the lost gaeltacht

In spring, 1940, twenty-four families boarded two buses in Clonbur to make new lives in a new Gaeltacht colony in Meath. 

 

A living wake took place, the likes of which had not been seen before in Clonbur. Strong men kissed stone walls. They left the lakes, rivers and mountains of the poorest and most congested districts anywhere in Connacht for the lush, fertile lands of Meath. 

 

Through the resettlement identified by De Valera's government and the Irish Land Commission as 'Gaeltacht Colony Number 5', the migrants would make new homes.

 

This is their story - of poverty and congestion in rural slums in the west, the selection process by the Land Commission, threats and conflict and opposition, settlement and social integration in Allenstown, their struggle for survival during 'The Emergency’, their triumph and their ongoing relationship with their western homeland, and the death of a Gaeltacht.