03/05/2024
'The Well-Head of Pirates' 🏴☠️🏴☠️ - The Isthmus of Belmullet - Before the Town
‘An isthmus is a narrow strip of land that connects two larger landmasses and separates two bodies of water. Isthmuses have been strategic locations for centuries. They are natural sites for ports and canals linking terrestrial and aquatic trade routes.’ - National Geographic, 2023
It is difficult to imagine Belmullet town not existing. What would have been here had William Henry Carter not invested in its development?
Before the town’s construction a tidal marsh was present between Blacksod and Broadhaven Bays, interconnected at high-tide making communications by land impassable until the tide abated. Carter chose this strategic site as it was a bridging point between land and sea, yet, surprisingly, very few records exist which directly reference this crossing point in history.
In our last post we described how an ancient grave marker referenced in local legend evidences the use of the present site of the town as a defensive position during the Bronze and Iron Age periods. Further, given the extensive evidence of occupation through the ages on the Mullet Peninsula and offshore islands, it can be stated that this was an important communications node through history crossed by Gaelic Chieftains, Saints and Scholars, Norman Lords and runaway rogues.
In 1588 over a thousand Spaniards of the great Spanish Armada crossed the isthmus laden with weapons, treasures and supplies taken from their shipwrecks at Ballycroy and Inver. They marched by land onto the peninsula to reach their sister ship at Elly. ‘600 Spaniards who were at Ballycrauhie (Ballycroy) were conveyed to the castle of Torane, a very strong place, and there joined by 800 more who came out of another great ship , which lay at anchor in the road of Torane.’ – Gerald Comerford, Sheriff, 1588
In 1614 a marvel was witnessed at the isthmus of Belmullet, Sir William Monson, Admiral of British Navy is recorded to have hauled his great ships across the marsh from Broadhaven Bay, described by Monson as ‘the well-head of all pirates’, into Blacksod Bay, thereby circumventing and apprehending a pirate ship for which he was tasked by Queen Elizabeth I to eradicate from these coasts, ‘I contrived a strategem the pirates neither dreaded nor dreamed of...I drew my boat and another over land; and having recovered the next river, with no little marvel to the Irish’. - Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson
In the 1660s Sir James Shaen of Kilmore, county Roscommon, Surveyor General of Ireland, bought a large portion of the barony of Erris, county Mayo, from Robert Viner, a London goldsmith, who had been granted the lands by Charles II in payment of a debt owed for the creation of the new crown jewels. In 1695 the estate of approximately 95,000 acres was inherited by Sir James' son Arthur and subsequently passed to the Bingham and Carter families through marriage with the two daughters and heiresses of Sir Arthur.
Sir Arthur is stated to have resided at Shanaghy and is noted to have granted leases in perpetuity to Protestant settlers he introduced onto his estate. Sir Arthur further constructed a bog iron smelting furnace at Barhauve, and ‘began to build a little town’ to the south of the isthmus, likely near the old fair ground at Carne. In 1752 a Dr Pococke reports that Sir Arthur Shaen, ’cut a communication across the Isthmus large enough for a small boat to pass’ however, by that time this canal was ‘choked up’. The presence of this canal on Knight’s plan of 1824 clearly indicates the lineage of ideas which underlined the decision to plan a town on this strategic site. A sluice gate still exists near Bundoola where ‘Shaen’s Cut’ once entered into Blacksod Bay.
Extract from Sir William Petty’s Down Survey map c1650
Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Tom's Haven, Stripe, Tallagh Hill, Co. Mayo, Belmullet.
