Garrynasillagh – Garraidh na Saileach – Garden of the Sallows –Garraí na Saileach

The Ordnance Survey Name Books gave two versions of the standard name of this townland: Garrynasallagh and Garrynasillagh.  Garranesallagh was the version used during the reign of Charles I (1625-1649), and Garrinasillagh was that used in the time of Willaim III (1689-1702).  George D.H. Kirkaldy opted for Garrinsellagh or Garrynasillagh.  Rev. Francis Coghlan wrote the name as Garrynasallagh.  The Irish form of the name given was Garraidh na Saileach, meaning Garden of the Sallows.  The Placenames Commission record it today as Garraí na Saileach.

Location

Garrynasillagh townland lies between Killimor and Boleybeg, Garryad and Garryduff and Ballycahill.  It contained part of the town of Killimor, a few detached houses and ruins, three limekilns and a sand pit, a Danish fort and Lough, and all arable land intersected with ditches and trees in hedgerows.  The Ordnance Survey Map showed a police barracks, school house and post office.

Census 1841, 1851

Census statistics showed the population in 1841 as twenty seven people in seven houses, and remarkably, a post-famine population increase to forty three people in five houses by 1851.

Griffith’s Valuation 1855  

Griffith’s Valuation gave the total acreage of the townland as fifty one acres, three roods and six perches. The main landholder was the Marquis of Clanricarde, who leased out all the land and retained one cottier’s house in fee.  Tenants holding land only were: Michael Pelly who held two plots, totalling twenty four acres, three roods and twenty seven perches at a total annual valuation of £17.15d.0d; and John Bernard who held three plots, totalling four acres and thirty six perches, at a total annual valuation of £2.15s.0d.  Smaller plots of land were held by Patrick Flood, Michael Dillon, Michael O’Hara, William Delahunt and Patrick Shanny, ranging in size from one acre and twenty one perches, to seven acres and eighteen perches.

Census 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891

Census statistics showed neither population nor house in the townland in 1861, 1871, 1881, or 1891.

1901 Census

The 1901 census showed ‘Nil’ houses in Garrynasillagh.

1911 Census

One house was listed in Garrynasillagh in the 1911 census, with the landholder and head of family named as Thomas Muldoon.

Thomas Muldoon

Residencts of the only house in the townland of Garrynasillagh were the Muldoon family of 8.  Thomas Muldoon, a stone mason, was 36 and head of family.  He was married to Catherine, aged 34, for 9 years.  They both could read and write.  They had 5 living children.  Their son, James Joseph, aged 8, and daughter, Mary Bridget, aged 5 were both scholars but could not read.  Annie Lillian was aged 4, Sarah Gertrude was 2 and Thomas Gerard was 1 month old. Thomas’s brother, James, aged 28, was also a stone mason and was single.

Form B 1 – House and Building Return showed that Thomas Muldoon was the landholder on whose land their 2nd class private dwelling was built.  It had walls of stone/brick or concrete and a slate/iron or tiled roof.  It had 2 windows to the front and they occupied 4 rooms.

According to Form B 2 – Return of Out-Offices and Farm-Steadings their 3 out-offices were a piggery, a fowl house and a shed.

Thomas Muldoon signed the census form which was collected on April 11thand William Pender, Constable, was the Enumerator.