New book to be launched on Ballaghameehan Parish

The launch of ‘Ballaghameehan Parish, County Leitrim 1800-1922’by Gerry Fox will take place in Manorhamilton Library on Tuesday, March 28 at 6.45pm.

The book will be launched by Leitrim Guardian Editor, Tommy Moran. Author Gerry Fox says “this launch is to facilitate the diaspora from Ballaghameehan, Glenaniff and Rossinver areas who live around Manorhamilton.”
Meanwhile Gerry also explains his book “is a history of this north Leitrim parish during the period when Ireland did not have a native functioning parliament. This book chronicles the contribution of the parish towards achieving Catholic Emancipation, the building of churches and schools. This parish was not greatly affected by the famine.

“There was a thriving Protestant population during the nineteenth and early twentieth century which abandoned the area upon the foundation of the Irish Free State. Ballaghameehan had a R.I.C. barracks where the constabulary got on quite well with the local population.
“There was much economic distress and hardship during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. This resulted in the land war between tenants and landlords which eventually delivered ownership of the land for the farmers of the parish.
“The bitter 1908 by-election, the local reaction to the Easter Rising 1916, the War of Independence and Civil War periods are detailed. The book details short biographies of the priests, Christian brothers, nuns, policemen, World War 1 dead, I.R.A. volunteers and Civic Guards who were born in the parish of Ballaghameehan.”