Ballymoe () is a

barony Barony may refer to: * Barony, the peerage, office of, or territory held by a baron * Barony, the title and land held in fealty by a feudal baron * Barony (county division), a type of administrative or geographical division in parts of the British ...

County Roscommon County Roscommon () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is part of the province of Connacht and the Northern and Western Region. It is the List of Irish counties by area, 11th largest Irish county by area and Li ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Etymology

Ballymoe barony is named after

Ballymoe Ballymoe (historically ''Bellamoe'', from ) is a village in County Galway, Ireland. Ballymoe is situated on the western side of the River Suck that separates counties County Galway, Galway and County Roscommon, Roscommon. The N60 road (Irela ...

town, County Galway; the name means "mouth of the ford of Mogh"; Mogh is a legendary figure linked to Queen

Medb Medb (), later spelled Meadhbh (), Méabh(a) () and Méibh (), and often anglicised as Maeve ( ), is queen of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. Her husband in the core stories of the cycle is Ailill mac Máta, although she had ...

Geography

Ballymoe barony is located in the centre of County Roscommon, north of the

River Suck The River Suck ( ) is a river within the Shannon River Basin in Ireland, 133 km (82.5 mi) in length. It is the main tributary of the River Shannon. It meets the Shannon a kilometre south of the village of Shannonbridge. Name The riv ...

History

Donamon Castle Donamon Castle, or more correctly, Dunamon Castle (), is one of the oldest inhabited buildings in Ireland and stands on raised ground overlooking the River Suck in County Roscommon. History There was a fort here from early times (hence the name ...

is located in Ballymoe; it was a centre of the Ó Fiannachta (O'Feenaghty). Also in this area were the O'Concheanainn (O'Concannon), chiefs of the

Uí Díarmata Uí Díarmata was a local kingdom located in what is now north County Galway. Origins The ruling dynasty took its name from King Diarmait Finn of Connacht (died 833), and the territory in turn was named after them. It seems to have been create ...

. There was originally a single large barony, named

and part of

County Galway County Galway ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Northern and Western Region, taking up the south of the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht. The county population was 276,451 at the 20 ...

. Later, about one-fifth of the barony's area — the part north of the

— was given to

Richard Malone, 1st Baron Sunderlin Richard Malone, 1st Baron Sunderlin (c.1738 – 14 April 1816) was an Anglo-Irish politician and peer.John Lodge and Mervyn Archdall, ''The Peerage of Ireland: Or, A Genealogical History of the Present Nobility of that Kingdom'', Volume 7 (J. Moo ...

(''c.'' 1738 – 1816) was a landowner in the area. It was the site of agrarian trouble in the 1840s.

References

{{County Roscommon Baronies of County Roscommon