View of Moyode Estate

There are four woods in total in the Moyode area. Three are located in Moyode and one is in Moyode demense. The two woods that Coillte are proposing to sell are known locally as the 'Diamond Wood' and 'Silkes' Wood'. The Diamond Wood is so named due to the diamond-shaped gate at its entrance. It was bought by the state between 1938 and 1939 from the Brady family of Athenry and it was planted in 1940. larch and beech were the main species planted. In the 1970's it was clear-felled of larch and the wood was sent to the sawmills in Cong to make boats. It was replanted with Norwegian spruce and sitka spruce. Silkes' Wood was owned by the Silke family. They had a sawmill there which was operated by the McMahons of Limerick. It was bought by the state at the same time as the Diamond Wood and planted with many species of wood including Scots pine and beech. In 1979 and 1980 it was clear-felled of Scots pine and replanted with Norwegian spruce. In all of the Moyode woods there is a variety of both coniferous and decidous trees. These include blocks of beech (which are 65 years old), birch, ash, oak and horse chestnut. 

Ruins of Famine Village on Outskirts of Moyode Wood

One of the remaining stands from the first Galway Races

Schoolhool House

Thoughts of James Charles Roy, historian and former owner of Moyode Castle

I came to Moyode in the late 1960s. Ireland was a different sort of place altogether, which is not exactly “Stop the Presses” news, and many people will look back at those times without much nostalgia. The economy was still pretty grim, unemployment widespread, and emigration a continuing source of family disruption. No one is happier than I am that the country leads the way in the European Market these days, and that prosperity is pretty much open to all. But there is a price, and the battle over the Moyode Woodlands is a classic. Nothing less than the soul of this country is at stake.

When i first bought the riun of the 16th century Moyode Castle, you could stand at the top, turn 360 degrees, and see the history of Ireland unfold at your feet. Stone Age artifacts would turn up in the ploughed fields below. The outline of Celtic raths were clearly visible. The Norman footprint was still there at Rathgorgin, with its castle and motte. The devastating Elizabethan wars of the 1500s, apparent under my foot in the burnt-out tower itself. Then the Protestant Ascendancy with its Big House, birthplace of the Galway Blazers, brought to its knees in the war for independence when Liam Mellows occupied the mansion over Easter, 1916. Now we see the Celtic Tiger: windmills on Slieve Aughty, the huge glow on the western horizon of Galway City, fastest growing urban metropolis in the European Union, the new “to-be” super highway, crawling relentlessly from Dublin, a set of overhead electrical wires, a gas pipeline coming…and finally, there’s the quarry. It’s all a headlong rush, an overwhelming sign that Ireland has turned a corner and will not look back. In and of itself, this is all to the good, but any society that indiscriminately tramples its past on a rush for “progress” will lose, in the end, what made it special in the first place.

            The novelist William Thackeray noted that Ireland was a country of “premature ruin,” meaning that all the wars, civil conflicts, and social upheavals in its long history had been devastating to the physical fabric of both town and country. He wrote that comment in 1843, but it remains true today. Isn’t it ironic that the biggest threat in 2008 is not from guns, artillery, or an arsonist’s torch, but from bulldozers and construction crews? I never thought I’d see the day that a highway scheme would roar by the Hill of Tara, nor that the Moyode Woods, 175 acres of it, would become a huge, open-pit quarry.

            What will the quarry destroy? Certainly the character of our town land, its quality of life, its pastoral outlook and country ways. As Ireland urbanizes, this rural atmosphere, taken for granted by so many of us, will be irrevocably lost. Secondly, the connection to our past. History is what shapes a people, determines its collective outlook, and influences the decisions we collectively take for the common good. Once we forget the past, we become rootless, lose the capacity to put things in perspective, and forget how we came to be. My forbearers went over during the Famine. If that memory had not been kept alive for me by my extended family, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. If the demesne is destroyed … and a quarry will destroy it … what do we say to our children as we talk about our own particular ancestral journey? “Look at that son, your great-grandfather and your grandfather worked these woods to put bread on the table. Right there where the slurry pond is, the pond that’s polluting our well.” Finally, if a discussion about the quarry comes down to euros and economic progress, it’s clear where the longer-term profit lies. The quarry is immediate. Someone (not you or me, but someone else) will make money right off. When the quarry is exhausted, however, they’ll disappear, because the grass is always greener somewhere else. We, the neighborhood, will be left with its debris, its scar on the land, and the decreased value of our own properties. Ireland’s brightest future – and the government knows this – is in “green” industry.

            “Green” industry is clean, profitable, environmentally friendly, and Ireland led the way in this category with its groundbreaking advances in computer manufacturing, among other things. Tourism is hugely vital to the national economy, and will remain so as the aviation industry (among others) makes Ireland ever more accessible. More visitors means more pressure on the Big Boys of our landscape -- Dun Aengus, Clonmacnoise, Tara, Cashel – which means ancillary sites will be developed to try and satisfy what will become a huge demand for “additional” attractions. You may not believe it, but Athenry will be one of those destination points, and with it, places like Moyode Castle and demesne. If you don’t think this is true, take a drive to Coole Park sometime soon. The government has made a huge attraction out of something that is no longer even there.

            Moyode Demesne is unique, an Ascendancy Empire that still has many of its features still intact, plus many, many ancillary sites from Celtic and Norman history. I am fully aware that much of this history remains distasteful to the majority of people living here. No one wants to relive the bad old days of semi feudal landlords, or celebrate the oppression that so many of our people endured for hundreds of years. One needn’t admire too much of it to remain convinced that its physical presence should not be idly destroyed. Preserving the demesne and the woodlands is vital to making certain that visitors to this country spend their leisure euros here and not somewhere else. No one is going to pay to watch cement being made, nor will tour buses come along to take a viewing of some huge, 175-acre-hole in the ground.

            There was a time in recent Irish history that Georgian architecture, especially in Dublin, wasn’t considered worth a damn. If “progress” had had its way, huge portions of the central city would have been demolished. Ordinary people saved the day by protesting this mindless destruction, even though the buildings themselves represented a part of their collective history that many wished to forget. Those buildings are now worth millions, and make Dublin one of the premier tourist attractions in the world. I was especially pleased to see the incredible turnout for the Craughwell meeting. Who was in the audience? Ordinary people, like you and me. Together, we must make certain that Moyode does not turn into just another factory site, another place where a few people made a lot of money, and then disappear into the sunset.

James Charles Roy is a noted historian and writer. Read about the history of Moyode in his book,” The Fields of Athenry: A Journey Through Ireland.” It is available in the local library.