Landholders

Land associated with the Mooneys

The lands associated with the Mooney's are Mooney's Gardens and New York House. The map map is based on the Ordnance Survey of Ireland taken in 1839 and annotated by Dermot Dorgan in 2003. Mooney's Gardens and New York House can be seen together with other items of interest.

The Mooneys are reputed to have come from Adamstown, Ballyfin sometime in the 1700s. They became employees of the Grennan House farm and settled in a house in Lower Grennan overlooking the River Nore. This place was later to become known as Mooney's Gardens. The house no longer stands and its remains are grown over. It was still referred to as Mooney's Garden by local people in the 1990s and later. Patrick Mooney lived there with Margaret Coffee and had at least two children one of whom, William, built a house nearby with family help with the labouring. The house was on land believed to have been rented by William.

William passed the house and holdings to his son, John, when his son retired from the RIC. A few years later John needed someone to take over the property and to care for him in his old age. None of his sons wanted the property as they were all leading good lives with the RIC and the land laws at time prevented the property passing to a woman so John couldn't pass it to one of his daughters. Instead he transferred it to to his daughter Judith's husband John Dorgan. and it passed doen his line to Dermot Dorgan the current owner (2020).

It is not known when this property became known as New York House but local knowledge asserts that the farm got its name because it was at the end of a very long lane and that the Mooneys always said that it was so far to go that by the time you had walked there you felt you had gone all the way to the city of New York itself. Eventually the name caught on and the place came to be known as New York House.

A map showing where the properties are located is below together with an explanatory legend. The book referred to as Dermot's history book is: The Chapel District of Ballyouskill Attanagh by Dermot Dorgan. It was written published by the Ballyouskill History Committee about 1996. I have a copy in my archives at tm0312 and my sister has a another copy.

The entry on page 135 reads:

Between the Nore and the Owveg rivers, and opposite to where the latter is joined by the Glaseagle at the head of the neck of land known as the 'Bear's Tail', stands the rath of Raheenmoyle, known locally as 'Dooley's Moat'. The Irish word means 'the bare rath, although about 30 ft. high and is surrounded on three sides by a deep moat or ditch. This has long been regarded as the principal haunt of the fairies in the area, and a few fine tall tales have been told about it. A large rock jutting out nearby was a Mass-site in Penal times. This part of Grennan has for the past hundred years been nicknamed 'New York' and was said to be so named for 'as long as anyone can remember'.