Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations military service members who died in the two World Wars. The Commission is responsible for commemorating Commonwealth civilians who died as a result of enemy action during World War II; the Commission was founded by Sir Fabian Ware and constituted through Royal Charter in 1917 named the Imperial War Graves Commission. The change to the present name took place in 1960; the Commission, as part of its mandate, is responsible for commemorating all Commonwealth war dead individually and equally. To this end, the war dead are commemorated by name on a headstone, at an identified site of a burial, or on a memorial. War dead are commemorated uniformly and irrespective of military or civil rank, race or creed; the Commission is responsible for the continued commemoration of 1.7 million deceased Commonwealth military service members in 153 countries.
Since its inception, the Commission has constructed 2,500 war cemeteries and numerous memorials. The Commission is responsible for the care of war dead at over 23,000 separate burial sites and the maintenance of more than 200 memorials worldwide. In addition to commemorating Commonwealth military service members, the Commission maintains, under arrangement with applicable governments, over 40,000 non-Commonwealth war graves and over 25,000 non-war military and civilian graves; the Commission operates through the continued financial support of the member states: United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The current President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is Prince Duke of Kent. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Fabian Ware, a director of the Rio Tinto Company, found that he was too old, at age 45, to join the British Army, he used the influence of Rio Tinto chairman, Viscount Milner, to become the commander of a mobile unit of the British Red Cross. He arrived in France in September 1914 and whilst there was struck by the lack of any official mechanism for documenting or marking the location of graves of those, killed and felt compelled to create an organisation within the Red Cross for this purpose.
In March 1915, with the support of Nevil Macready, Adjutant-General of the British Expeditionary Force, Ware's work was given official recognition and support by the Imperial War Office and the unit was transferred to the British Army as the Graves Registration Commission. The new Graves Registration Commission had over 31,000 graves of British and Imperial soldiers registered by October 1915 and 50,000 registered by May 1916; when municipal graveyards began to overfill Ware began negotiations with various local authorities to acquire land for further cemeteries. Ware began with an agreement with France to build joint British and French cemeteries under the understanding that these would be maintained by the French government. Ware concluded that it was not prudent to leave the maintenance responsibilities to the French government and subsequently arranged for France to purchase the land, grant it in perpetuity, leave the management and maintenance responsibilities to the British; the French government agreed under the condition that cemeteries respected certain dimensions, were accessible by public road, were in the vicinity of medical aid stations and were not too close to towns or villages.
Similar negotiations began with the Belgian government. As reports of the grave registration work became public, the Commission began to receive letters of enquiry and requests for photographs of graves from relatives of deceased soldiers. By 1917, 17,000 photographs had been dispatched to relatives. In March 1915, the Commission, with the support of the Red Cross, began to dispatch photographic prints and cemetery location information in answer to the requests; the Graves Registration Commission became the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries in the spring of 1916 in recognition of the fact that the scope of work began to extend beyond simple grave registration and began to include responding to enquiries from relatives of those killed. The directorate's work was extended beyond the Western Front and into other theatres of war, with units deployed in Greece and Mesopotamia; as the war continued and others became concerned about the fate of the graves in the post-war period. Following a suggestion by the British Army, the government appointed the National Committee for the Care of Soldiers' Graves in January 1916, with Edward, Prince of Wales agreeing to serve as president.
The National Committee for the Care of Soldiers' Graves was created with the intention of taking over the work of the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries after the war. The government felt that it was more appropriate to entrust the work to a specially appointed body rather than to any existing government department. By early 1917, a number of members of the committee believed a formal imperial organisation would be needed to care for the graves. With the help of Edward, Prince of Wales, Ware submitted a memorandum to the Imperial War Conference in 1917 suggesting that an imperial organisation be constituted; the suggestion was accepted and on 21 May 1917 the Imperial War Graves Commission was established by Royal Charter, with the Prince of Wales serving as president, Secretary of State for War Lord Derby as chairman and Ware as vice-chairman. The Commission's undertakings began in earnest at the end of the First World War. Once land for cemeteries and memorials had been guaranteed, the enormous task of recording the details of the dead could begin.
By 1918, some 587,000 graves had be
Bell tower
A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or, designed to hold bells if it has none. Such a tower serves as part of a church, will contain church bells, but there are many secular bell towers part of a municipal building, an educational establishment, or a tower built to house a carillon. Church bell towers incorporate clocks, secular towers do, as a public service; the Italian term campanile, deriving from the word campana meaning "bell", is synonymous with bell tower. A bell tower may in some traditions be called a belfry, though this term may refer to the substructure that houses the bells and the ringers rather than the complete tower; the tallest free-standing bell tower in the world, 113.2 metres high, is the Mortegliano Bell Tower, in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, Italy. Bells are rung from a tower to enable them to be heard at a distance. Church bells can signify the time for worshippers to go to church for a communal service, can be an indication of a time to pray, without worshippers coming to the church.
They are rung on special occasions such as a wedding, or a funeral service. In some religious traditions they are used within the liturgy of the church service to signify to people that a particular part of the service has been reached. A bell tower may have a collection of bells which are tuned to a common scale, they may be stationary and chimed, rung randomly by swinging through a small arc, or swung through a full circle to enable the high degree of control of English change ringing. They may house a carillon or chimes, in which the bells are sounded by hammers connected via cables to a keyboard; these can be found in many churches and secular buildings in Europe and America including college and university campuses. A variety of electronic devices exist to simulate the sound of bells, but any substantial tower in which a considerable sum of money has been invested will have a real set of bells; some churches have an exconjuratory in the bell tower, a space where ceremonies were conducted to ward off weather-related calamities, like storms and excessive rain.
The main bell tower of the Cathedral of Murcia has four. In Christianity, many Anglican and Lutheran churches ring their bells from belltowers three times a day, at 6 a.m. noon, 6 p.m. summoning the Christian faithful to recite the Lord’s Prayer, or the Angelus, a prayer recited in honour of the Incarnation of God. In addition, most Christian denominations ring church bells to call the faithful to worship, signalling the start of a mass or service of worship. In many historic Christian churches, church bells are rung during the processions of Candlemas and Palm Sunday; the Christian tradition of the ringing of church bells from a belltower is analogous to Islamic tradition of the adhan from a minaret. Old bell towers which are no longer used for their original purpose may be kept for their historic or architectural value, though in countries with a strong campanological tradition they continue to have the bells rung. In AD 400, Paulinus of Nola introduced church bells into the Christian Church.
By the 11th century, bells housed in belltowers became commonplace. Historic bell towers exist throughout Europe; the Irish round towers are thought to have functioned in part as bell towers. Famous medieval European examples include Bruges, Ghent; the most famous European free-standing bell tower, however, is the so-called "Leaning Tower of Pisa", the campanile of the Duomo di Pisa in Pisa, Italy. In 1999 thirty-two Belgian belfries were added to the UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites. In 2005 this list was extended with one Belgian and twenty-three Northern French belfries and is since known as Belfries of Belgium and France. Most of these were attached to civil buildings city halls, as symbols of the greater power the cities in the region got in the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, cities sometimes kept their important documents in belfries. Not all are on a large scale. Archaic wooden bell towers survive adjoining churches in Lithuania and as well as in some parts of Poland. In Orthodox Eastern Europe bell ringing have a strong cultural significance, churches were constructed with bell towers.
Bell towers are common in the countries of related cultures. They may appear both as part of a temple complex and as an independent civic building paired with a drum tower, as well as in local church buildings. Among the best known examples are the Bell Tower of Beijing and the Bell Tower of Xi'an. Bell towers and campaniles by date Bell-gable Clock tower Conjuratory Octagon on cube Zvonnitsa Belfries of Belgium and France, UNESCO World Heritage Centre entry Les Beffrois - France, Pays-Bas, blog describing several bell towers All Saints Bell Tower
Thiepval Memorial
The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme is a war memorial to 72,337 missing British and South African servicemen who died in the Battles of the Somme of the First World War between 1915 and 1918, with no known grave. It is near the village of Picardy in France. A visitors' centre opened in 2004. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, Thiepval has been described as "the greatest executed British work of monumental architecture of the twentieth century"; the Memorial was built 200 metres to the south-east of the former Thiepval Château, located on lower ground, by the side of Thiepval Wood. The grounds of the original château were not chosen as this would have required the moving of graves, dug during the war around the numerous medical aid stations. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the memorial was built between 1928 and 1932 and is the largest Commonwealth Memorial to the Missing in the world, it was inaugurated by the Prince of Wales in the presence of Albert Lebrun, President of France, on 1 August 1932.
The unveiling ceremony was attended by Lutyens. The memorial has 16 brick piers, faced with Portland stone, it was built using French bricks from Lille, but was refaced in 1973 with Accrington brick. The main arch is aligned east to west; the memorial is 140 feet high, above the level of its podium, which to the west is 20 feet above the level of the adjoining cemetery. It has foundations 19 feet thick, which were required because of extensive wartime tunnelling beneath the structure, it is a complex form of memorial arch, comprising interlocking arches of four sizes. Each side of the main arch is pierced by a smaller arch, orientated at a right angle to the main arch; each side of each of these smaller arches is pierced by a still smaller arch and so on. The keystone of each smaller arch is at the level of the spring of the larger arch; this design results in 16 piers. Only 48 of these are inscribed. More succinctly, according to the architectural historian Stephen Games, the memorial is composed of two intersecting triumphal arches, each with a larger central arch and two smaller subsidiary arches, the arches on the east-west facades being taller than those on the north-south, all raised up from what is loosely a square four-by-four tartan grid plan.
The main arch is surmounted by a tower. In the central space of the memorial a Stone of Remembrance rests on a three-stepped platform; the memorial represents the names 72,246 officers and men, Lutyens's ingenious geometry arises out of the attempt to display these names in compact form, rather than in the longer and linear form taken by other memorials to the missing of the war, such as those at Loos, Pozières and Arras. The inscription of names on the memorial is reserved for those missing, or unidentified, soldiers who have no known grave. A large inscription on an internal surface of the memorial reads: On the Portland stone piers are engraved the names of over 72,000 men who were lost in the Somme battles between July 1915 and March 1918; the Commonwealth War Graves Commission states that over 90% of these soldiers died in the first Battle of the Somme between 1 July and 18 November 1916. The names are carved using the standard upper-case lettering designed for the Commission by MacDonald Gill.
Over the years since its inauguration, bodies have been discovered on the former battlefield and are sometimes identified through various means. The decision was taken that to protect the integrity of the memorial as one for those who are missing or unidentified, that if a body were found and identified the inscription of their name would be removed from the memorial by filling in the inscription with cement. For those who are found and identified, they are given a funeral with full military honours at a cemetery close to the location at which they were discovered; this practice has resulted in numerous gaps in the lists of names. On the top of the archway, a French inscription reads: Aux armées Française et Britannique l'Empire Britannique reconnaissant. Just below this, are carved the years 1914 and 1918. On the upper edges of the side archways, split across left and right, is carved the phrase "The Missing / of the Somme". Included on this memorial are sixteen stone laurel wreaths, inscribed with the names of sub-battles that made up the Battle of the Somme and subsequent actions in which the men commemorated at Thiepval fell.
One is titled'Somme 1916'. Thirteen battles so-named on the other roundels are Ancre Heights, Albert, High Wood, Delville Wood, Flers–Courcelette, Pozières Wood, Bazentin Ridge, Thiepval Ridge, Transloy Ridges and Guillemont; the final two roundels are for'Bapaume' and'Miraumont', most referring to battles or actions in the Somme frontline in 1917 as the Thiepval Memorial includes the missing dead that fell before 20 March 1918. The Actions of Miraumont took place from 17–18 February 1917, Bapaume was occupied by the British on 17 March 1917. Seven Victoria Cross recipients are listed under their respective regiments. All British unless otherwise noted: Eric Norman Frankland Bell William Buckingham Geoffrey St. George Shillington Cather William McFadzean William Mariner Thomas Orde Lawder Wilkinson Alexander Young Also commemorated are: English first-class cricketer Alban Arnold English first-class cricketer Sydney Thomas Askham Composer George Butterworth Irish first-class cricketer Willi
Plague of Mohill
In 6th century Ireland, the population of Mohill barony was devastated by the Justinian plague, an early phenomenon of the Late Antique Little Ice Age c. 536-660 AD. The Mohill plague occurred following the Extreme weather events of 535–536 and death of Manchán of Mohill. Evidence for the Justinian plague in Mohill parish is revealed by the names of three contiguous townlands south west of Mohill town- Tamlaght More, Tamlaght Beg, Tamlaghtavally - all surrounding the former monastery of Mohill; because Tamlaght is a pagan name, all three townland names are pre-christian in origin. Recognition the word tamlacht signifies a plague burial site is widespread, but most communities are unaware of their ancient ancestors experiences. Local knowledge of the plague at Mohill parish only emerged after 1975, when Mohill school teacher named Gaffeny, wrote his account- "Tamlaghavally townland: Taibhleacht a' Bhaile or Taibhleacht an Bhealaigh, the plague burial ground of the town or roadway. Taibhleacht is derived from tamh or taimh, an unnatural death as from plague, leacht signifies a bed of grave, a place where people who died from a plague were buried in a common grave.
People who passed the way were accustomed to raise a'cairn' of stones over the spot by placing single stones over the grave. Tamlaght-Beg and TamlaghMore are of the same origin; some great plague or pestilence left its name on those three townlands." Hanley identifies Mohill parish with the Justinian plague. He noted nearly all 41 Tamlachta sites northern half of Ireland are associated with water - with the exception of Mohill; however Mohill is connected to waterways - the nearby Lough Rinn feeds the Rinn river, itself a tributary of the Shannon river. Hanley believed. Dooley believes another epidemic in A. D. 550, christened the croin Chonaill, or the buidhe Chonaill, suggests a widespread outbreak focused on the Shannon area. A sudden climate change in the decade after 538 can be observed from dendrochonology studies of Irish trees, the arrival of the Bubonic plague in Ireland c. A. D. 544, seems to correlate with the westward trajectory of the Justinianic plague, which had reached Gaul by A. D. 543.
The Four Masters states: "543AD, an extraordinary universal plague through the world, which swept away the noblest third part of the human race", the Annals of Ulster christened the pandemic "bléfed". It is estimated 25–50 million, or 40% of European population, died over two centuries as the plague returned periodically up until the 8th century. Haley observed how the huge dying off in the 6th century, suggested by the number of tamlachta sites, would have created fear if not widespread panic; this was a pandemic in which some people dropped dead in less than one day, some fell ill but recovered, some remained unaffected. Such random results might have been interpreted by the populace preached by the clerics, as evidence of divine selection; the presence and death of a christian missionary during these events at Mohill is recorded. The conversion to christianity and subsequent veneration of Manchan of Mohill as saint by the local populace is notable; this parish is named "Mohill-Manchan" to this day.
Hanly reported a great surge in ringfort-building after the plague of 545 AD, as the populace on the boundary of devastated regions, Airgíalla and Mohill, sought security from mysterious and widespread death, cattle-raids and worse. These forts were entrenchments the Irish built about their houses. Numerous remains of these forts are visible around ancient barony of Mohill
World War I
World War I known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history, it is one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide. On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb Yugoslav nationalist, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, leading to the July Crisis. In response, on 23 July Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia. Serbia's reply failed to satisfy the Austrians, the two moved to a war footing. A network of interlocking alliances enlarged the crisis from a bilateral issue in the Balkans to one involving most of Europe.
By July 1914, the great powers of Europe were divided into two coalitions: the Triple Entente—consisting of France and Britain—and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. Russia felt it necessary to back Serbia and, after Austria-Hungary shelled the Serbian capital of Belgrade on the 28th, partial mobilisation was approved. General Russian mobilisation was announced on the evening of 30 July; when Russia failed to comply, Germany declared war on 1 August in support of Austria-Hungary, with Austria-Hungary following suit on 6th. German strategy for a war on two fronts against France and Russia was to concentrate the bulk of its army in the West to defeat France within four weeks shift forces to the East before Russia could mobilise. On 2 August, Germany demanded free passage through Belgium, an essential element in achieving a quick victory over France; when this was refused, German forces invaded Belgium on 3 August and declared war on France the same day. On 12 August and France declared war on Austria-Hungary.
In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Alliance, opening fronts in the Caucasus and the Sinai Peninsula. The war was fought in and drew upon each power's colonial empire as well, spreading the conflict to Africa and across the globe; the Entente and its allies would become known as the Allied Powers, while the grouping of Austria-Hungary and their allies would become known as the Central Powers. The German advance into France was halted at the Battle of the Marne and by the end of 1914, the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, marked by a long series of trench lines that changed little until 1917. In 1915, Italy opened a front in the Alps. Bulgaria joined the Central Powers in 1915 and Greece joined the Allies in 1917, expanding the war in the Balkans; the United States remained neutral, although by doing nothing to prevent the Allies from procuring American supplies whilst the Allied blockade prevented the Germans from doing the same the U. S. became an important supplier of war material to the Allies.
After the sinking of American merchant ships by German submarines, the revelation that the Germans were trying to incite Mexico to make war on the United States, the U. S. declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917. Trained American forces would not begin arriving at the front in large numbers until mid-1918, but the American Expeditionary Force would reach some two million troops. Though Serbia was defeated in 1915, Romania joined the Allied Powers in 1916 only to be defeated in 1917, none of the great powers were knocked out of the war until 1918; the 1917 February Revolution in Russia replaced the Tsarist autocracy with the Provisional Government, but continuing discontent at the cost of the war led to the October Revolution, the creation of the Soviet Socialist Republic, the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by the new government in March 1918, ending Russia's involvement in the war. This allowed the transfer of large numbers of German troops from the East to the Western Front, resulting in the German March 1918 Offensive.
This offensive was successful, but the Allies rallied and drove the Germans back in their Hundred Days Offensive. Bulgaria was the first Central Power to sign an armistice—the Armistice of Salonica on 29 September 1918. On 30 October, the Ottoman Empire capitulated. On 4 November, the Austro-Hungarian empire agreed to the Armistice of Villa Giusti after being decisively defeated by Italy in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. With its allies defeated, revolution at home, the military no longer willing to fight, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated on 9 November and Germany signed an armistice on 11 November 1918. World War I was a significant turning point in the political, cultural and social climate of the world; the war and its immediate aftermath sparked numerous uprisings. The Big Four (Britain, the United States, It
Mohill (barony)
Mohill, in Irish: Maothail is an ancient barony in County Leitrim, Republic of Ireland. Mohill barony shares its name with Mohill village. A variety of corrupted names were used- Irish: Maethail, Maothail-Manchan, Maethail-Manachain, Middle English: Moithla, Maethla and Latin: Mathail, Nouella. Mohill is found in south County Leitrim, on the Cloone River, containing Lough Rynn and bordering Lough Boderg, it is bordered to the northeast by Carrigallen. Early, this area was part of Conmhaícne Maig Réin. After the 9th century the Reynolds were chiefs of this territory. Back in the 6th century, the Justinian plague of Mohill devastated the population of Mohill barony and parish; the following are preserved in a collection at the Royal Irish Academy museum in Dublin. A medieval sword was found buried 0.6 metres deep in hard clay and gravel in the Black river running through the Clooncumber townland, in Cloone parish, county Leitrim. The long narrow sword blade, of the leaf-shape style, measures 39 centimetres long by 2.5 centimetres width, imperfect at both extremities, with four rivet-holes on the hand-plate.
A medieval spear-head was found buried 0.6 metres deep in gravel, between Rinn Lough and Lough Sallagh, near Mohill in county Leitrim. This bolt or arrow head measures 10 centimetres long, with the length of the socket as long as the blade. Breanross hanging tree, according to tradition recorded by Irish Folklore Commission, is the stump of a hangman's tree, on which Irish rebels of 1798 were executed c. Friday, September 1798, is still pointed out at Breanross townland. The Cloonmorris Ogham stone is the only recorded Ogham inscribed stone discovered in county Leitrim. Bernard Killain, or Kilrane aged 111 years may be the oldest recorded Irishman, dying at Tawnymore in Cloone on 29 August 1900. A telegram reporting his death was sent to news outlets from Mohill c. Tuesday 4th September 1900. His father had fought under General Munro in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, was imprisoned and martyred afterwards. Tom Coughlan compiled his unverified biography. In the 19th Century the skull of an ancient Irish elk was " found in the parish of Cloone, barony of Mohill, county of Leitrim.
This head was in the possession of a labourer, who said he found it in the river, under the village of Cloone. A perfect, large head, from the occipital crest at top to the end of the mouth bone, 22 inches; the head is rather narrower than usual. The palm of the brow antler is seven inches across; the colour of the whole is dark, but both the bone and horn are in a fine state of preservation. Below is a list of settlements in Mohill barony: Cloone Mohill
Mohill
Mohill is a town in County Leitrim, Ireland. The town of Carrick-on-Shannon is 16 km away; the Justinian plague of Mohill devastated the local population in the 6th century. Mohill, or Maothail Manachain, is named for St. Manachan, who founded the Monastery of Mohill-Manchan here c. 500-538AD. Some sources and folklore say the shrine of Manchan was kept at Monastery of Mohill-Manchan, before being moved to Lemanaghan in county Offaly for some unrecorded reason; the Monastery was taken over by Augustinians in the 13th century and was closed in the 16th century, after the time of King Henry VIII. The site of the church is now occupied by a Church of graveyard. Ownership of the town passed to the Crofton family during the plantations and areas around the town were owned by the Clements family, who built the nearby Lough Rynn estate and was the owner of what is now Áras an Uachtaráin. Mohill Poor Law Union was covered an area of 215 square miles; the population falling within the union at the 1831 census had been 66,858.
The new workhouse, built in 1840-42, occupied a 6-acre site and was designed to accommodate 700 inmates. During the great famine, Anthony Trollope wrote a voyeuristic narrative on Mohill in his novel The Macdermots of Ballycloran, an early work. Hyde Street is named after Rev Arthur Hyde, grandfather of Douglas Hyde, first President of Ireland, who spent part of his childhood in the town. Through at least the 19th and 20th centurys, an impressive number of annual fairs were held at Mohill on:- January 14, February 4, February 25, April 8, May 8, June 3, July 1, July 31, August 19, September 9 and 30, October 19, November 11, December 2. Back in 1925, Mohill town had population of 755 people, contained 29 houses licensed to sell alcohol. Mohill Breandrum Eslinbridge Gorvagh Shannagh Treanmore The Roman Catholic parish of Mohill includes the nearby church areas of Eslin and Gorvagh and is administered from St Patrick's Church at the top of the town; the Church of Ireland is located at the bottom of the town where the Augustinian Monastery once stood.
The town was served by the narrow gauge Cavan and Leitrim Railway, which closed in 1959. Mohill railway station opened on 24 October 1887 and closed on 1 April 1959; the R201 regional road runs through the centre of the town, as does the R202. The nearest station is Dromod railway station on the Dublin-Sligo railway line. Mohill is served four times daily Monday to Saturday by the Locallink Ballinamore to Carrick on Shannon bus service which gives two daily connections to Dromod Train station; the town hosts a large Agricultural Show and Summer festival in August. On the last Sunday in August The Annual Mohill Honda 50 Run is organized by Peadar Flynn in aid of local charities; the parish of Mohill has two Gaelic Football Clubs, Mohill who play in Division One and Eslin a Division Two team. The Mohill Club fields teams in Divisions 3 and 5, whilst Eslin field their second team in Division 5 also. Both Clubs have won Senior Titles in the past and in fact Mohill Faugh-an-Bealaghs won the first Leitrim Championship in 1890, defeating Ballinamore in the final.
Eslin won their first title the following year by defeating Mohill in the Final. Eslin won the last of their 3 Titles in 1917 but have won several Junior Championships in the meantime. Mohill won the last of their 5 Senior Titles in 2006 defeating St. Marys by one point in a game which saw them complete a dramatic comeback. Mohill and Eslin have amalgamated for underage competition under the name St. Manachans, named after the patron saint of the parish. One of Leitrim and Ireland's greatest footballers, Packy McGarty, was born in Mohill. McGarty had the distinction of playing for his county over four decades from 1949 to 1973, but his finest hour was in the 1958 Connacht Final, despite the heart breaking defeat to Galway. There was in fact at one time three Senior teams in the parish as Gorvagh had a club. In fact Gorvagh were the kingpins of Leitrim football in the 1920s and are the only team in the County to win four titles in a row between 1924 and 1928, when they were led by their inspirational captain Jack Bohan.
The top scorer on the Leitrim team in the late 50's and throughout the 60's was Cathal Flynn, born in Gorvagh and formed a lethal partnership with McGarty during this period. Mohill had a successful soccer team, Mohill Town FC and a Hurling club, St. Finbarrs but sadly both are now defunct; some Mohill players do however still line out with the neighbouring Gortlettragh Hurling Club. Mohill has a well known Basketball Club and in 2008 the Mohill Under 16 Girls basketball team won the National Title in the Community Games competition. Mohill is home to the South Leitrim Harriers who hunt throughout the winter in the surrounding countryside. Mohill had a successful athletic club which its participants won multiple races all over the country. 1856: Slater's Directory describes Mohill as a prosperous, thriving market town - " contains several good shops well-stocked with the various articles of fashion and of local requisites. Great progress is manifest in its general appearance and of its size is considered one of the most stirring, is the most thriving town of any in the surrounding counties".
Primary School: St. Manchan's National School and the Hunt National School. Secondary School: Mohill Community College -. Mohill is asso
