Moorehall as it stands today.
Nightfall at Moorehall
Country sights and sounds
John Shelley
AT Mulranny, we fell into coversation with visitors from Wales, finding common ground in the weather, fishing, fishing weather and other similar matters of national importance. Moorehall crept into the conservation. Of course they knew it. They had been there to look at the bats.
What an inglorious end for such a wonderful building! The structure itself, were it situated within the city walls of Galway or Limerick, might be passed with no more than a glance. At most, perhaps the home architect would find inspiration in the impressive Corinthian columns that guard the front door, while the poet might find a few moments to contemplate the life that went before. But here, on the shore of Lough Carra, the house is most impressive.
Designed and built as the heart of a 12,000-acre estate, it must have been a grand landmark for all of mid-Mayo, with its grand vista to the lake and across the water to the town of Ballinrobe. Now it stands as if in mourning, perhaps for the broken backs and leathered hands of those that hewed these hulking limestone blocks from the ground and dragged them here to Muckloon Hill in 1792, or maybe for its own sorry end in Republican flames.
Abandoned to the bats in futility. Even they must live somewhere. They share their home with barn owl and raven, wagtail and wren. But there should be more: glass in the window; a bookcase on the wall; a slumbering curator. A museum, a museum we shall make it, or a literary house once more, with its broken lintels mended and its plaster work restored.
The working farm is gone; the land passed into other hands, but surely there remains enough to do something with? There should be horses as of old, and men to keep them, with plough and harrow, carriage and cart. The walled garden is still walled, though barely. Even so it would take a small team just a week or two to put the fallen stones back in their places. There is work to do inside. What would it take?
There is no question about it. Moorehall has the potential to put Lough Carra and the surrounding region firmly on the tourist map. The area is already a favourite with botanists, who come to look at spring gentians and a wonderful diversity of wild orchids. Trout anglers come here to test their skills against the most stubborn breed of trout that ever swam. Walkers and hikers, mountain-bikers and the occasional horseman make use of the forest tracks. Ornithologists time their visits to coincide with the evening roosts of starlings and swallows, to see the grey-winged arrows of hunting hawks, to watch great-crested grebe and gadwall on the water or to wonder at the warbler’s song.
There is room, too, for the historian. Listen to the reflections of George Moore as he wrote in his bibliographical novel ‘Hail and Farwell’ ‘That night I roamed in imagination from castle to castle, following them from hillside to hillside, along the edges of the lake … remembering that Castle Carra must have been a great place some four or five hundred years ago. Only the centre of the castle remains; the headland is covered with ruins, overgrown with thorn and hazel; but great men must have gone forth from Castle Carra; and Castle Island and Castle Hag were defended with battle axe and sword, and these were wielded as tremendously, from island to island, and along the shores of my lake, as ever they were under the walls of Troy.’
Ha, yes, I can see it even now; the sun sinking over the wooded hills to the west, drawing the black cloth of night behind it, while within the walls of Moorehall lights flicker on, and a great fire fills the hearth and warms the bones of that fine house once more as those within bring life and spirit back to those cold stones.
Rural tourism is yet but a hatchling. A visionary is needed. The Moorehall Restoration Trust is still in existence, and there remains a certain enthusiasm for its currently shelved project.
Perhaps now more than ever the Moore family motto must be remembered: ‘Fortis cadere cedere non protest’ – ‘He who proceeds with courage will never fail’.
With the country awash with under-employed builders, perhaps the time was never better.
George Moore’s letter to The Morning Post
George Augustus Moore (24 February 1852 – 21 January 1933) was an Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. Moore came from a Roman Catholic landed family who lived at Moorehall for almost a century. The house was built by his paternal great-grandfather—also called George Moore—who had made his fortune as a wine merchant in Alicante.
Below is a letter he wrote to The Morning Post, published on February 14, 1923.
“Sir, – So many trite and colourless descriptions have appeared in the newspapers of Irish bonfires that it occurs to me you might like to publish the few lines which I quote, telling of the burning of Moore Hall on the first of this month.
I was sitting in my lodge reading when armed men who where perfect strangers to me came to the door and demanded the keys. I asked what for, and was told that a column was going to be put up for the night. I wanted to go over, but would not be allowed; other armed men were patrolling the road from Annie’s Bridge to Murphy’s Lodge. I had no option but to give up the keys, and suspecting what was on I pointed out to the leader that the house was not Colonel Moore’s property. This had no effect. I sat up all night, hoping that when all would be clear I could save even a portion of the library. At four o’clock I heard four loud explosions. At five I went to the place and found the whole house a seething mass of flames. I at once saw that all was hopeless. A fire brigade would be powerless, so firmly had the flames gripped the entire building. I could do nothing but stand by and await the end with the same feeling that one has when standing by the open grave of a very dear friend. I do not say this in a ‘Uriah Heapish’ way, for I really loved that old house. To me it was a modern edition of King Tutankhamen’s tomb. At six o’clock the roof fell in with a terrific crash. When the fire died down I got ladders up to the library windows, hoping to save even a few books, but nothing living could enter, so fierce was the heat. When Mr Ruttledge returns I would like to have instructions as to what is to be done. There is several feet of litter on the ground floor. I don’t know if it be worth while to remove this – except steel or iron one cannot hope to find anything. In one sense, perhaps, the house had outlived its usefulness, but still it would be a pity even now to let it become a real ruin. If nothing else be done I would suggest building up all the lower windows to prevent people trafficking in and out as they please.
These lines will seem to many too simple to be considered as “literature”; the many like ornament. But the simple directness of the lines appeals to me; I doubt the story could have been better told; and if they recall to others, as they did to me, Virgil’s celebrated words, Sunt laerimae verum [‘These are the tears of things’], they will justify their publication.
– Yours, etc.,
George Moore
121 Ebury Street, London, S.W.1
Feb. 13
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OUTDOORS Mayo walk of the month - Moorehall loop trail
