Lanesborough-Ballyleague
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lanesborough and Ballyleague (Irish: Béal Átha Liag) (more commonly known simply as Lanesborough or Lanesboro) is a town composed of two villages in the midlands of Ireland. Lanesborough is on the County Longford (east) side and Ballyleague on the County Roscommon (west) side of the River Shannon. They are located at the northern tip of Lough Ree on the N63 national secondary road at its junction with the R371 (at Ballyleague) and R392 (at Lanesborough). The town of Longford is 16km north-east on the N63, the town of Roscommon is 15km south-west on the N63, the town of Ballymahon is south-east on the R392 and the town of Strokestown is 15km north-west on the R371.
Contents |
[edit] History
The village is in a strategic position on the Shannon at the northern end of Lough Ree. Lanesborough's name is derived from the family name Lane who once owned large tracts of land in the surrounding area.
Ballyleague contains the monastery founded by Saint Faithleach,in the year 520. He was the brother of Saint Brendan the Navigator.[1]
Lanesborough is the site of one of Ireland's first turf-fired generating stations (c.1957), operated by the ESB with the fuel being supplied by Bord na Móna. The original generating station burned sod-turf while later generating stations at the site burned milled-peat. The turf/peat fuel was harvested from the surrounding boglands using specially adapted large industrial machinery. The building of the generating station and the development of the surrounding boglands in the 1950s brought profound social changes to the local area. []
[edit] Religion
The river Shannon divides the two towns. So the two towns are in two separate provinces (Leinster on the east and Connacht on the west); two separate counties (Longford on the east and Roscommon on the west); two separate Roman Catholic Dioceses (Ardagh and Clonmacnoise on the east and Elphin on the west) ; and two separate Roman Catholic parishes (Rathcline on the east and St Faithleagh’s on the west).
[edit] Amenities
The Lanesborough-Ballyleague area is well known for its sports fishing, with many tourists coming to fish for bream, tench, rudd, pike etc. on the Shannon. The annual Regatta and the horse fair are very important for the local economy. Lanesborough-Ballyleague is also a popular stop-over for pleasure boats on the River Shannon navigation system. Beautiful island-studded Lough Ree is just to the south and stretches almost 30km to Athlone: while upstream the Shannon meanders 40km to Carrick on Shannon and beyond to the Shannon-Erne Waterway.
The river Shannon divides the two towns. So the two towns are in two separate provinces (Leinster on the east and Connacht on the west); two separate counties (Longford on the east and Roscommon on the west); two separate Roman Catholic Dioceses (Ardagh and Clonmacnoise on the east and Elphin on the west) ; and two separate Roman Catholic parishes (Rathcline on the east and Kilgefin which consists of Ballyleague, Ballagh and Curraghroe on the west).
[edit] Sport
The two towns have separate Gaelic Athletic Association football teams: Rathcline and St Faithleach's. The latter team is noted for putting up flags and bunting in the village to celebrate their involvement in the County Finals, but are alergic to taking them down,nearly 2 years after the event, which invariably leaves the village very unsigtly. While the Rathcline team are generally known for starting fights when they know they cannot win the game which generally happens about 98% of the time. This also contributes to the fact thay they don't put up any flags because they are never in any finals.
