This blog post is written by Margaret McNamara as part of a Digital Cultural Heritage Training Project taking place in the Ballyhoura Region of Ireland & funded by Ballyhoura Development Ltd. It describes some of the first days training which took place in Murroe.
Today we toured the picturesque village of Murroe, led by locals Denis O’Malley and John and Michael Hassett. We started at the Muintir na Tíre Hall, built by Moher native Canon John Hayes, founder of the Muintir na Tíre movement. If you squint at the iron cross atop the hall you will see a plough attached ie. the motif of Muintir na Tire.
We then looked at the old forge located directly across the road from the hall. The forge is a beautiful cut stone building with an unusual horseshoe-shaped doorway, built by Barrington and worked by generations of the McGuire family.
Moving southwards through the village we passed a newly painted single storey building, which we learned was once the village post office.
Next stop was the Church of the Holy Rosary, an impressive building with a Romanesque doorway, surrounded by a neat graveyard enclosed by a wall with iron railings. We stopped to look at the iron plaque located at the entrance to the graveyard and learned that it was donated by a Mrs. Alice O’Malley, the same family who were architects of the church building. Wonderful gems of local history were imparted, including the story of the families of the townland of Ballyvorheen who contributed to the building of the wall surrounding the graveyard. We captured the voice of Michael Hassett telling us the story of the Ballyvorheen families. We used the Zoom H2 audio recorder to record Michael's information which we will then edit in Audacity.We also heard the story behind the Ryan and Frahill memorial located at the back of the church - the churchyard has a number of priests buried behind the church along with these two War of Independence casualties.
We then moved on to ‘The Monument’, the impressively situated cross memorial located on a height at the village crossroads. This is a highly decorated cross with gargoyle-like carvings and a poignant inscription to Limerick people who died in the War of Independence and the Civil War.
Erected at the time of the Civil War there is a complex history attached to it.