Study Abroad Ireland is based in Athlone, Co. Westmeath, in the Midlands of Ireland. When we meet Irish people who don’t live in the Midlands, and we tell them we stay in Athlone they are astonished. They almost always ask, “Why?” Why would we come all the way from America to stay in Athlone? In the Midlands, where it’s flat and nothing is happening?
We stay here because the Midlands, and especially Athlone, is perfect for us. Athlone is at the crossroads of Ireland. When you are in Athlone, you are in the middle of Ireland in every way – geographically, historically, and mythologically.
The Shannon River, the longest river in Ireland flows through it from north to south, and the ancient Dublin to Galway road goes through from east to west.
There has been a ford on the Shannon since the Bronze Age. The first bridge was built in the 11th century, and Sean’s, Ireland’s oldest pub, has been around since the 900s. Just a few miles to the south is Clonmacnoise, one of the most important monastic settlements.
Less than 20 miles to the east of Athlone is the Hill of Uisneach and the Aill na Mireann, The Rock of Divisions. This has been known as the sacred center of Ireland since there were people in Ireland. Modern geographers have confirmed that the ancient people got it right: the hill is within six miles of the scientifically determined center-point of the island.
An old Irish text, The Settling of the Manor of Tara, tells that it was great immortal Fintan who stood at the Rock of Divisions and divided Ireland into its five provinces: Ulster to the north, Leinster to the east, Munster to the south, and Connacht to the west. And he named one other province: the royal province of Meath, the province to unite all the others.
Athlone, so near the center of it all, is where two of those provinces still meet. When you are on the east side of the Athlone bridge you are in Leinster; on the west you are in Connacht.
There are three main theories on the name “Athlone.”
The first is that it means the Ford of Luain. According to Sean’s Bar, that establishment was originally the Inn of a man named Luain, right at the ford, where people could rest and get refreshment. The Irish word for ford is atha. So, Atha Luain became Athlone.
The second comes from the Irish national epic, The Cattle Raid of Cooley. At the end of the story, after Maeve’s brown bull killed and dismembered Aillil’s white bull, a portion of the thigh, or loin, of the white bull was stuck on the horns of the brown bull. When the brown bull passed by the ford on the Shannon that now bears its name, the loin fell into the water. It was then after known as the ford of the loin, or Athlone.
A third suggestion is that the name means the Ford of the Moon, Atha Luan, with Luan coming from the Latin luna, or moon.
My favorite story about Athlone’s name comes from Miss Maureen Farrell. Maureen was in the 5th standard, or grade, in Moate somewhere between 1937 and 1939. You can see the page from Maureen’s copybook here.
Maureen and 50,000 other Irish children from 5,000 schools were sent out to their families and neighbors to gather “oral history, topographical information, folktales and legends, riddles and proverbs, games and pastimes, trades and crafts.” They gathered 740,000 pages in Irish and English that are still being transcribed and catalogued.
Here is Maureen’s story about how Athlone got its name:
There was a battle in Athlone many ages ago. A man was coming along the road after the battle. He saw a wounded man by the roadside, He said to him "Thou art alone". And from that day to this the town is called Athlone.
Maureen didn’t include who she got this story from. I like to imagine her father, or one of her grandparents telling her this story. Maybe by a peat fire, or as they walked to school, or made dinner. I can see Maureen neatly writing it down in her copybook, which was carefully preserved by her teacher, and then by the National Folklore Commission, so that eight decades later we can read it on our computers and think about her and her family.
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