Tullybrack

Tullybrack (from Irish Tulaigh Bhreac, meaning 'Speckled Hillock') is a townland in the civil parish of Templeport, County Cavan, Ireland.

[2] In earlier times the townland was probably uninhabited as it consists mainly of bog and poor clay soils.

It was not seized by the English during the Plantation of Ulster in 1610 or in the Cromwellian Settlement of the 1660s so some dispossessed Irish families moved there and began to clear and farm the land.

A lease dated 17 September 1816 John Enery of Bawnboy includes Tullybrack.

[3] The Tithe Applotment Books for 1826 list the following tithepayers in the townland- Darcy, Finlay, Magauran, McGoldrick.

[4] The Ordnance Survey Name Books for 1836 give the following description of the townland- Tullybrack.

Contains 192 acres, of which 79 are cultivated boggy pasture and 4 are bog...The townland is bounded on the N. by a large mountain stream.

[13] The chief structure of historical interest in the townland is the site of the old Tullybrack National School.

The book Bawnboy and Templeport History Heritage Folklore, by Chris Maguire, gives the following description of the school[14]- A number of stories, mostly folklore, which appear in this book were collected by Frank Maguire, who for many years was a teacher in Tullybrack N.S.

At this time and later while teaching in Tullybrack, John lived in the townland of Corlough.

A few years ago I had a letter from Monica, a granddaughter of John O'Hara, who lives in England.

He could teach Latin, Irish, English reading and writing, and Mathematics, and he was a missionary, too.

Hundreds of adults on that Cavan mountain - Upper Corlough, could only speak the Irish language.

When the new Corlough church was built it had bare stone walls, a roof and a mud floor.

Attached to the lease is a plan of the school and playground drawn up by John O'Hara, Surveyor, 7 October 1842.

Area of school ground 2 roods 1 perch Irish Plantation Measure.

And whereas there has been built and erected on the ground hereinafter mentioned and demised, a school-house for the Education of the Poor Children (male and female) in the Parish of Templeport aforesaid to be called Tullybrack N.S.

In the 1830s the original teacher John O'Hara wrote several letters to John O'Donovan (scholar) about the history of the area and these are available for perusal in the Graves Collection in the Royal Irish Academy Dublin.

[15] The Reports from the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland give the following figures for Tullybrack Boys' School, Roll No.