Loughmore

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Loughmore (Irish Luach Magh) is a village near Templemore County Tipperary Ireland. It lies approximately one kilometer from the N62 road between the towns of Templemore and Thurles. It is one half of the parish of Loughmore-Castleiney and lies approximately 5 kilometers from Castleiney. The local Gaelic Athletic Association club is Loughmore-Castleiney GAA. The village lies on the Dublin Cork railway line but there is no railway station there. There is a fine castle ruin belonging to the Purcell family in the village. The river Suir runs through the village also.

Loughmoe Castle, and the village near it, is incorrectly referred to as Loughmore (The Big Lake), but the Irish translation of the area is Luach Mhagh, meaning "the field of the reward", and it alludes to the manner in which the Purcells first gained proprietorship of area. Legend has it that a king lived in the Castle, and offered his daughters hand to whoever could rid the land of a boar and sow of "gigantic size" who uprooted crops and killed whoever they came into contact with. A youth named Purcell killed the boar with a bow and arrow and thus the area in which the Castle stands is known as "the field of the reward". The legend is alluded to in the Purcell family's coat of arms, which depicts the heads of four boars.

[edit] Loughmoe Castle

Loughmoe Castle was the seat of the Purcell family who are Barons of Loughmoe. Construction on the castle commended in 1328 in the same year that the family were granted the title of Barons of Loughmoe by James Butler, 1st Earl of Ormonde as Palantine of Tipperary.