THE HANDSTAND

AUGUST 2002

The Ford of
Lyng
Place names, with a history that is hard to find.
The Ford of Lyng is a place of great antiquity and that it had a focus of great importance in ancient Celtic Ireland is certain.We are told that the Lyng family were feudal lords of the area.But recorded history does not throw much light on the exploits, successes or failure of their Celtic antecedents.It is believed that the site of St.Micil's Church Yard was a Celtic shrine,before the Norman Sinnotts had a church erected there. We notice that it is still perfectly round in shape. Druidic influences survived there and in my youth it was yet called a "forbidding place."

The stories are that the Lyng family had their camp at Rathdowney, though some say, at The Still of the Grange. Each place affords a lookout from where they could keep a sharp eye on all sea-going traffic to and from the town of Ballybrennan. No surprise! it was a sea-port until the outlying slob was re-claimed in 1845. The ancient storehouse still stands there.Coal, wheat, barley and oats were shipped there.

Again, some have said the Lyngs lived at the Ford, and it is evident that the name was derived from the fact that a Ford existed where the little bridge now stands. A bridge doubtless built by the Normans. Remember, there were no roads before they came, only cattle tracks and fords.

The Normans came in 1160 and the Sinnott family took over Ballybrennan and the district. The Lyngs were dispossessedd but the name survived. After five hundred years of experience with the Normans came Cromwell. In 1649 he sent Lieut.General Michael Jones from Wexford with 500 Horse and Roundheads to destroy the Fort of Rosslare. On the way they threw out the Sinnotts from Ballybrennan, killed their priest and levelled the Church. Continuing their route they did the same at St. Rita's Little Church and at St. Brigid's on the Barrow. They captured the Fort and slaughtered the Rosslare people, in the "murder hall" opposite Pat Ryan's pub.On their way back, Jones sent a detachment under the infamous Colonel Cooke. He destroyed the Augustinian Priory on Our Lady's Island, demolished the Parish Church and murdered the last Parish Priest in Rosslare Father James Comerford. He then installed the Jacobs in Rathdowney, Bush and Ayers in Ballybrennan and returned to Wexford.

A strong family, the Sinnotts recovered and set-up at Cottage,Tagoat, and prospered in spite of the Penal Laws. Jones had given the Manor of Rosslare to the Boyd's. The Ayrs, Jacobs and Boyds then dominated the patrimony of the ancient Lyngs of the Ford for the next 300 years, only dying out in our own day.

However, through it all the name of Lyng survived. Lar Lambert of Poulrankin lived opposite St.Micil's. scared out of his life of the Church path going through Bush where someone ploughed across it. Will Bent of Burrow,(grandfather of Michael Bent), was subsequently killed there when his horse threw him one winter's night. The "Beach Hare" was often seen. My grandmother would meet with others as a girl, to travel home from Tagoat, and they would often see it, hunted by the "Running Dog"; but the pair would always be seen again and again... A place shrouded in mystery, and far beyond the Celtic settlements this family name still survives to our own day.

The late James Ennis, Michael Murphy and his wife and Lar Lambert all had stories of this place, that have now faded from memory.
Ibar Murphyİ30/8/87

above Inistioge rises Mount Allta - in Gaelic "the wild place of the boars"