Ballyshannon
The old and attractive town of Ballyshannon is laid out on the hilly
banks of the river Erne where it meets the sea. The steep streets, the ecclesiastical
remains, the falls of Asaroe and the Erne itself all combine to make this town well worth
getting to know. Ballyshannon can claim to be one of Ireland’s oldest settlements,
when the Parthalonians settled in Ins Saimer in the Erne. The architectural heritage of
the town – along the Mall, the Workhouse at the Rock, St. Anne’s Church of
Ireland - reflects its rich history as an important political, ecclesiastical, and
maritime center.
Ballyshannon has something of the border town about it. Although the
county boundary is four miles further on at the Bundrowes River, the Erne which flows
through Ballyshannon marked the southern boundary of historical Tír Chonaill, and still
divides the dioceses of Raphoe and Clogher – the town has two Catholic parishes, one
in each Diocese. There is something different about the Ballyshannon accent; it has more
in common with West Fermanagh and North Leitrim, despite the fact that Donegal Town is
only some fourteen miles to the north, a short journey by the fine road that was opened in
the early 1980s.
Ballyshannon had long been an important stronghold for the
O’Donnells. Although the Erne was, as we seen, a historical frontier, for long
periods the reach of the O’Donnells extended much further, beyond the river Drowes
and into North Sligo, and eastwards into Maguire country. It was because of a perceived
vulnerability to attack from Connacht that Niall Garbh O Domhnaill built the castle in
Ballyshannon in 1423. This remained one of the chief seats of O’Donnell power, until
the O’Donnells themselves had to give way to a stronger force. It was from
Ballyshanon Castle that Aodh Ruadh II set out in 1592 for his inauguration at the
traditional centre of Doon Rock in the North of the county.
Important ‘though the castle was in its time, Ballyshannon is in
essence an eighteenth and nineteenth century town. A well known early nineteeth century
print shows the town climbing the hill, above the bridge. Along the Mall you can see some
of the fine eighteenth century houses, including the Condon House which has, admittedly,
seen better days. It received its first patent to hold a weekly market in August of 1639,
but it had been an important centre of trade and learning for many centuries before that.
Because of its crucial position on the Erne it has been a gateway to Donegal and the west
of Ulster. Ballyshannon was a trading port, and a prosperous one supplying not only south
Donegal but Fermanagh and Cavan, until ships grew so big that they found the bar at the
mouth of the Erne too great an obstacle.
The Erne gives the town of Ballyshannon much of its character. One of
the earliest stories relating to the area tells of how the Assaroe waterfall got its name.
Some two thousand years ago the kingship of Ireland was given to three princes, the sons
of three brothers, to hold for seven years each in rotation. One of them was named Aodh
Ruadh, a name that was to prove very popular in the history of Donegal. Towards the end of
his third period of kingship, when he was an old man, he fell into the river and drowned.
He was buried on the hill overlooking the waterfall, and from then on it was known as Eas
Aoidh Ruadh (the waterfall of Red Hugh).
The river provided the town’s best known poet, William Allingham,
with the inspiration for some of his best known poems. Allingham was born in Ballyshannon
in 1824, two days after St. Patrick’s Day. His first job was in a bank in the town,
but he joined the civil service at the age of twenty two, and was posted as a Customs
official on the south coast of Donegal. In 1863 he was transferred to Lymongton in
Hampshire and remained in the job until 1870. His first book was published in 18x8, and he
continued to write and be published until his death in 1889. Despite moving in literary
circles and receiving praise from fellow writers such as Ruskin, Turgenev and Tennyson,
Allingham never loosened his emotional ties to Ballyshannon.
Allingham is not the town’s only famous son or daughter. Rory
Gallagher, the late blues and rock guitarist was born and spent the first few years of his
life here before moving to his mother’s home city of Cork. Current British Prime
Minister Tony Blair’s grandmother came from Ballyshannon. Further back in time
Micheál Ó Cleirigh, chief of the Four Masters came from here, while the writer and
emancipationist Mary Wollstonecraft also had associations with the town.
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