Newport circa 1900

Newport 35

When Captain Pratt leased the Medlycott estate in the early 18th. century he set about building a new town for his linen enterprise. The old Irish town of Burrishoole was probably overcrowded with cabins and small farms. Hence the New Port. A Quaker Community was encouraged by Pratt to set up in the town and the linen industry flourished for a while. Weaver's Row, now Castlebar Street, and Bleachyard, are names that derive from that period. James Moore, the land agent to the Medlycott landlords, managed the town in the middle years of the 18th. century and during that time oversaw a period of great economic success. At one time Newport's trade surpassed even that of Galway. It remained a trading town even though in the 19th. century famine brought about the beginning of a long, slow decline paralleled by the decline in the fortunes of the O'Donel estates. Late 19th. century saw the appearance of benefactors such as Martin Carey, whose entrepreneurial skills stemmed the tide of decline and left the town some fine buildings such as the Catholic Church on the hill known as Barrack Hill. Today the town is making a determined effort to re-assert it's self-importance through growth and development and through pride in it's varied history.

Burrishoole

First mentioned in the Ormonde deeds in the 1570s, this ancient land division has a long pedigree which is referred to in Tirecháin's "Tripartite Life of St. Patrick" circa 900 A.D. Today it is associated with the Barony of Burrishoole which reaches around Clew Bay from Westport to Achill Island. It is however chiefly with the abbey of the Dominicans near Newport that the name is closely related. This 15th. century abbey had a short but varied existence, from it's early years as a Dominican abbey, through occupation during the late 16th. century wars and abandonment in Penal times.

An examination of placenames and the physical evidence of ring forts and early Christian sites such as Teampaill Cúl na Gréinne show a long tradition of occupation by native and newcomer alike. It has a fine anchorage which is referred to in historical documents as a regularly visited port of call for English and Spanish traders in the 15th. and 16th. Centuries and perhaps even much earlier.

When Mr. Medlicott acquired the large estate, formerly the Manor of Burrishoole, from the

Dukes of Ormonde, he leased it on to a Captain Pratt who served in the treasury office in Dublin Castle. Captain Pratt set out for Burrishoole in the early years of the Eighteenth century. He must have hoped to develop the port at Burrishoole and encourage the development of a linen trade there. However the old port at the abbey did not meet with his approval for reasons not quite clear today. One may assume that there existed there a substantial and crowded Irish town. Pratt decided to retrace his steps to the townland of Ó Fiacháin on the abhainn Daire Duibhe, the Black Oak River. Here he began to construct his new port, calling it Newport Pratt.

Medlycott Street was probably among the first streets to be developed and some of the older houses such as those with one window on the second floor could conceivably originate from this time.

A Quaker Community was encouraged to come to the town and so the elements of a linen industry were put in place.

For whatever reason Mr. Pratt's endeavours did not succeed. Perhaps he had invested all his own cash in the town beginnings and could not fund further development, certainly the Quakers found the going equally tough and they were leaving by the late 1720s and early 1730s. They cite the "Tithe monger", failure to acquire a burial site and the long distances to the nearest Society Community at Moate in Co. Westmeath as reasons for leaving. Before they went they left us an intriguing list of guests at a Quaker wedding in Newport in 1727. Notable among those are the O'Donel family members Manus and Hu. These O'Donels were descendants of the Tír Conail O'Donels whose fortunes had disappeared with the Flight of the Earls after Kinsale in 1601.

By the late Eighteenth century these O'Donels would be making a return to power and status in the Newport area. However the mid Eighteenth century was to be dominated by a man whose tombstone and vault is at Knockavelly Glebe Graveyard. James Moore, land agent and entrepreneur, dominated the estate until his death in 1766.

He supervised the building of the Quays at Newport and the new Protestant church at Knockavelly Glebe. The Roman Catholic church behind Market Street, now Main Street, in the vicinity of Kelly's Kitchen was constructed during his land stewardship. The town appears to have

thrived at this time. Records show ships of German and French origins trading into the port. James Moore was probably the first millionaire from the town, his fortune made in a wide variety of enterprises from wines and spirits importing to cattle rearing and money exchanging and banking. His family lived the life of gentry, his daughters, he had five, were educated in Dublin where his wife went for the summer season each year. His own preference being horse racing at Breaffy.

Notable travellers of the Eighteenth century visited the town and it's Protestant merchant class. Dr. Pococke, the noted Eighteenth century traveller preached in Knockavelly Glebe Church and also visited the ruinous Burrishoole abbey.

By Moore's death - 1766 - the O'Donel family had succeeded in acquiring much land and were ready to become owners in their own right, by changing their religion in 1763 they had paved the way for this. By 1777 they were buying the Medlycott estate which was for sale. The Medlycotts found no one to successfully replace James Moore.

The town was approaching it's economic peak. Methodism, Presbyterianism, Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic rubbed shoulders in the town, the Quakers had come and gone, the Darbyites yet to establish themselves.

The town could now boast these religious presences and streets such as Sailors Row, Tailors Row as well as Market Street and Newbridge Street and Barrackhill Street. Tinker Street, now George's Street gets a mention in the rent rolls of the late Eighteenth and early 19th. Centuries.

The De Bille incident may well indicate the continued importance of the town in the 1780s when the Danish Naval Frigate the Bornholm limped into Newport Bay and Milcum for repairs, crew dead and dying from an unknown disease, wrecked by storm, Captain De Bille found succour and solace among the townspeople of Newport . The Danish Royal family responded with finance which enabled the building of the fine stone building De Bille house on Market Street in the late 18th. century.

By the 1780s the O'Donels were engaged in their own building programme, Newport House remains as a testament to their own powerful status.

1798 saw Newport held by a French Irish garrison before reverting to the Crown. Fr. Manus Sweeney, a young man educated on the Continent and viewed by both Catholic and Protestant as a radical threat to the established order was hung and quartered in the town.

Other forces were at work in the town and in the country. The success of the potato, the rapid increase in population saw the town swell in numbers in the late Eighteenth and early 19th Centuries. The culmination of this dramatic growth was the famine of the 1840s, not however the first to afflict Newport. The 1820s saw famine, the 1830s cholera, the 1840s were merely the crowning disaster to befall the area.

The town population had risen to 1541 by 1841, in 1851 it had fallen to 870. The decline continued through the 19th. century. The famine began the destruction of the landed estates. This issue would continue to bedevil Irish society through the nineteenth century until agitation, land war and finally legislation empowering the people to own their own land finally by the 20th. century put paid to a system of land tenure that endured too long.

The encumbered estates courts and nature itself eventually ended the O'Donel hegemony. No money and no male heirs ended an estate whose holdings had once encompassed over 70,000 acres from Kilmeena to Achill and North to Ballycroy, mountain and moorland, drumlin and island, a man could not travel it's extent in one day on horseback.

The social conditions of the nineteenth century reached their nadir in the famine years. Newport was established as a Poor Law union and the workhouse built at Derryloughan Beg. This continued to serve a large union and was so busy that in the late 1840s the workhouse held over 1,000 inmates and another 2,000 were fed on outdoor relief schemes.

Martin Carey first appears in Griffiths Valuation of 1856 and his presence in the area was to inject new economic life into the town for the last quarter of the 19th. century. His son succeeded him and their contribution to the town is especially marked by the imposingly beautiful St. Patrick's Church on Barrack Hill. This church was to be the last of three built in the town since the easing of the Penal laws in mid 18th. century.

The town continued to serve a large hinterland right into the twentieth century, the railway arrived in 1896 over a fine red sandstone bridge that had cost almost £10,000 to construct. The railways' life had run it's course by the 1930s as the economic war with Britain came to a close so too did the railways days end. Emigration continued to bedevil the population but the town held on through boom and burst until the 1980s and now the 1990s bring new ideas, new ways of living, working and playing in Newport, Co. Mayo.

Sources :

M.S.5737 National Library Ireland

Census of Population 1841 and 1851

Microfiche Castlebar (Co. Library)