Hopes for Moorehall restoration

Edwin McGreal

There are hopes that restoring a walled garden in the Moore Hall estate could be the first step towards the full restoration of the famed house and grounds.
The estate, on the northern shores of Lough Carra, close to Carnacon village, is currently owned by Coilte and the house has been in ruins since it was burned down by anti-Treaty forces during the Irish Civil War, in 1923.
Now a committee of Mayo County Council are leading plans to commence the restoration of the estate.
Cllr Al McDonnell (FF) is a native of Moorehall, and he led a walk through the grounds last Wednesday and discussed plans for the estate.
Cllr McDonnell is the Chairperson of the Cultural, Educational and Environmental subcommittee of the Council’s Local Community Development Committee. The restoration of the walled garden to the left of the main house is their ‘priority project for 2016’.
“The only thing we are short of is money,” quipped Cllr McDonnell. Engineering staff of Mayo County Council have drawn up plans for the project, and Cllr McDonnell is hopeful the council will allocate funding for the project in its annual budget meeting on November 25.
He estimates the walled-garden project would cost ‘a significant sum, into six figures’ though no final estimate is clear as of yet.
Cllr McDonnell took the crowd of approximately 120 people for a tour of the walled garden, which has fallen into considerable disrepair, and told stories of his ancestors scaling the walls to take sweet bounties from inside.
He is hopeful that work on the walled garden could have a snowball effect for the entire estate.

Bigger picture
“From a bigger picture I hope the Government can come in. I’ve spoken to the Taoiseach and he certainly is interested in doing something with Moorehall, which is encouraging,” Cllr McDonnell told The Mayo News.
“I hope that, at some stage, maybe not in our time, that it will be fully restored. That’s the dream,” he added.
Cllr McDonnell gave those who attended the walk on a beautiful autumn evening a fascinating and thorough account of  the history of the estate and the Moore family. They were, he said, a landlord family held in ‘high esteem’ locally, especially for their benevolence towards their tenants during the Famine.
“It is widely believed no tenant of the Moores died during the Famine. That is, to me, sufficient reason to do our very best to have this fine place restored again,” said Cllr McDonnell.
“The best story of all is Coranna, the horse which was trained in the hills around here. It won the Chester Cup in 1847 and the Moores had a little bet. They came back with £17,000 sterling, a huge amount of money at the time, and distributed it among their many starving tenants. It is widely believed that any family who did not own a cow, did so after that race,” added Cllr McDonnell.