An Dún

In an entry in the 'Gweedore Hotel Visitor Book' in September 1846, Dombrain writes about his first attempts to reach Dunlewey and his subsequent purchase of the Dunlewey Estate.

 _{Note in the entry he spells the area 'Dunlooey'.}  

I shall briefly state that my first attempt to see Dunlooey (then for sale) was made on horseback. I left James Gallagher at Bunbeg and came to Gortahork and to where the road then terminated at Baltony. I was then four miles from Dunlooey with nothing but a dangerous mountain track before me and as night was coming, I was compelled to return and for the time give up all idea of becoming the purchaser. Some months afterwards I was enticed again to attempt it. I then walked from Bunbeg over the bog and by the side of the river where the hotel now stands and by the shore of the lake to Dunlooey.

The extraordinary pertinacity with which the people clung to their small and insufficient holdings offered great and indeed almost insurmountable obstacles to the abolition of the Rundale System and the determination they evinced not to give up on such of their land was even greater to overcome than. For instance a tenant of mine at Dunlooey who had got into possession without the consent of the former proprietor and whose land it was necessary for me to have to enable me to build my house, he refused to quit until I paid 20 years purchase of his rent of 4 per annum and even after receiving so large a sum of money 80 left his curse upon his house so that no one would afterwards inhabit it.'  ^[4] 

Local folklore tells the story of that 'curse', although the local version states Dombrain evicted an elderly lady who had a temporary home on the estate which she used for summer grazing and that it was this elderly woman that cursed Dombrain! The curse is said to be that "no children would be born to any of the owners of the estate". Whether of not the curse is true is difficult to prove, however, the age at which many of the subsequent male owners died, as we will see in the following articles, might raise a few eyebrows!

In the latter half of 1819 the Commissioners of Customs in Dublin were anxiously concerned about the ever-growing problem of smuggling in Ireland, and it was agreed to set-up a branch of the Preventive Water Guard here, and James Dombrain was sent to take charge of the organisation. In England, it was mostly wines and spirits which were smuggled; in Ireland, it was almost all raw tobacco. Smuggling was taking place all around the coast, but it was particularly bad in South West Cork, so this was the place chosen for the experiment. Within a few months the Water Guard had seized almost 20,000 lbs of tobacco and Dombrain could later report that the experiment ‘had completely broken up the arrangement there and drove the smugglers to other parts of the coast’. That was the problem – the smugglers kept moving on to places where the Water Guard had not been established. The inevitable result of this was the extension of the force to the entire Irish Coast.

Early in 1820 Dombrain travelling on the Revenue Cutter ‘Kite’ surveyed the entire coastline. During his survey of the coast of Donegal, Dombrain discovered that the Water Guard would have more to deal with than smuggling. He reported that

‘illicit distillation has been carried out on in open day to an extent I certainly could not have credited had I not been an eye witness to it …. In one day, I saw no less than 15 stills at work and did not pass a mile on the road without meeting large quantities of illicit whiskey conveyed by men on horseback and unarmed’.  ^[2] 

He also writes about the illegal poteen stills in his entry in the Gweedore visitor book in 1846.

'I think distillation was another serious obstacle to improvement, and the difficulty of checking, without any warnings or threats on the part of the landlord, is best shown by the fact that until the map of the Ordnance Survey was published, I did not know that a still had been regularly worked at Dunlooey within 200 yards of the house".  ^[4] 

However, when we review the Ordnance Survey maps and the location of Dombrain's house, we find no still, perhaps it was dismantled before the map was completed! The maps do however show a Still in Moneybeg, close to the location of the current Dunlewey Centre, perhaps this is the Still Dombrain is referring to!

Dombrain was Inspector General during many of the famines in Ireland and had been involved in relief operations in Ireland since at least 1830 and had been appointed to the Central Relief Commission in Dublin by Sir Robert Peel in 1845. He is said to have favoured Donegal in the distribution of relief during the famines of the 1930’s, of which Donegal was most affected. Following an inspection in North-West Donegal in 1835 he reported that "many hundreds were existing on half a meal a day and that there were hundreds of cases in which the growing crop had been pawned to enable the unfortunate owners to obtain a temporary but immediate supply of food”.  ^[5] 

Dombrain at once sent supplies of oatmeal and potatoes but complained that the poor had not the money to purchase them. The remedy he suggested – to provide employment by completing the construction of a local road – was acted upon.

The obstacle, he suggested "might be removed by the immediate completion of a line of road between Mallins and Guidore, which had been commenced by the Board of Public Works.

Dombrain also referred to this road in his entry in the Gweedore Hotel Visitor book in 1846

"I subsequently succeeded in getting the line of road made from Malins to Gweedore and in effecting other slight improvements, but the nature of my official duties precluded the possibility of doing much to influence the people whose habits of self will and lawlessness … required the … … and watchful care"

The road he was referring to is the R251, known locally as the 'Back of Errigal Road, and it is also referred to in "Facts from Gweedore, 3rd edition 1854, p23". This booklet was published by George Hill to highlight the 'improvements' he had made on his estate, the book is believed to have been written by Dombrain.

Dombrain was also Inspector General during the Great Famine an Gorta Mór, or the Great Hunger, a period of mass starvation, disease, and emigration in Ireland between 1845 and 1852. During the famine, approximately 1 million people died and over a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the island's population to fall by between 20% and 25%. Sir Charles Trevelyan (forever immortalised by the song Fields of Athenry) was appointed as assistant secretary to HM Treasury in 1840.

"Micheal they are taking you away  For you stole Trevelyn's corn  So the young might see the morn.  Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay"

His inaction and personal negative attitude towards the Irish people are widely believed to have slowed relief for the famine. During the height of the famine, it is suggested that Trevelyan deliberately dragged his feet in disbursing direct government food and monetary aid to the Irish, due to his strident belief in 'laissez faire' economics and the free hand of the market. In a letter to an Irish peer, Lord Monteagle of Brandon, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, he described the famine as an "effective mechanism for reducing surplus population" as well as "the judgement of God" and wrote that "The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people".

In 1846, the Coastguard operated 76 sub-depots along the South and West coasts to distribute the Indian corn purchased by Sir Robert Peel to meet the developing crisis. It was intended that the food should be sold at reasonable prices to stabilise the market. The Treasury in London had directed quite clearly and unequivocally that the food should be sold through local relief committees or issued in lieu of wages to those on public relief schemes.  ^[4] 

But by October 1846, Coastguard officers were reporting a complete absence of food and people dying from starvation in the remote coastal districts of north Connemara. Sir James Dombrain instructed his officers to issue the food free to starving families on a doctor's certificate. By then, Charles Trevelyan was in charge of the Treasury and the Coastguard was directly under the control of the 'Treasury' so Dombrain's action in countermanding those orders was courageous in the circumstances. He was publicly rebuked, the authorities in London said he had no permission to give the food away free and that he should have organised local relief committees to raise private donations. He was not the least bit abashed by his rebuke saying 'there was no one within miles who could have contributed one shilling to any relief fund and people were actually dying.'  _[4] 

He was knighted by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Earl de Grey, in 1843 in a ceremony held onboard the flagship ‘Shamrock’ in Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire). Thousands are said to have lined the quayside and Cutters from the four corners of Ireland as well as Scotland attended. In 1848 he was appointed a commissioner to the Corporation for the Preservation and Improvement of the Port of Dublin, more commonly known as the ballast board. He retired from the coastguard in 1849 and devoted the rest of his life to the business of the board. In 1867 the board was split into the Dublin Port and Docks Board and the Commissioners of Irish Lights. He was appointed as one of the first members of the latter body.  ^[6] 

According to Eileen Murphy's 'Booklet on Dunlewey Facts', Dombrain sold the Dunlewey Estate to the Russell's in 1845 for the reported sum of £1,300.

He continued to visit Gweedore and wrote a number of further entries in the Gweedore Hotel Visitor Book.

He died on 24 September 1871 at his Dublin residence, ‘Woodstock’, in Sandford, near Ranelagh. He is buried in the family vault at Mount Jerome Cemetry in Dublin.

A plaque in his honour was erected at his former home at 36 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin by Dublin City Council in 2016.

First edition of 6 inch map 1833 vs last edition 1901.

Location of the Big house, development of the Estate

1.  _{Eileen Murphy, A Booklet of Dunlewey Facts, Un-published work} 
2.  _{Sir James Dombrain and the Coastguard. Edmond P Synes (Paper read to the Old Dublin Society on November 6th 2002).} 
3.  _{Gweedore Hotel Visitor Book, https://www.donegalcoco.ie/culture/archives/selected%20digitised%20archives/#d.en.17387} 
4.  _{The Coastguard of Yesteryear: The Coastguard in Famine Relief on the West Coast. James P. Murray https://www.coastguardsofyesteryear.org/articles.php?article_id=200} 
5.  _{University of Southampton. Correspondence and Accounts Relating to the Different Occasions on Which Measures Were Taken for the Relief of the People Suffering...between 1822 and 1839. HMSO, 1846. JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.29945637. Accessed 7 Oct. 2022.} 
6.  DICTIONARY OF IRISH BIOGRAPHY Sir James Dombrain  https://www.dib.ie/biography/dombrain-sir-james-a2667

The church is an impressive building, even today. But, it must be remembered the living conditions of the people at the time. Here is a photograph of a cottage along the shore of Lough Na Cuing taken around the same time as that of the photo of the Church above.

In addition to the Church, the Russells erected a home for the Reverend. This was a substantial property in the grounds of the Dunlewey Estate (a little way past the Gate Lodge). It appears at least three Reverends served in Dunlewey, Rev Doudney referred to in the laying of the first stone, Rev Bor who's name was etched on the bell of the church, and Rev Linskea who presided over the ceremony to consecration the church.

Local folklore has it that one of the Reverends were not happy sharing the ‘avenue’ to his property with that of ‘Dunlewey House’ so he requested that a new avenue be built.  The route chosen headed East into the Poisoned Glen and crossed two rivers.  Construction began on the new avenue and the first bridge was built.  However, the Reverend did not settle long in the area and construction of the avenue was abandoned. 

The bridge is known locally as the ‘Wooden Bridge’. The reason for this is unknown, it could be that a wooden bridge stood here before the stone bridge was built or that it got the name from the wooden platform that would have been used during construction to form the arch.

The Dunlewey Model Agricultural School, built in the early 1850's, was another ploy in Mrs. Russell's attempts to convert the local people.

This was one of only twenty such schools built in the country at the time. The idea behind the Model schools was that they were to serve as a training school for new teachers.  The national school system was in its infancy in Ireland and Model Schools were built to educate local children while providing hands-on training for new teachers.  

The funding for the school was agreed by the British parliament in 1846 and building began. The expected attendance was 100 boys (no girls) and the estimated cost of building and fit-out was £247 10s.

Various annual reports by the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland up until 1855 show that the school was complete but not yet opened ⁶ . The reason for this delay in opening the school was investigated by the journalist Denis Holland in 1858 when he spent 10 days in northern and western coastal districts of Donegal to report on the conditions of the tenantry, which had become a matter of public controversy as a result of the ‘Gweedore sheep war’. Holland was the founder of the ‘Ulsterman’, nationalist newspaper in Belfast.

Holland reported: “At her request (I suppose), and aided by her subscription, the Commissioners of National Education built a model agricultural school on this lady's land—she, of course, promising them a lease. Instead of securing the lease first of all, the credulous Commissioners, trusting in the woman’s honour and good faith, began to build the school at once. When the structure was nearly completed, at a cost of some £3,000, the Board applied to Mrs. Russell to have the lease perfected. But fancy their astonishment and dismay when the ingenious lady informed them that she would grant the lease (on her promise of which they—not questioning a lady’s honour—had built the school) on one condition only; and that was—that all the teachers should be Protestants. Of course, the Commissioners could not listen to so monstrous a proposal: a proposal which (to say nothing of the fact that the entire population of the district is Catholic) would be a gross violation of the non-sectarian rules under which their Board is constituted. As they would not comply, she refused to give a lease; and the expensive structure now lies tenantless, and falling into ruins.”  ⁷ 

Mrs. Eileen Murphy in her unpublished book ‘Dunlewey Facts” 1 wrote about schools in Dunlewey ¹ .

“There was a mud cabin, a bothog, between the Coyne Road and the road to the chapel in the 1850’s – 1860’s.  The teacher was Mr. Sweeney, a Monitor (a Monitor was known then as a very bright senior student that did not have a secondary school education or a teaching diploma). He taught there with limited resources until local residents “took over” the big fancy agricultural School on the hill circa 1869.”

She wrote that the agricultural school “was built to serve the small Protestant community and was intended to lure and encourage more Protestant families to the area. The first teacher was an Englishman, an ancestor of the Kennedy's of Cashelnagore - his name was Mr. Kennedy. The attempt however, failed and the school was closed after a short period".

The building remained as a school until 1915 when the new school was opened further over the road (now the Ionad Pobail).  The McBride’s continued to live here and the house was gifted to the family by Mrs Crankshaw of Dunlewey House; it is said that she was so delighted when she heard that they were naming their new baby Nellie after her, that she gave the house to the family. The property is now owned by a local family and in 2022 they moved the stone plaque, that once stood above the door, to the front of the building for everyone to view.

George Frazer Brady was born in Maidstone in Kent.  He studied at the Royal College of Surgeons before coming to work at a GP for Lord George Hill sometime around 1842. 

Lord George Hill was the landlord in the neighbouring Estate in Gweedore. The Hill Estate, which included the greater part of the Gweedore parish, was purchased by Lord George Hill in 1838. Prior to Hill's arrival the Estate was owned by a number of landlords, mostly ex-british officials who got small tracts of land for services rendered to the Crown. When Hill arrived in 1838 rents on the properties were in arrears of one thousand pounds. Hill set-about purchasing over 25,000 acres and divided a large portion of the Estate into small farms and compelled the tenants to abandon their homes and settle on the new farms

George Frazer Brady married Fanny Russell, daughter of James and Jane Russell in 1850. They had nine children, four of the children died young and are buried in the graveyard at the Old Church in Dunlewey.

• Jane d 1851 aged 3 months.
• Mary d 1860 aged 3 months.
• Valentine Pole Griffith d 1868 aged 4 years.
• Hugh Woodhams d 1876 aged 19 years

In February 1858 George Hill's tenure in Gweedore was attacked in the press where an appeal by ten catholic priests including Daniel McGee, P.P. Gweedore and James McFadden C.C. Cloughaneely was published:

“In the wilds of Donegal, down in the bogs and glens of Gweedore and Cloughaneely, thousands and thousands of human beings, made after the image and likeness of God, are perishing, or next to perishing, amid squalidness and misery, for want of food and clothing, far away from aid and pity. On behalf of these famishing victims of oppression and persecution, we appeal for substantial assistance to enable us to relieve their wretchedness and rescue them from death and starvation.

There are at the moment 800 families subsisting on seaweed, crabs, cockles, or any other edible matter they can pick up along the seashore or scrape off the rocks. There are about 600 adults of both sexes, who through sheer poverty are now going barefoot, amid the inclemency of the season, on this bleak northern coast. There are about 700 families that have neither bed nor bedclothes… Thousands of the male population have only one cotton shirt; while thousands have not even one. There are about 600 families who have neither cow, sheep, nor goat and who…hardly know the taste of milk or butter. This fine old Celtic race is about being crushed to make room for Scotch and English sheep.” 

A relief committee was established to raise and distribute aid to the area. This stark imagery prompted a parliamentary select committee to be established in June 1858, to investigate the claims of extreme poverty in Gweedore.

George Frazer Brady gave evidence to this select committee. 

It was Frazer Brady’s opinion that the people were no worse off than they were at any other time.  He believed “that people were hiding food to make themselves appear as poor as possible to any person going through the country”.  And that “the funds given in instances such as this was not for destitution but to compensate them for sheep taxes paid”.  He stated that Mrs Russell was disgraced due to newspaper accounts that state that “people are without food and clothing”.  And that the reliefs given had lead to bad feelings between the tenants and the landlords.

George Frazer Brady died in 1877 aged 57 and his widow Fanny died in 1900 aged 72.

Married to Harriet margaret Ross-of-Bladensburg who hailed from Rostrevor

The Rosstrevor Monument was erected in memory of William Augustine Ross's grand-father-in-law

Warm welcome for Ross on his first arrival in Dunlewey Nov 1874

He built the Church of the Sacred Heart for the people of Dunlewey.

The original altar was removed in 1960's due to changes in the Vatican.

Ross died in 1883 leaving a sum of £41,963 = Today's value £3,567,300. His nephew William Heburn inherited his estate. William Heburn married Nellie O'Keefe and she was the last landlord of the Dunlewey Estate.