Cornagnoe, Ogonelloe, Co. Clare

Cornagnoe, Caher Mountain, Ogonelloe, Co. Clare. Photograph and following text taken from article with permission from author, Michael McNamara.
Some things never change."The young lads would run home from mass on Sunday so they could get in a few games before the big lads came."
This tale was related to John Cooney by Michael Minogue of Cornagnoe about the alley in that part of the parish. Almost 90 years later in the 50s things hadn't changed, we had to do the same thing in order to get our game.
The alley in Cornagnoe came about when the bog road was built in the 1860s. In one place the road had to be built over a deep dried up river bed. It was approximately 28' wide and 15' deep. The wall from foundation to road level was built with well dressed, level faced sandstone, a natural ball alley. The locals, realising the potential of the site as an alley painted the walls with Dobh Bui (some of which still remains, and levelled the floor).
This alley was in use until the early part of this century, when the Gleeson family who arrived to the parish in 1903 gave the site of the present alley to people of the parish [see Ogonelloe blog entry].