Gortindarragh

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GORTINDARRAGH (field of the oak) Area 141:1:25 Shannock Manor

Griffiths Valuation 1862

Occupier…………………………….Lessor Reps. Ebenezer Mitchell…………………... Rev. Robert Noble H Os L George Beavis………………………………Rev. Robert Noble H Os L Alexander Wadsworth………………………Rev. Robert Noble H Os L Patrick Tracy sen…………………………....Rev. Robert Noble H Os L Robert Bleakley……………………………..Rev. Robert Noble H Os L Patrick Tracy Jun……………………………Rev. Robert Noble H Os L John Doonan………………………………...Rev. Robert Noble H Os L Henry Tracy ………………………………...Rev. Robert Noble H Os L

1901 Census

Head of family……………………...Landholder if different James Armstrong Ellen Toy Mary Tracey John McMahon……………………………..David Wedgeworth James McGrory……………………………. William Wordsworth Jane Mitchell

Surnames in 2005

Downey Howe

The Downey Home

Stone plaques both bearing the date 1626
Moving a pile of turf to the turfhouse

The Downey home in this townland can claim to be the oldest house around.

High up on the back wall are two stone plaques both bearing the date 1626.

We have been told that they may be marriage stones recording the initials of the bride and groom. It is doubtful if the M M refers to the Mitchell family for although the name appears in the 1862 list it is not in a parish record of 1823. The second plaque differs in that the letters are arranged in one row but the date is the same. Our second picture shows both stones over the back door. Nigel, Georgina and Lester Downey with Ken Parsons are moving a pile of turf to the turfhouse.


The house was stone built, three storeys high with the top storey rooms just as high as those on the ground floor. An unusual feature was that the two chimneys were placed in the gable walls and front door and back door were directly opposite at each end of an entrance hall from which the stairs ascended. Together these features made a very cold house and in an effort to remedy this, the third storey was removed in 1973 by the late Jim Downey whose father purchased the property from the last Miss Mitchell in the 1920s.

Lynch's Mill

Lynch’s Mill is luckier than the rest of the mills and other workplaces that dotted the country side a hundred years ago for at least its name is remembered in the road name. It carried on longer that the other mills grinding feeding stuff for cattle. In its earlier days it had been a scutch mill and a corn mill.