The present day Marian Shrine or Grotto was erected in the Marian Year of 1954, by the first Silvermines Development Committee.
It occupies a site formerly known as the Old Pound. The Pound is a relatively common feature of small villages, consisting of a piece of common or waste land. Different accounts are given of the origin of the term. In some cases, stray cattle or horses would be impounded in the Pound and their owners made to pay a small fee to release them. It is said that during the years when most of the land around here was rented from Lord Dunally, tenants who could not pay their rent would have animals or belongings seized by the Bailiff; these would be auctioned in the Pound.
Source/ Local conversations
Artwork/ Fiona Woods
Posted in locations |
The Silvermines Fife and Drum band was established in the 19th C and was much in demand for Land League rallies in the county in the early 1880s. In the early 20th C the band held rehearsals and stored instruments in the two-story schoolhouse, across from the church. A story is told that a parish priest, who had a grievance against the band, removed one of their drums from the schoolhouse and held it ransom. The band took the matter to court and the priest was ordered to return the drum.
Close to this site on Main St. is a house, the front room of which was used for Irish classes in the 1920s, organised by a roving Timire (an Irish organiser employed by Conradh na Gaeilge), name unknown. This same room had served as a soup kitchen during the Great Famine (1845 – 1852).
The width of this main street is due to the fact that a river used to run down the middle of it, separating two townlands. The river disappeared either through mining activity, or it was diverted into an underground culvert.
The nearby Mogul mine created a honeycomb of underground tunnels in this area. One of these, K-zone, was a seven acre site at the edge of the village, which had a garage, canteen and workshop. These were all flooded following the closure of Mogul mine.
Source/ Local conversations & internet
Artwork/ Fiona Woods
Posted in locations |Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic church was opened on December 8th 1961, on the site of the former Church of Ireland Protestant church. This site was given by the Church of Ireland to the Roman Catholic community of Silvermines on a date unknown. The original church was torn down. The stones were deposited in heaps around the mine work sites at nearby Ballygowan. Their locations are no longer known.
Our Lady of Lourdes Church is a detached, cruciform-plan, gable-fronted church. It contains traditional elements such as transepts, belfry, apse, and nave but all articulated in a frank modern manner, using materials and the clarity of line and simplicity of form typical of twentieth-century architecture.
The church has an added interest in that it was built before Vatican II, so that while the structure is evidently modernist, aspects of the decoration on the interior reflect the ethos of the Roman Catholic Church before the changes brought about by Vatican II.
The map on the reverse of the sign is from the 1840 Ordnance survey. It shows this area with the Church of Ireland marked ‘Church’ occupying this site. The Roman Catholic Church is marked ‘R.C. Chapel’, and is located at the site now occupied by the Cuan Mhuire Meditation Garden. This beautiful, tranquil garden was constructed following the demolition of the original chapel in 1972. It is maintained by the local community and has hedges planted to mark out the floor plan of the former chapel.
Source/ Local conversations & internet
Artwork/ Fiona Woods
Posted in locations |Tipperary is passionate about sport, hurling in particular. While many youngsters find a social and physical outlet in sport, there are others who do not have this interest and for those youngsters, the opportunities for fun, daring and challenge have to take other forms, many of which are not sanctioned by society.
In 2007 an art project called Imagining Silvermines; a psychogeography took place in Silvermines, taking the form of a temporary museum. This Imaginary Museum gathered whatever information the community of Silvermines were willing to share about their place. The project received a lot of visits from local youth, who were cautious about sharing any information. Towards the end of the project, they divulged that a place called ‘Paradise’ was located in the direction of the mines, but they wouldn’t elaborate on its meaning.
Source/ Local conversations, artists’ & writer’s observations
Artwork/ Clive Moloney, Sally Anne McFadden & Fiona Woods
Posted in locations |
The Korean War was one of the most destructive of the 20th century. Perhaps as many as 4 million Koreans died throughout the peninsula, two-thirds of them civilians. Whilst destroying Korea, the war boosted the economies of countries such as Japan and the US through increased production of supplies and armaments.
The demand for metals and minerals rose substantially during this period. This meant that the reprocessing of ore previously discarded at Ballygowan became economically viable. The Waelz plant was constructed for this purpose; it was in production for just over two years, July 1950 – October 1952.
Source/ Internet & local conversations
Artwork/ Clive Moloney, Fiona Woods & Sally-Anne McFadden
Posted in locations |Ballygowan, on the edge of Silvermines village, has been mined for centuries. The last great bout of mining took place in the 19th C, although lead and silver had long been exhausted. Zinc and zinc-oxide, or calamine, were extracted from the remaining ore. Calamine gets its name from the town of Kelmis in present day Belgium; the mine works there were known as Vielle Montagne (French) or Altenberg (German). Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, both Prussia and the Netherlands were keen to have this valuable resource included in their territory.
As a compromise, the mine and the town of Kelmis became a neutral territory, jointly administered by the two nations. The newly established territory Neutral Moresnet had a more or less triangular shape, occupying approx. 3.5 square km. In 1859 it was granted a greater measure of self-administration when a mayor and council were installed. The zinc mine was the major employer in Neutral Moresnet and population of the territory averaged 3,000.
When the mine was exhausted in 1885 doubts arose about the continued survival of the territory. A casino was established which did very well after gambling was outlawed in Belgium. The territory also had three distilleries for the manufacture of gin.
In 1908, Dr. Wilhelm Molly proposed making Neutral Moresnet the world’s first Esperanto speaking state, named Amikejo (place of friendship). A number of Kelmis residents learned Esperanto and in 1908 a great propaganda demonstration for the Esperanto state Amikejo was held in the pavilion of the shooting association. This self-declared Esperanto republic lasted until WWI when the Germans invaded Belgium in 1914. Following the Treaty of Versailles the territory of Neutral Moresnet was awarded to Belgium.
Source/ www.moresnet.nl. Text and image reproduced by kind permission of Cees Damen.
Artwork/ Fiona Woods
Posted in locations |This site was the campsite in the 1970’s of a man known locally as ‘Carthy the Tinker’. Carthy was a member of the Traveller Community who spent a few months every year in Silvermines and is remembered with affection in the village. He was a lone Traveller, known for his smart appearance.
The term ‘tinker’ was originally drawn from the trade of tinsmithing, for which Traveller people were famous. The term was in common usage in the 1970’s, not necessarily an insulting term at the time. ‘Travellers’ is the term preferred by the Traveller Community.
After the death of Carthy, the local Irish Countrywomen’s Association (ICA) converted this piece of waste ground into a Rose Garden, now a Shrub Garden.
Source/ Local conversations, participating artist research & writer’s observations.
Artwork/ Sally Anne McFadden.
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