Welcome to Mohill
What's on in Mohill?
For anyone trying to connect with Mohill friends and family, past and present, join the Facebook closed group @OldMohill.

Also on Facebook, for GAA fans, CLG Maothail has a great page @MohillGAA.

Mohill Events & Festival Group's Facebook page occasionally lists events on in Mohill, including links to local clubs, pubs, etc.
See @mohilleventsandfestival on Facebook. 

"Mohill is our town . . .

. . . In its plain way I think it beautiful. There is no desolate big street. The simple streets link perfectly into one another. I like the town best in winter, the outskirts glistening with frost, the excitement on the faces of people in from the countryside for the late Saturday-night shipping, children and parcels being dragged under the street-lamps. When the shopping is done, they go to the bars to meet the people they know and to discover the news, each locality to its own bar. In early March, on a Thursday market day, once I see the bags of seed potatoes and bundles of cabbage plants – Early York and Flat Dutch, Greyhound and Curly – on the corner outside Luke Early’s bar, each bundle tied with baler twine of all colours, I know the winter is almost over. I think of Mohill as one of the happiest towns in the world.


From John McGahern, 'County Leitrim: The Sky Above Us' published in 'Love of the World' Faber & Faber 2009 © John McGahern Estate

For a flavour of life in this area, read John McGahern's 'That They May Face the Rising Sun'. 

"Tea was made. Milk and several spoons of sugar were added to the tea and stirred."

Although describing a way of life that is slowly fading from reality and memory, the book is a masterful meditation and a quiet celebration of the routines and beliefs and interactions that make us who we are.

www.loughrynn.net is a website dedicated to the history of Lough Rynn Castle (the local big house and now a luxury hotel) and the notorious Lord Leitrim, 3rd Earl of Leitrim. 
The website material is drawn from the highly regarded book, 'By Hereditary Virtues: a History of Lough Rynn' by Fiona Slevin. 

The 3rd Earl of Leitrim lives in local memory as a notorious despot who represented the worst excesses of landlordism in Ireland during the 19th century. Drawing on various primary and secondary sources, this book describes how the Lough Rynn estate emerged from early times up to the end of the 19th century. It focuses largely on the 3rd Earl including his management of the Lough Rynn estate, his role during and after the famine and his eventual demise. The story, however, is not just about one man, but rather about all the people who lived and died during an important period in Irish history.  

 The book is available to buy at loughrynn.net.

Information on Mohill including much quirky stuff is on www.mohill.com. Check here for a broad set of links to interesting – and often irrelevant – websites.
Mohill 1923: a priest and his housekeeper abandon a baby girl on a doorstep in Dublin’s north inner city. The two are handed over to the police, charged and sent for trial. 
A month later, a young doctor, Paddy Muldoon, is shot dead on the streets of Mohill. 
Dr Muldoon is carried to his home at Coolabawn House and to the arms of his distraught and grief-stricken wife. His body is laid out in the surgery there, where it remains for a few days while a post-mortem and inquest are carried out.

Published by Mercier Press in August 2019, 'The Murder of Dr Muldoon' by Ken Boyle and Tim Desmond tells the story of the murder and its aftermath.
The story involves a local priest, an IRA cell, and major figures of church and state, all of whom colluded in some way to cover up the scandal and help the perpetrators evade justice. Above all, the book is a story of Dr Muldoon's widow, Rita, and her determination and fortitude to challenge those in power and find justice for her husband. 

The book is available at good bookshops and at Mercier Press.

For more on the story, listen to RTÉ's documentary on the story, 'An Unholy Trinity' on the RTÉ player.
Anthony Trollope travelled through Ireland in the 1840s. He lived in Drumsna for a time, where he found the inspiration for his novel 'The MacDermots of Ballycloran'. He wrote the story between 1843 and 1845, completing it just as the Famine was beginning to take hold. The book was first published in 1847.

The house that inspired the book is actually a house called Headford, which at even at the time was going into decay. The story chronicles the demise of a landowning family. The story is relevant for Mohill in that it mirrors the experience of the tenants of Leitrim, and Mohill itself earns a chapter. Trollope is not altogether complimentary, writing: 
'Mohill is a small country town, standing on no high road, nor on any thoroughfare from the metropolis; and therefore it owes to itself whatever importance it may possess—and, in truth, that is not much'.

The book can be downloaded free on Kindle or at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29000.
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