TOWNLAND TALES: The furnace in Carra

There are many placenames in Mayo that are older than the name of the county. Four of these are associated with the barony of Carra, including the name Ceara. Another two are critical to this article – Partry/Partraí and Óbha, as in the parish of Ballyovey, Baile Óbha. (The fourth, Stringeall, in Ballintober, need not concern us for now.)
Partry is a village along the N84, Ballinrobe Road. However, the etymology of the word has long-puzzled many scholars. The name has appeared in 9th century ancient tracts as a population group or Tuatha in Irish, known as Na Partrigia, often subdivided to Partraighe an tSléibhe (the Mountain Partry people) and Partraighe an Locha (the Lake Partry people). Scholars speculate Party may mean ‘people of the crab’ and may have been distantly related to an Illyrian tribe whose memory survives in the name of the resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen near Innsbruck in the Bavarian Alps.
In his OS letter of 1838, John O’Donovan mocks the ‘ridiculous’ townland name of Portroyal (Partraí) as a ‘pseudo-translation of Partraighe’ and says Portroyal House is no Port-Riogh!
The parish of Ballyovey, Baile Óbha, means ‘Townland of Óbha (Lumpy Place)’ or a personal name, Ova’s townland.
In Portroyal Electoral Division, in the Civil Parish of Ballyovey, in the Barony of Carra, there is a townland called Furnace that I never knew existed until late last month, when Paul Maguire brought it to my attention.
Paul farms here, and he was eager to show me his unique 18th-century treasure: a furnace (what else?) once used to produce pig-iron. This structure was an important contributor to the west of Ireland’s industrial output, from local resources at nearby Srah (iron seams), Furnace (sandstone for the structure and oak for fuel), and the Cloon River and Lough Mask for transport towards Galway and on to Britain. Iron smelting in a blast furnace has a 300-year-plus history in Ireland and one of the best-preserved blast furnaces in the country is the one on Paul’s farm.

Having a blast
In 1838, John O’Donovan wrote: [Furnace] ‘Contains 220 acres. The property of the Established Church. This townland is not let to tenants as it is good for nothing, nearly all mountain bog and of a very soft nature. A great many years ago there was an iron foundry in this townland, the furnace of which remains and from it is derived the townland name.’
At the time of Griffith’s Valuation (1847-1864), the townland was occupied by Anthony Knox Gildea, but in both the 1901 and 1911 censuses the owners were the Naughton family, ancestors of Paul Maguire on his mother’s side.
Paul described the ‘boshes’ in the ‘casting house’ and the ‘bellows’ in the ‘blowing house’ to me. I read about the ‘tuyére’ (an iron nozzle which directed the air blast from the bellows into the base of the furnace) in Colin Rynne’s book, ‘Industrial Ireland 1750 – 1930: An Archeology published in 2006’. Paul also took me up the ramp where the raw materials would have been ‘charged’.
Back around the year 2000, Paul contacted Dr Colin Rynne in UCC to inform him about the furnace. As an expert in industrial archaeology, Colin was astonished to learn of the existence of this blast furnace. He subsequently wrote an academic paper and book chapter about it. His first reaction was that it may have been a lime kiln, but when he saw Paul’s photographs, he quickly changed his mind and confirmed it was a blast furnace used in iron manufacturing.
The furnace, the walls of which are still there, in use in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is thought that peat and wood from the bogs and woods of Derrymore were used to burn the iron ore found on the Partry mountains. As much as 42 tonnes of oakwood are required to make enough charcoal to generate temperatures of 1500°C and produce one tonne of iron.
The blast furnace is not the only interesting feature on the farm. Paul has planted over 8.9 hectares of broadleaf and native trees, and his forest is a balm to the senses. In recent years, Paul has hosted social farming therapeutic events and open days during Heritage Week in August, in collaboration with Joyce Country Geopark.
My time spent on Paul’s farm was extremely enjoyable and worthwhile. It was very exciting to be shown such a unique, well-preserved item of our built heritage.

Dr John O’Callaghan is a mountain walk leader who has organised and led expeditions both at home and abroad. He has served on the board of Mountaineering Ireland and is currently on the Irish Uplands Forum board.