2017 Richard Monck, the old friend and former Latin and Irish tutor of the antiquary John O Donovan visited the house of Laurence Madden of Fahy in March of 1843.[i] Monck was permitted to browse through Madden’s family papers and from that source Monck described him as the son of John […]

© Donal G. Burke 2017 By the early eighteenth century, a prominent family of the Maddens was seated at Derryhoran, in the parish of Meelick, to the south of the County Galway village of Eyrecourt. The Derryhoran family descend from that of Kilmacshane in the neighbouring parish of Clonfert, through the person of Owen Madden […]

© Donal G. Burke 2017 The following is a selection of the memorials erected at the former Franciscan friary of Kilconnell. Various memorials in this friary were recorded in Volumes 1 and 2 of the Journal of the Association for the Preservation of the Memorials of the Dead in Ireland and in Volumes 1 and […]

© Donal G. Burke 2017 About 1905 the noted antiquary Lord Walter Fitzgerald recorded that ‘at the junction of two roads, where they enter the village of Kilconnell from the Woodlawn direction, on a base of rough mason-work forming three steps, stands a slender limestone cross. The shaft is octagonal, and resembles a window mullion; […]

© Donal G. Burke 2015 Located to the north of the village of Eyrecourt in the townland of Eyrecourt Demesne, this graveyard lies about the ruins of Donanaghta church on the south eastern slope of Redmount Hill. The following is a selection of the older and notable headstones and funerary monuments erected therein.   ‘In […]

I Existing memorials and tablets within church and ruins of side chapels This stone, in Latin, at the base of the East gable of the friary church, reads ‘Here lies Dominus Joannes Morus, ‘miles’, my grandfather, who died in the month of May 1631. Also here lies D. Margareta More alias de Burgo, my wife, […]