TOWNLAND TALES: From Errew to Wherrew

We are in the Barony of Tirawley – ‘Awley’s Country’, from Tír Amhlaidh. Tír also means ‘territory’ or ‘province’. “‘The Book of Lecan’ names more than 40 Tirawley families who claimed descent from Amhalghaidh mac Fiachrach,” Nollaig Ó Muraíle tells us in his book ‘Mayo Places: Their Names and Origins’, and it is this ‘Amhalghaidh’ in whose honour the Barony is named.
Taking advantage of some rare sunshine in the wake of Storm Debi, we braved the flooded roads of Lahardaun (from ‘leath ardán’, ‘half a platform’ or ‘uneven little height’) and headed first through Cabragh townland (from An Chabrach or ‘The Bad Land’) to Errew (from ‘Oireadh’, meaning ‘tilled’ or ‘arable land’ ).
The townland, notable for the monastic site of Errew Abbey (or Priory), has the same origin as Erriff, encountered previously here. Indeed, it is a common townland name: there are two Errews in Leitrim and another in Mayo, near Ballyhean.
En route we passed the imposing Errew House, where the Sisters of Jesus and Mary Lived from 1912 to 1916, before they moved to Gortnor Abbey on the north shore of Lough Conn. The original house was built in the late 1700s for the Ormsby family and later redesigned and reconstructed by James Franklin Fuller, the architect who designed Mount Falcon and Kylemore Abbey, for Granville Henry Knox.
With the kind permission of Sally Garrett, who lives and farms close to the abbey, we parked the car, donned our wellies, and walked out across the green, squelchy track to the tip of the peninsula that stretches into Lough Conn.
At first sight, the ruins of the old abbey – believed to have been founded by a community of Augustinian ‘friars regular’ in 1413, with financial support from the Barretts – appears quite small and inconsequential, as there is no trace of a tower house, common in other Mayo abbeys. However, on closer inspection, it is well worth the effort to walk the old cloister and church and examine the architecture of the altar and nave.
The OPW plaque tells us that “the church has trefoil windows, made up of three segments circles, and a piscina, where sacred mass vessels were washed. The church dates to the 13th century, suggesting there was a small monastic community here before the Augustinians arrived, but we have no historic record of this.”
We also visited a tiny stone-walled enclosure to the north of the abbey, known as Templenagalliaghdoo – Teampall na gCailleacha Duibhe, or ‘Church of the Black Nuns’.
Truly satisfied with our visit to Errew Abbey/Priory, we headed to Crossmolina (Crois Mhaoilíona, ‘Maoilíona’s Cross’) and from there to Ardagh Church, off the Ballina road.
Ardach means ‘high field’ and is the name of the parish. We continued for another four to five kilometres to the townland of Wherrew. This most unusual-sounding placename is derived from the Irish word ‘foithriú’, which may have several meanings. The currently accepted and most likely translation is ‘wooded lands’, and this was confirmed to us by local man Joe Cosgrave. It has also been suggested that it derived from ‘Errew’, visible 4 kilometers away across the waters of Lough Conn.
Speaking of water, we were very surprised to find some industrial buildings when we arrived at the lakeside – the Wherrew Water Treatment Plant as it transpired. We went in and met Seán and Ann-Marie upstairs in the control room. Seán very kindly gave us a short history of the plant, from how it was constructed in the 1970s to supply the Asahi Plant in Killala, eleven kilometres away, with water from Lough Conn. Today, it provides a water supply for thousands of homes in the greater Ballina/North Mayo catchment area. We thanked Seán for his information and certainly left wiser than we’d arrived.
There was one final, strange-sounding placename that I had yet to see, and that was Whinnoo Point – the point at which the Deel River enters Lough Conn. So, we made our way to the flooded river outlet and I took a few photographs. Whinnoo is derived from the Irish word ‘fuineadh’, meaning an end or limit – as in the end of the Deel. In origin, it is closely related to the placename Foynes, a village and island in the lower Shannon estuary, that signifies the end of the river on the County Limerick side.
Tirawley is full of history, as was very evident during our return route to Crossmolina, during which we passed the ruins of Deel Castle and Ice House, near Deel Castle Bridge – about which, more anon.

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.