Kinvara or Kinvarra (Irish: Cinn Mhara, meaning 'head of the sea')[2] is a sea port village in the southwest of County Galway, Ireland.[3] It is located in the civil parish of Kinvarradoorus in the north of the barony of Kiltartan.[4] Kinvarra is also an electoral division.[5]
Geography
The village lies at the head of Kinvara Bay, known in Irish as Cinn Mhara (or more recently Cuan Cinn Mhara), an inlet in the south-eastern corner of Galway Bay, from which the village took its name. It lies in the north of the barony of Kiltartan, close to the border with The Burren in County Clare, in the province of Munster.
Evidence of ancient settlement in the area include a number of promontory fort and ring fort sites in the surrounding townlands of Dungory West, Ballybranagan and Loughcurra North.[7][8] There are similar sites, as well as the ruins of lime kiln and 18th century windmill, within Kinvarra townland itself.[7][9]
Dunguaire Castle (Irish: Dún Guaire [lit, the Castle of Guaire]), a 16th-century towerhouse of the Ó hEidhin (O'Hynes) clan, is located to the east of the village.[10] A Fearadhach Ó hEidhin (Faragh O'Hynes) is recorded as the owner of the castle in a 1574 list of castles and their owners covering County Galway. This list was thought to have been compiled for the use of the Lord DeputySir Henry Sidney who planned the composition of Connacht.[citation needed]
Mass rock
The Poulnegan Altar, a Mass rock located near Kinvara, is known in Connaught Irish as Poll na gCeann ("chasm of the heads") and is said to have been the location of a massacre by the soldiers of Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army. Historian Tony Nugent states that, "According to local tradition, there was a college nearby and some of the student monks were killed there by Cromwellian soldiers while attending Mass and their heads were thrown into a nearby chasm".[11]
Terry Alts
The Terry Alts, an Irish agrarian secret society of the early 19th century, was active in the Kinvara area.[citation needed] In 1831, a large group of Terry Alts gathered between Kinvara and New Quay on Abbey Hill in County Clare, and challenged government troops to battle. The group dispersed before the troops arrived. They also unsuccessfully attempted to ambush a detachment of soldiers at Corranroo in the west of the parish, which led to the death of one of their members.[citation needed]
Population
The Great Famine in the 1840s, and a series of emigrations that continued until the 1960s, reduced the population of the village – once a thriving port and exporter of corn and seaweed – to no more than a few hundred people.[citation needed]
In the 25 years between the 1991 and 2016 census, the population of Kinvara increased by 170%, from 425 to 734 people.[12][13]
Kinvara is home every year to two festivals, Fleadh na gCuach ("cuckoo festival") an Irish traditional music festival at the start of May and the Cruinniú na mBád ("gathering of the boats") in mid August.[18][19]
^ abRecorded Monuments Protected under Section 12 of the National Monuments (Amendment) Act, 1994 - County Galway. Dublin: Archaeological Survey of Ireland. 1997.
^Westropp, T.J. (1919). "Notes on several forts in Dunkellin and other parts of southern Co. Galway". Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (49): 167–86.
^Ball, F. Elrington (1926). The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921 (Volume 1). London: John Murray. p. 364.
^Breen, Joe (14 August 2017). "John Prine: 'The country music they play now is just bad pop'". irishtimes.com. Irish Times. Retrieved 27 April 2021. [Prine] likes to spend time in this country and not just because he met his wife, Fiona, here. They have a cottage in Kinvara, Co Galway