Clontibret

Clontibret Cluain Tiobrad
Town
Clontibret Location in Ireland
Coordinates:
Country	Ireland
Province	Ulster
County	County Monaghan
Population (2006)
• Urban	300
Time zone	WET (UTC+0)
• Summer (DST)	IST (WEST) (UTC-1)

Clontibret (Irish: Cluain Tiobrad, meaning "Well of the meadow") is a village and a parish in County Monaghan, Ireland. The population in the 2011 census was 325. Clontibret is also a parish in both Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland traditions. The territory of the parish also includes Annyalla and Doohamlet as well as smaller settlements such as Cremartin, Scotch Corner and Lisnagrieve.

Village

The village is situated close to the border with Northern Ireland, between the towns of Monaghan and Castleblayney, along the N2 National primary road which links Dublin and Derry. The village population in 2006 was approximately 300.

Parish

Clontibret is a parish in the Diocese of Clogher. The Catholic parish has three churches - St. Mary's, north of Clontibret village, St. Michael's, in the nearby village of Annyalla and All Saints, in the village of Doohamlet, which is between the towns of Castleblayney and Ballybay. The Anglican Church of Ireland church is located on the ancient Christian site in Clontibret village. The wider parish area has a population of approximately 3,000 persons.

The Gaelic Athletic Association club and the Pipe Band in Clontibret are both named after Hugh O'Neill Earl of Tyrone, victor at the Battle of Clontibret 1595).

History

In 1595 the adjacent countryside was the site of the Battle of Clontibret. The territory of Monaghan had been wrested from the control of the MacMahon clan in 1591, when the clan leader was executed by English authority. Subsequent encroachments by the English into the province of Ulster led to the Nine Years War (1595–1603). The battle was the earliest clash between the two sides, with the Irish led by Hugh O'Neill and the English by Sir Henry Bagenal. Although O'Neill won the battle, the war ended with the completion of the English conquest of Ireland. In 1610 the Plantation of Ulster was established, an event that still defines certain political allegiances in the north of Ireland.

On 7 August 1986, in protest at the Anglo-Irish Agreement, Northern Irish unionist politician Peter Robinson led an "invasion party" of 500 unionist militants into Clontibret and held a military parade with drill in the square, before being forced by the Gardaí to retreat back across the border. Irish authorities claimed that there were no more than 150 militants. Two Gardaí were beaten by the mob, while Robinson and others were arrested, tried, and eventually fined for the incident. Riots took place at Dundalk during the trial of Robinson, where Ian Paisley, then leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was attacked with stones and petrol bombs. For more information, see Clontibret invasion.

People

• J. B. Bury (1861–1927) historian and academic was born in Clontribet. He was Professor of Roman History at Trinity College Dublin and later at Cambridge.
• General John O'Neill, who led the ill-fated Fenian invasions of Canada in 1866, 1870 and 1871, was born at Drumgallon in Clontibret in 1839. After a career in the army during the American Civil War he joined forces with the Fenians and later established an Irish colony in Nebraska where today the city of O'Neill, Nebraska is named after him.
• Roman Catholic Bishop Brendan Comiskey, former Bishop of Ferns, Co Wexford, was born in Tassan, Clontibret on 13 August 1935. He was auxiliary Bishop of Dublin from 1980 until his appointment to Ferns in 1984. He resigned as Bishop of Ferns in 2002 following allegations that he failed to deal adequately with complaints of child sexual abuse.
• Senator John Brennan, a Fianna Fáil member of Seanad Éireann from 1960 until 1977 and a member of Monaghan Co Council from 1942 until 1974 was also from Tassan, Clontibret.
• Patrick Duffy, a seventeenth-century Roman Catholic Bishop of Clogher, is buried at what is now the Church of Ireland church. He was a native of Aughnamulen parish. The Duffy family controlled the lands and Church of Clontibret during the medieval period.

Gold Discovery

In 2008 the village was in the media spotlight due to the discovery of a major gold resource in the locality estimated in excess of 1 million ounces. This resource estimate, the result of work in the area by Dublin-based mineral exploration company Conroy Diamonds and Gold, was believed by the company's directors to be the largest ever reported in Ireland and the UK.

See also

• List of towns and villages in Ireland