| Blacklion an Blaic
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| — Town — | |
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Blacklion
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| Coordinates: | |
| Country | Ireland |
| Province | Ulster |
| County | County Cavan |
| Time zone | WET (UTC+0) |
| • Summer (DST) | IST (WEST) (UTC-1) |
| Irish Grid Reference | |
Blacklion (Irish: an Blaic) is a border village in west County Cavan, Ireland. It is situated on the N16 national primary road, just across the border from the County Fermanagh village of Belcoo.
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The village is within the townland of Tuam (Irish: Tuaim, meaning "tumulus"). A stone cairn, a burial cist and two stone cashels are all within the townland, giving evidence of early habitation.
The original name of the village was Largay (also Largy, Largain, Largin and Largan), which was a túath belonging to the Coffey McGoverns, a sub-sept of the McGovern clan, from the 8th century until the Plantation of Ulster in the 17th century. King James I then granted it to Nicholas Pynner in the following grant:
"Patent 13 James I. XL-8. 14th December. Grant from the king to Nich Pynner, Gent. Cavan Co. In Largy, or Largin Ter. The Precinct of Toom, containing 4 polls, called Gortnesillagh, Mullaghgarrowe, Rossan and Ture or Toore. Total rent £1-12-0 English. To hold for ever, as of the Castle of Dublin, in common socage."
The Annals of The Four Masters under the year 1594 state:
"M1594.7: O'Donnell, as we have stated, was encamped, laying siege to Enniskillen, from the middle of June to the month of August, until the warders of the castle had consumed almost all their provisions. Messengers came to O'Donnell from the Scots, whom he had before invited over, to inform him that they had arrived at Derry. And those who had come thither were Donnell Gorm Mac Donnell, and Mac Leod of Ara. O'Donnell then set out with a small number of his forces to hire them; and he left another large party of them with Maguire to assist him, and he ordered them to remain blockading the castle. When the Lord Justice, Sir William Fitzwilliam, had received intelligence that the warders of Enniskillen were in want of stores and provisions, he ordered a great number of the men of Meath, and of the gentlemen of the Reillys and the Binghams of Connaught, under the conduct of George Oge Bingham, to convey provisions to Enniskillen. These chieftains, having afterwards met together, went to Cavan, O'Reilly's town, for provisions; and they proceeded through Fermanagh, keeping Lough Erne on the right, until they arrived within about four miles of the town. When Maguire (Hugh) received intelligence that these forces were marching towards the town with the aforesaid provisions, he set out with his own forces and the forces left him by O'Donnell, together with Cormac, the son of the Baron, i.e. the brother of the Earl O'Neill; and they halted at a certain narrow pass, to which they thought they the enemy would come to them. The ambuscade was successful, for they came on, without noticing any thing, until they fell in with Maguire's people at the mouth of a certain ford. A fierce and vehement conflict, and a spirited and hard-contested battle, was fought between both parties, till at length Maguire and his forces routed the others by dint of fighting, and a strages of heads was left to him; and the rout was followed up a great way from that place. A countless number of nobles and plebeians fell in this conflict. Many steeds, weapons, and other spoils, were left behind in that place by the defeated, besides the steeds and horses that were loaded with provisions, on their way to Enniskillen. A few fugitives of Meath and of the Reillys escaped from this conflict, and never stopped until they arrived in Breifny O'Reilly. The route taken by George Oge Bingham and the few who escaped with him from the field was through the Largan, the territory of the Clann-Coffey Magauran, through Breifny O'Rourke, and from thence to Sligo. The name of the ford at which this great victory was gained was changed to Bel-atha-na-mBriosgadh, from the number of biscuits and small cakes left there to the victors on that day. When the warders of the castle heard of the defeat of the army, they surrendered the castle to Maguire; and he gave them pardon and protection."
The name was changed to Blacklion in honour of a famous coaching inn in the village.[* 1][1][* 2] Wilson's "Post-Chaise Companion" of 1786 states:
"Within 2 miles and a half of the Black Lion, on the L. are the ruins of a church; and within a mile of the Black Lion, on the L. is Marle Bank, the seat of Mr. Irwine. On the R. is a large and beautiful lake, called Lough Machnean, with three finely cultivated islands in it. About a quarter of a mile to the R. of Largay, or the Black Lion inn, is Belcoo Bridge, which leads to Garison road."[2]
In the 1950s the village name plate read Learga. This was the name by which local older generation people would have called the place – colloquially called Leargy. Learga is the plural of an Irish word Learg meaning rising ground, slopes, or mountain side. This description would connect with the topographical location of the village, which sits below steeply rising ground and hills. Today, Learga no longer appears on the village signs, which now show An Blaic. The village is generally referred to by local residents as 'The Black'.
During The Troubles Blacklion, as a main border crossing was home to a joint Irish Army/Garda Síochána checkpoint. It was the scene of a bomb attack in 1974 by the UVF[3].
Blacklion is situated between the lakes of Upper Lough MacNean and Lower Lough MacNean. The river which connects the two lakes forms the border between County Cavan and County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. A bridge over this river connects Blacklion to the village of Belcoo in County Fermanagh. Blacklion sits at the foot of the hills below Cuilcagh Mountain, across which the border extends.
Blacklion is on the N16 road that goes from Sligo to Enniskillen and on to Belfast (becomes the A4 road in Northern Ireland). In addition to being on the border of County Fermanangh, Blacklion is also just 5 kilometres (3 mi) from the border of County Leitrim. The point where the three counties of Cavan, Leitrim and Fermanagh join is in the centre of Upper Lough McNean.
In 1879 the Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway line opened with Belcoo station serving both Belcoo and Blacklion. The last trains ran through the station on 20 September 1957. The railway bridge crossing the river between Blacklion and Belcoo was blown up by the British army in the late 1970s, ostensibly to prevent its potential use by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) for moving arms across the Irish border.
There are many attractions nearby Blacklion, including the lakes of Upper and Lower MacNean, the Marble Arch Caves, the Cladagh Glen Nature Reserve, Florence Court house and grounds, Glenfarne forest with its lakeside walks, Shannon Pot (the source of the River Shannon, Ireland's longest river) and Cuilcagh Mountain Park. 3 kilometres (2 mi) south of Blacklion lies the Cavan Burren, a limestone landscape containing a wealth of Neolithic remains, which was planted with forestry in the 1950s and has since been partially reclaimed and signposted to provide access to the many notable structures and geological features.[4] The Cavan Way, a 25 km (16 mi) marked walking trail runs from the village of Dowra, County Cavan to Blacklion. It links up with the Ulster Way at Blacklion and the Leitrim Way in Dowra.
Blacklion also has a nine hole golf course and an award-winning restaurant, the MacNean Bistro, run by chef Neven Maguire. Upper Lough Macnean is known as an excellent coarse fishing lake and contains bream, roach, hybrids, pike, perch, eel and brown trout. The Lough MacNean Sculpture Trail circles the lakes.
The townland of Barran, three miles from the village, is the birthplace of the gaelic poet Cathal Buí Mac Ghiolla Ghunna ("Yellow Cathal McElgunn"), whose life and work is celebrated annually in a festival/summer school started in 1998 by Belcoo man, Aidan McGourty. Cathal Buí's name is also visible on local tourist signposts bearing the legend "Cathal Bui Country" with an image of a dead bird alongside.
According to legend the poet, who was famously a drinking man, was walking homewards along the lakeside on a frosty winter morning when he came upon a dead bittern, which he assumed had died of thirst because it was unable to get water from the frozen lake. He wrote the famous poem, An Bonnán Buí ("The Yellow Bittern"), which laments the fate of the bird and notes wryly that the bird had died for want of a drink while he himself was dying because of too much of it. There is a monument to his memory on the shore of Upper Lough MacNean, 2 kilometres (1 mi) from Blacklion on the Sligo road.
Cathal Buí moved away from the Blacklion area and lived out most of his adult life as a travelling poet and seller of trinkets and tin cans in the South Monaghan/South Armagh/North Louth area; he is buried in a graveyard of Dunamoyne in this region.
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