Fairymount and Frenchpark

Next, we drove to County Roscommon, specifically Fairymount, to look for Matt's Corcoran ancestor. His maternal great-grandmother Mary Ann (or Annie Mary, or Ann Mary) Corcoran was born in "Fairymount, Frenchpark" in 1865 (d. 1897).

Fairymount is tiny and there isn't really any sort of "downtown" or even Main Street. (And there really isn't any cell service, either.) It turns out Fairymount is a townland in the Frenchpark parish. From Wikipedia, "In Ireland a townland is generally the smallest administrative division of land, though a few large townlands are further divided into hundreds. The concept of townlands is based on the Gaelic system of land division, and the first official evidence of the existence of this Gaelic land division system can be found in church records from before the 12th century, it was in the 1600s that they began to be mapped and defined by the English administration for the purpose of confiscating land and apportioning it to investors or planters from Britain."

From townlands.ie, Fairymount has an area of "...676 acres, 2 roods, 7 perches...Nationwide, it is the 6518th largest townland." Thank goodness for those roods and perches, amiright?!  😉

We found a rock:

I could not find the meaning of "Mullach na sí"--perhaps it is part of the placename, or perhaps it means "Welcome to...." I did find a horse of that name who was racing from about 2006 through 2009. Here is Mullach na sí in retirement:

Photo from Internet

The area had some pretty houses with lots of acreage, often accompanied by one or more types of livestock. There was also a school and this picturesque building:

And this fella was laughing at us from his tree:

The Church of the Sacred Heart, Fairymount was built in 1876, so perhaps too "recent" for Matt's direct ancestor:

Photo from Internet

There is a cemetery in Fairymount:

There were quite a few Corcoran headstones, but they were mostly too new to be ancestors (although, again, perhaps they were relatives.) However, Patrick Corcoran, if born in Fairymount, might be Matt's great-great-uncle. The headstone says, "In Loving Memory of Patrick Corcoran, Fairymount, Died 2 May 1947 Aged 79 Years," thus born in 1868:

But we were being watched:

And being surrounded:

And so we left to take a look at Frenchpark, population under 500. We had lunch here, at the Corskeagh Lounge & Restaurant Steak House:

Here is Matt standing in front of the St. Asicus (a disciple of St. Patrick) Catholic Church, which was built in 1815. Perhaps this is where Matt's ancestors worshipped when they could get to "town":