22 July 2021

Comerford Lodge and how
Spanish Point developed
as a resort in West Clare

A visit to Comerford Lodge, now known as Clare Cottage, at Spanish Point, Co Clare

Patrick Comerford

The summer ‘road trip’ continues in this beautiful weather, with visits to coastal towns, resorts and villages. Having revisited a number of Comerford family homes and sites in Kilkenny, including the Langton House in the Butterslip, two of us went in search of Comerford Lodge at Spanish Point, on the west coast of Clare.

Comerford Lodge, or Clare Cottage, is a pre-Famine thatched cottage once owned by the Comerford family. The Comerford family in Spanish Point was the same family that opened Comerford’s Pub in Doonbeg, Co Clare, in 1848.

By 1900, Comerford Lodge was the home of Lizzy and Margaret Comerford. For many years, they ran the Post Office at Spanish Point Post. The earliest village at Spanish Point grew up in the vicinity of Comerford Lodge. The ruins of the pre-Famine village can be seen near the house, and the Comerford family ran the first post office to service both Spanish Point and nearby Miltown Malbay.

The Armada Hotel above the rocks and the beach at Spanish Point (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Spanish Point, 3 km west of Miltown Malbay, is a small resort with a beautiful sandy beach and golf course. Its name recalls the Spaniards who were buried here after the wreck of their Armada ships along the coast in 1588. Two ships were wrecked on the reefs at Mutton Island, 3km offshore. More than 1,000 men were drowned, and many of their bodies were carried by the tide to Spanish Point.

The Lord Deputy, William FitzWilliam, had issued a command that all Spanish found in Ireland were to be executed and their ships and treasure seized. It is said those who escaped from their sinking ships and made it safely to land were later executed by Sir Turlough O’Brien of Liscannor and Boethius Clancy, High Sheriff of Clare. They were buried in a mass grave in a place at Spanish Point known locally as Tuama Na Spáinneach, Tomb of the Spaniards.

There was no archaeological evidence for the story until 2015, when a group of historians investigating the location of the wreck of San Marcos claimed to have found a mass grave under Spanish Point.

The sandy beach at Spanish Point, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Over 2½ centuries later, the stories of another shipwreck devastated families in north Clare. Henry Comerford (1795-1861), a Clare-born prominent Galway merchant, was the owner of the famine ship The Brig St John that sank at Cohasset off the coast of Massachusetts in October 1849. His brother Isaac Comerford was a crew member.

Over 100 passengers drowned when The Brig St John sank, many of them from the North Clare area. Henry Comerford died at Ballykeale House, Kilfenora, in 1861.

Spanish Point began to develop as a resort before Comerford Lodge was built and before the Comerford sisters ran the post office at Spanish Point. The earliest development began in 1712 when Thomas Morony leased land in West Clare from the Earl of Thomond at an annual rental of £90.

Thomas Morony’s eldest son, Edmund Moroney, bought the land in 1750. Edmund’s eldest son, Thomas Morony, moved to Spanish Point with his family, built Miltown House, established the Miltown House Estate, and divided his estate into two settlements, Miltown Malbay and Spanish Point.

Miltown Malbay was developed as a plan. But he also saw the potential of his beautiful seaside location, encouraging friends to come and build saltwater lodges on sites he provided.

Sone of the remains of the Atlantic Hotel still stand above the shoreline at Spanish Point (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Thomas Morony built the Atlantic Hotel and developed his ‘Tepid Baths’ for visitors to enjoy the fresh sea water baths and seaweed baths. The hotel opened in June 1809 under the management of David Anderson. The hotel had beds for 70 guests and stabling for 60 horses, and for a time was celebrated as ‘the largest hotel in the British Isles.’

The seaside resort became popular with members of titled and landed families. The complex also had a large square of stables, and Morony began steeplechase races that soon became the most popular meeting in Munster. He also built houses in Spanish Point for his own sons and daughters near the hotel.

Horse drawn carriages made Spanish Point more accessible, and the Atlantic Hotel was at the centre of early 19th century tourism along the Clare coastline.

Thomas Morony, who lived at Miltown House, died in 1832 and was succeeded by his second eldest son Thomas Harrison Morony. During ‘Black ’47,’ Thomas Harrison Morony left Miltown House and moved with his wife and daughters in England. He was succeeded by his second eldest son, Burdett Morony, and his wife Eleanor.

The Morony family never managed the hotel directly, but leased it to a succession of proprietors. Then, during the Famine, it was used as an Auxiliary Workhouse. Burdett Morony recovered the hotel in 1852, and was compensated by the Ennistymon Board of Guardians for damage to the building.

The Armada Hotel stands on the site of the Atlantic Hotel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Burdett Moroney reopened the hotel under new management in 1854. When he died in 1870, his widow Eleanor received a life interest in Miltown House. Later, during the Land War and Plan of Campaign in the 1880s, Eleanor Morony clashed with her tenants over land and other issues, ran a controversial ‘Boycott Shop,’ and for a time the hotel was used as a barracks.

When golf came to West Clare in 1892, a nine-hole golf course was added as an amenity for guests who could also play tennis, croquet, and bowling.

Eleanor Morony died in 1911 and Miltown House was inherited by another Burdett Morony who lived in England. He was an army officer during World War I, and Miltown House remained vacant.

The Morony family continued to manage the estate until it was bought by the Congested District Board in 1917-1919, and their Spanish Point property was sold to a property speculator and to tenants.

After the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Free State, many of the traditional guests did not return to the Atlantic Hotel and Spanish Point, and the hotel closed in 1930. For a time, it leased to a religious order as a summer retreat.

Most of the hotel ruin was demolished in the 1940s. The west end continued to function as licensed premises until the mid-1950s, when the licence was transferred to a single-storey corrugated roofed premises and rebranded the Armada Bar. This has since developed into the Armada Hotel.

Seaview House, built by the Morony family, is now known as Spanish Point House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Seaview House was built by Frank Goold Morony ca 1837. The house was sold by the Ellis family in 1929 to the Sisters of Mercy, who opened Saint Joseph’s convent secondary school there. It is now known as Spanish Point House.

Comerford Lodge, less than 1 km north of the Armada Hotel, was the home in 1901 of the sisters Elizabeth and Margaret Comerford, who ran Spanish Point Post Office for many years. Lizzy was then 40 and Margaret as 42, and the widowed Kate Moroney (61) was living with them. In recent years, the house has been used by a number of different families as a summer residence and has been renamed Clare Cottage.

Having visited the former Comerford Lodge, I wanted to visit Delamain Lodge in Kinvara, where Henry Comerford lived, and Ballykeale House, near Kilfenora, where he died in 1861. But they were visits for another day. Meanwhile, two of us went on to visit Christ Church at Spanish Point.

Comerford Lodge in Spanish Point is now known as Clare Cottage (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Acknowledgements: I am grateful to the Spanish Point Community Group’s website for material in this posting.

Praying in Ordinary Time 2021:
54, Holy Trinity Church, Inishbiggle

Holy Trinity Church, Inishbiggle, was dedicated in 1896 … today the island has no Church of Ireland parishioners (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This has been a busy week, taking part in this year’s annual conference of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) from Monday until Wednesday.

Before today becomes a busy day, as I catch up on many postponed and delayed tasks, I am taking some time this morning for prayer, reflection and reading.

During this time in the Church Calendar known as Ordinary Time, I am taking some time each morning before the day gets busy to reflect in these ways:

1, photographs of a church or place of worship;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

This week’s theme of island churches continues this morning, the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene (22 July 2021) with photographs from Holy Trinity Church on Inishbiggle, a small island off Achill Island, Co Mayo.

The pulpit in Holy Trinity Church, Inishbiggle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Tiny Inishbiggle is squeezed between Achill and the Mayo mainland. It measures only 2.5 km by 1.5 km, with a land area of 2.6 sq km. In recent years, the population has dwindled to about 20, and the school and post office have been closed for some years. The one and only Church of Ireland parishioner on the island died in recent years. Holy Trinity Church, the one and only church on the island, belongs to the Church of Ireland, but its future has been uncertain for many years.

The island school is used by the islanders for Sunday Mass and as a doctor’s clinic. From there, it was a short walk to Holy Trinity Church, where I spoke at the Heinrich Böll Memorial Weekend some years ago on the history of the Church of Ireland on Inishbiggle.

Both the church and the island are unique, for Inishbiggle has been the only island with only a Church of Ireland church. Inishbiggle is also a new island, for it has been inhabited continuously for less than two centuries.

The island was once part of the Mayo estates of the Ormond Butlers, whose claims were confirmed to Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond, in 1585, and again by King James I in 1612. The Butler lordship, including Achill and Inishbiggle, continued until 1696, when the Butlers leased their Mayo estates first to Sir Thomas Bingham and then to Thomas Medlycott.

At the end of the 18th century, the estate, including Achill and Inishbiggle, was bought by John Browne, 1st Earl of Altamont, and then in 1785 by Sir Neal O’Donel of Newport House.

But Inishbiggle remained uninhabited until 1834. In 1837, there was no church on either Achill Island or Inishbiggle, and the Rector, Canon Charles Wilson, reported that Sunday services were held in a private house. A few buildings started to appear on Inishbiggle by 1838. When the Revd Caesar Otway visited Inishbiggle in 1839, he suggested it was an ideal island for growing wheat and for a mill, but his proposals came to nothing.

The Revd Edward Nangle saw Inishbiggle as an opportunity to extend the work of his Achill Mission, and by 1841 Inishbiggle had a population of 67. During the Famine, Inishbiggle developed slowly, with the arrival of both Protestant and Catholic tenants from Achill and from mainland Co Mayo, attracted by lower rents and hoping for better living conditions.

The first schoolhouse was built on Inishbiggle in 1848. Nangle and the trustees of the Achill Mission bought Inishbiggle from Sir Richard O’Donel in 1851. The other trustees were the Hon Somerset Richard Maxwell, the Right Hon Joseph Napier and George Alexander Hamilton.

. Although one diocesan history states Holy Trinity Church was built by the Achill Mission, the Achill Mission had long closed by the time the church was built in the 1890s with a generous bequest from Miss Ellen Blair of Sandymount, Dublin.

In 1893, Bishop James O’Sullivan of Tuam, the Rector of Achill, the Revd Michael Fitzgerald, and the diocesan architect, John Gervais Skipton, came to Inishbiggle by boat on a five-mile journey from Achill Sound to select a site for the new church. In 1895, Bishop O’Sullivan, his wife and the rector returned to lay the foundation stone for Holy Trinity Church.

The building work was carried out by local labour. It is told that during this building work a heavy piece of wood crashed to the ground, just missing Patrick O’Malley, who was rescued thanks to the hasty intervention of Patrick Nevin. The building was completed by 1896, and Bishop O’Sullivan came to Inishbiggle on ‘a sunny day,’ with a large number of people in rowing boats, for the consecration of the new church.

Holy Trinity Church is built of stone with a natural pebble-dash finish, a small tower with a bell and cross. In summer, the church is even prettier as pink rhododendrons surrounding come into bloom, forming an archway. The simple, plain, white-painted interior has a small organ, five rows of wooden pews, a small pulpit, a chancel arch, a sanctuary area and a tall, three-light East Window, with a small vestry off the sanctuary area.

As a mark of gratitude, Patrick O’Malley later built a stone wall around the small churchyard or cemetery. However, the cemetery has not been used for burials for 80 or 90 years.

A school was built in 1870, replacing the first school dating from the 1840s. The teacher’s cottage beyond the church on the edge of the island is now roofless and is falling into ruins.

Successive Bishops of Tuam, including Bishop John Neill and Bishop Richard Henderson, had a generous ecumenical vision for the future of the church, and in 2003 the church was rededicated to serve the Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic islanders.

Inishbiggle was always part of the parishes of Achill and Dugort. But it was also served in summer months by visiting clergy and students, who often stayed in the Rectory at Achill Sound or in the Old Rectory in Dugort.

Those summer visitors included Bishop John Frederick MacNeice (1866-1942), father of the poet Louis MacNeice. Frederick MacNeice first visited Achill in 1911 and he first brought his son Louis with him in 1927. In 1929, the family stayed at the Old Rectory in Dugort, visiting Keel and climbing Slievemore. He crossed from Bullsmouth to Inishbiggle late in the afternoon, while his family remained at Bullsmouth watching ‘a beautiful sunset behind Slievemore.’

When he returned the following summer, he was a canon of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. He became Bishop of Cashel in 1931, and Bishop of Down and Dromore in 1934.

Louis MacNeice returned to Achill in 1945, and in a poem he wrote afterwards – ‘The Strand’ (1945), published in Holes in the Sky in 1948 – he talks of ‘White Tintoretto clouds beneath my naked feet …’

The church has been without an identifiable use for many years, and reports earlier this year suggested it is about to be sold.

A plaque in Holy Trinity Church, Inishbiggle, recalls the generosity of Ellen Blair from Sandymount (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 20: 1-2, 11-18 (NRSVA):

1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’

11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ 14 When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ 16 Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”.’ 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

An open door at Holy Trinity Church, Inishbiggle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary:

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (22 July 2021, Saint Mary Magdalene) invites us to pray:

Let us give thanks for the life and witness of Saint Mary Magdalene. May we follow Christ as obediently as she did, and listen to the voices of women in the Church.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The cemetery wall was built by Patrick Malley as a thank offering after surviving an accident when the church was being built (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Inside Holy Trinity Church, Inishbiggle … crowded for a history lecture and poetry reading during a Heinrich Böll Memorial Weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)