Riverstown

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For other uses, see Riverstown (disambiguation).

Riverstown Baile idir dhá Abhainn
Town

Riverstown Location in Ireland
Coordinates: 54°07′54″N 8°23′40″W / 54.1317°N 8.3944°W / 54.1317; -8.3944Coordinates: 54°07′54″N 8°23′40″W / 54.1317°N 8.3944°W / 54.1317; -8.3944
Country	Ireland
Province	Connacht
County	County Sligo
Elevation	74 m (243 ft)
Population (2006)
• Urban	310
• Rural	562
Irish Grid Reference	G742203

Riverstown, historically called Ballyederdaowen (Irish: Baile idir dhá Abhainn, meaning "town between two rivers"),^[1] is a village in County Sligo, Ireland. It is located at a bridging point of the River Unshin (Arrow), about 19 km (12 miles) south of Sligo town and 4 km east of the N4.

Notable buildings include the Garda Barracks, the Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic churches, Cooperhill House and the Post Office. There are also a number of pubs and shops. Each year the village hosts the James Morrison Traditional Music Festival during August and the Riverstown Vintage Festival during June.

In 2002 Riverstown and the Brookeborough Community Development Association launched the Riverbrooke Cross-Border Initiative linking the two villages in a programme of cross-community/cross-border working.

People

Le Marqués de Osorno, Viceroy of Peru, was a Spanish military officer and colonial administrator in Chile and Peru from 1788 to 1801. The Marqués was born Ambrose O'Higgins at Ballynary, on the shores of Lough Arrow, about half way between Riverstown and Ballinafad. His son, Bernardo O'Higgins, was a commander of Chilean forces against Spain in the Chilean War of Independence. He also served as Supreme Director of Chile (effectively President in today's terms) from 1817-1823.
Riverstown is also the ancestral home of Munster and Ireland fly half, Ronan O'Gara, whose grandfather hailed from the village.
Patrick T. Hynes, renowned expert in American / Irish construction laws and customs, was born in Riverstown.
The Irish musical maestro Michael Bowles was born in Riverstown in 1909 . He joined the Army School of Music in 1932 and obtained a Mus.B from University College, Dublin, in 1936. He trained as a conductor under Colonel Fritz Brasé and joined Radio Éireann as conductor of the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra in 1941. He resigned from the army in 1942 and became the first permanent director of music at Radio Éireann. He was guest conductor for the BBC orchestra on numerous occasion In 1948, he became conductor of the National Orchestra of New Zealand. He moved to the USA in 1954 to take up a professorship at Indiana University and later became director of the Indiana Philharmonic Orchestra^{[citation needed]} He returned to Ireland in 1970 and ran a small bed and breakfast in Cork. Despite spending only a few of his early years in Riverstown he regularly returned to the house where he was born on his return to Ireland. His last visit to Riverstown was in 1997 a year before he died.

His compositional output, although small, includes several songs, and poems put to music . He was involved with the melodies for Burl Ives Irish melodies He wrote the first book on conducting an orchestra.Today some of his compositions are listed in the Leinster School of Music examination pieces

The journalist Harry Keaney is a native of Carrowreagh, Riverstown. He worked with The Roscommon Herald and was associate editor of the Irish Echo newspaper in New York. He currently works with The Sligo Champion.