‘How are you at Climbing Fences?’ Beth O’Leary Anish finds her Castleisland Roots
In June this year (2024), Castleisland District Heritage was contacted by Beth O’Leary Anish from Massachusetts, scholar of Irish American literature, who was travelling to Ireland to attend a meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies in Limerick. She was hoping to fit in a visit to Castleisland where her great grandfather, James Leary […]
A Schoolboy’s Hero: Bob Finn of Castleisland
Bob Finn, Captain Moonlight has been given a new lease of life by 15-year-old Sam Jones, who selected the famous Castleisland agitator for his school project.[1] ‘I chose to do this,’ writes Sam, great great grandson of Bob Finn, ‘because he is probably more important than any other person in my family.’ Sam […]
Profile of Kerry Moonlighter, Jack Hickey of Brosna
He was the last of a generation of men whose deeds of valour, honesty of purpose and souls of cheer will long live in historic old Ahane. In 1925, Jack Hickey, otherwise John L Hickey of Ahane, reminisced on his involvement with the Moonlighters: Not very many came to aid the poor Irish […]
Honouring Bob Finn, Captain of the Castleisland Moonlighters
‘The Moonlighters were the first that put hope into the nation’ – Memoir of Jerry Lyons, 1951 Castleisland District Heritage this week (19 July 2023) pays homage to Bob Finn, Captain of the Castleisland Moonlighters, at a Grave Renewal Ceremony in Old Kilbannivane Cemetery, Castleisland. The historic memorial has been refurbished, with substantial financial […]
The Three Axeteers: Foundation of the Castleisland Moonlighters
by John Roche, Chairman of the Michael O’Donohoe Project In his book, A Popular History of East Kerry, published in 1930, T M Donovan gave a first-hand account of the formation of the organisation known as the Castleisland Moonlighters. Though born almost three generations apart from Donovan (he was born in the 1860s, […]
‘Too Honest for the Shoneens’: Father Murphy, Roman Catholic Curate of Castleisland[1]
He left in each parish warm-hearted friends and a memory as green and as lasting as the shamrock of St Patrick[2] On Sunday 11 September 1881, a meeting took place in the village of Currow under the auspices of the Castleisland Land League attended by about 7,000 people. Among the speakers was Castleisland publican, […]
The Kilfallinga Outrage
In January 1885, a correspondent of the Kerry Sentinel brought to the attention of the public the actions of the RIC in Kilfallinga, near Currans. A public meeting had been called for the purpose of establishing a branch of the Irish National League. However, on the evening before the proposed meeting, the Lord Lieutenant proclaimed […]
Bob Finn: Captain of the Castleisland Moonlighters
Every fool can be a patriot … every blackguard can sing a national hymn and wave a flag. But it takes a man to live a life of devotion and sacrifice for his country.1 Robert – ‘Bob’ – Finn was born in Castlegregory in 1860, son of William Finn and Sara Casey. The family moved […]
The Moonlighters in Castleisland
A number of pithy essays by Michael O’Donohoe sit among the vast quantity of papers in the collection. Topics covered are wide in variety, for example, the GAA, Lord Headley, local streets and lanes, Sir Richard Griffith and the Moonlighters. The Moonlighters, transcribed below, provides an informative sketch of the organisation from […]
Irish National Land League
Castle Island … a village which has attained the unenviable notoriety of being considered about the worst in the country1 During the Land War, a reporter for the Illustrated London News stated there were ‘four roads going out of Castle Island, on every one of which a man has been shot within the last four […]
