Street Wise – Bealnamulla
This series of articles for the Westmeath Independent is run in conjunction with the Street Wise Athlone series on Athlone Community Radio which is broadcast on Wednesdays during Athlone Today at 2.30pm and repeated on Thursday mornings at 10am on The Brekkie Show.
Athlone Miscellany by Gearoid O'Brien
In the official list of Irish townlands, the spelling for this townland is given as Bellanamullia but over the years it has become Bealnamulla. Like many of our placenames this comes from the Irish – in this case Beal Atha na Muille meaning ‘the mouth of the mill ford’. Its proximity to the Crannagh Cross River, a river with a long tradition of milling, suggests that this is the correct derivation. There is another townland in Co Roscommon called Bellanamullia which is close to Scramogue. In this case it seems that the Irish version is Beal na m-buille or the ‘mouth of the ford of the strokes’ (or Strokestown).
Our Bealnamulla is both a townland and a village which lies about 4km west of Athlone and just beyond the urban boundary. From the point of view of the census Bealnamulla is considered as a suburb of Athlone. According to the townlands.ie website Bellanamulla is bordered by the following townlands: Ardnagawna; Cloonakille; Cloongowna; Creagh; Cuilglass; Cuileen; Monksland and Rooskagh.
My Childhood Memory of Bealnamulla
Growing up my older brother and I loved to fish and a great treat was to be brought out to the Cross River where there was always a chance of catching a trout. Bealnamulla at that time was a small rural village. The local Post Office and shop was then run by Mr Seamus O’Conghaile, a retired national teacher who was a native Irish speaker. My memory is that Mr O’Conghaile was very involved with Conradh na Gaeilge and the Schools’ Drama Festival which was held in the Dean Crowe Hall. When he retired from the shop he moved away and went on to write a novel in Irish about the Black and Tans and possibly one or two children’s books. When I was a child both Doyles Mill and Burnbrook Mill were in ruins and there were several quiet fields where one could have a picnic or pick the abundant mushrooms! The big treat was to get an ice-cream from Mr O’Conghaile before going home…it often made up for not catching that elusive trout. But such outings were part of the magic of childhood.
As an indication of just how much this area has grown in the past 50 years, when I was a child my god-father, the late Alfie Faulkner, was the principal of then then two-teacher national school in Cloonakilla. Today the school-principal, Mary O’Rourke, is an administrative principal with seventeen class teachers, six special needs teachers and six special needs assistants!
Bannon’s Mill
The Bannon family operated Bealnamulla Mill since the mid-19th century, at least. Edward Egan records that the mill was maliciously burned in 1848. Bannon’s Mill was a corn-mill, but in the mid-1860s a tuck-mill was in operation alongside the corn-mill, to facilitate the scutching of flax which was grown in the area. The Bannon’s continued to operate the corn-mill until the mid-1940s. The story of this mill and other mills on the river is to be found in Edward Egan’s book ‘Milling on the Crannagh Cross-River’, the second edition of which was published in 2014. The ruins of this mill are still standing.
By the late 1940s the late George Bannon of Bealnamulla had started an agricultural business, initially he dealt in horse-powered or horse-drawn machinery including ploughs etc but later he dealt in all sorts of agricultural machinery including tractors etc. In 1965 he was advertising a horse’s cart for £20 and a small light milk dray on rubber tyres for £16. In the early 1970s he was an agent for
Hayman “the fastest machine for hay Tedding, Turning, Clean Raking and Rowing”. George Bannon died in 2013. Today Bannon’s Texaco Station is run by Vincent Bannon and family who continue to deal in agricultural machinery.
Crannagh Cross River Drainage
The Westmeath Independent covered an important meeting which was held in Bealnamulla in 1959 to form an action committee to ensure that the drainage scheme which had started four years earlier and had been abandoned having only cleaned four miles of the seventeen-mile stretch of the river. A local farmer, Thomas Duignan, presided and one man said he knew a farmer who had lost 27 sheep out of his flock of 30 because the water-logged conditions had become a breeding ground for parasites. An effective and determined action committee was formed and the rest,
as they say, is history. The struggle included the committee informing Roscommon County Council that over 900 landowners were behind the protest and that they wouldn’t pay rates until the matter was resolved. The committee collected all the rates due to the council and lodged them in an account until such time as an undertaking was given to carry out the necessary drainage works. In December 1959 the Co. Manager, Mr J.G. Browne, made a strong statement about the withholding of rates but agreed to receive a deputation from the local land holders. The spokesman for the group was Mr Seamus O’Conghaile and a letter in support of the landowners from Canon McCarthy was read.
The Council committed to raise a loan of £15,000 to complete the scheme, hoping for a grant from the Department. A delegation from the Council met the Minister in January 1960 and while no commitment was given, they decided to go ahead and raise the loan and recommence the drainage works in April or May 1960.
The Mill and Cornloft
The Mill Bar is housed in what was once Doyle’s Mill. It was restored over several years by the late Neil O’Shea who together with his wife Teresa ran a very successful business there for the past forty years.
The building probably dates from the late 18th or early 19th century. In the 1830s, and possibly for the next 30 years it was Kelly’s mill but in 1865 it was taken over by James Doyle an Athlone corn-merchant. In 1873 James Doyle opened a grain store in Connaught Street in what is now McNeill’s. He entrusted the running of the mill to Owen Hughes from Kiltoom. In 1925 at which time the mill was owned by Battie Doyle, a son of James Doyle, the mill was destroyed in an accidental fire. It lay vacant until Neil O’Shea a great-grandson of James Doyle saw fit to renovate it. Apart from the fine bar and bed and breakfast business the old mill also houses a restaurant called The Cornloft which is very popular with locals.
Sport in the Area
Nearby the Woodview Country Club has a fine 18-hole pitch and putt course. Bealnamulla is well served by a regular bus service from Athlone. Bealnamulla also had a great reputation for handball in the 20th Century as evidenced by a recent article by Eamonn Ginnane in this paper which recalled the career of the legendary Tom ‘Tatter’ Keegan. The handball alley was built in 1928 with the enthusiastic support of a local curate in St. Peter’s parish. A local farmer, Thomas Bannon, donated the site and the alley was built through voluntary labour.
Ladies football is a sport which is only now gaining the national recognition it deserves. But Bealnamulla was well ahead of the game and has had a very active ladies football club for many years. The club has achieved great success winning countless league titles at all levels.
They have teams at under 8s, under 11s, under 12s, under 14s under 16s and at Senior Level. A measure of the success of the club is that in the last season the Senior Team played in the CCFL League having won both Premier and Major League titles in Dublin and Galway.
Next article: Brideswell