Discovery of Bronze Palstave, c 1.400 BC, Dunbeacon Bog, Durrus, West Cork.

Courtesy JCHAS

Cataract of the Bantry River (Donemark) in Ireland 1799.

Note the mill to the left,  Murphy’s on the Glengariff Road.

https://durrushistory.com/2015/03/14/16th-october1861-donemark-bantry-16-acres-to-let-prime-land-suitable-for-potatoes-or-corn-four-boats-of-sea-sand-will-be-given/

Cartoon from Bond Street, London January 1797 on Destruction of French Armada at Bantry Bay.

60 men seen drilling in a field in Durrus, West Cork in Fenian times.

Nothing much came from this in the immediate area.

However a circle with Durrus association were active at the time in East London. John Dukelow from Crottees who lived for a while in Ahagouna, Clashadoo went to London with his wife and family and after a few years secummed to cholera. He was associated with the Hurley Santry and Swanton families probably also from the Durrus area in Fenian activities. Interestingly one of their womenfolk kept a lodging house where Michael Collins stayed when he came to London first as a Post Office Clerk.

The Dukelows were also active in politics with associated families from Durrus/Mizen in Rochester, New York where they were part of the network known as the ’99 cousins’. They ran the City of Rochester even though Republican in a like manner to the other Irish in the Democratic party.

The Swantons also had a long involvement in politics, Judge Robert Swanton was a United Irishman who escaped to New York.  In the 1880s Robert Swanton was associated with ‘The Bantry Band’ of Healys/Sullivans/Murphys and resigned a Justice of the Peace in protest agains the British Government.  Hs daughter died at an advance age single in Cobh around 1983.

Seán Hurley of Durrus joined the Chinese Imperial Customs service and learned Chinese.  He assisted Sun Yat Sen in the early 1900s in promoting Chinese Independence for which he was the first Irishman to receive a Chinese Passport. Later on returning to Ireland he was active in Dublin business and was involved in setting ip Aer LIngus.

The Santry name is that of the Blacksmith in the Clonakilty area who introduced Michael Collins to Republicanism.  His father had made pikes for the Rising in 1798.

https://www.google.ie/maps/place/Durrus,+Co.+Cork/@51.6217107,-9.521993,11z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x48459fe7ccd270df:0x231e3744ac95441a

Discovery of Ancient brewery, Brennymore, Kealkil, West Cork, 1843.

A more recent brewery was that of the Murphy family at Newtown where Rowa now is in the late 18th century.

Letter to the London ‘Times’, 14th November 1846 from the Rev. Crosthwaithe, Durrus, West Cork re Board of Works building road on the Northside of Muintervara Peninsula, 500 men employed at 8d a day able bodied, 6d for young, 4d for infirm travelling vast distances to work, 150 have received no pay for a month and 350 for 3 weeks.

He was heavily involved in famine relief in the area. The population of 7,000 he mentions is now down to around 1,000.

William Moore Crosthwaite 1842-1854.  Formerly Vicar of Kilcoe.  He was fluent in Irish which was remarked upon at the time as making his suitable for the parish.  His family said that his death was brought on by a fever contacted in the famine when he was doing relief work. In London in 1847 seeking to raise funds for relief and wrote to London Times. He attended the opening of the new Church of Ireland Church on Cape Clear in October 1849 when the Vicar, the Rev. Edward Spring preached in Irish.  The itinerant preacher Rev. Daniel Foley, accompanied by Rev. Fisher of Altar and Toormore, visited his parish in early 1849.  He had a Curate, paid for by the Irish Society in London.  It is probable that he was involved as a minor figure in the ‘Second Reformation’ being associated with controversial figures in West Cork and Kerry, Seamus O Suilleabhain, the Irish poet employed in the area as a scripture teacher was associated with the Rev Joseph Baylee who ministered in the Rev Nagle’s mission in Achill and later in Liverpool.

Curate Bell, 5th February 1851, paid for by Irish Society London, had a church for a period in Kilcrohane, withdrawn 1853