Ardagh Heritage Village

Ardagh is County Longfords most picturesque village with many historical and architecturally important features. The early history of Ardagh begins a short distance outside the village at Brí Leith. This forested hill was once a famous centre of pre-Christian religious worship. With the coming of Christianity in the 5th century religious worship moved away from Brí Leith to Ardagh itself and the village developed around a monastery founded here by Saint Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland. It was here during the 5th century that St. Patrick appointed his nephew St. Mel as one of the earliest Irish bishops and head of the Diocese of Ardagh. Saint Mel was also Abbott of the monastery in Ardagh and the revered Saint is said to be buried beneath the ruins of the church which now stands there.

St Brigid also spent time in Ardagh before founding her famous monastery at Kildare. St Brigid - Mary of the Gael - is second only to St Patrick in the esteem of the Irish people. It would appear that the veneration of St Brigid incorporates elements of a much older pagan or goddess tradition which was well established in celtic Ireland and made the transition to christianity without loosing much of her importance. The feast day of St Brigid is still celebrated on 1st February, the pagan feast of Imbolg, the festival of Spring and the coming of fertility to the land. As far away as the Hebrides, she was popular in Catholic areas until recent times and was invoked as patron of childbirth by the women. St Brigid is renowned as having founded the first convent in Ireland where a large number of noble ladies entered the convent as postulants. It was there that Brigid and her companions completed their novitiate at the end of which they journeyed to Ardagh and made their final vows to St Mel, bishop of Ardagh and nephew of St Patrick. In Ardagh she founded another convent and remained for twelve years, during which time the convent so flourished that at the request of many bishops she sent religious sisters to counties all over Ireland.

While Ardaghs importance declined with the coming of the Normans, a change in its fortunes was to occur with the arrival of a new family, the Fetherstons. The Fetherstons made Ardagh their new home and built the present Ardagh House in the early 1700s. The enduring legacy of the Fetherstons is the village of Ardagh itself. While the village and estate were managed by Sir George Ralph Fetherston and his English wife Frances Solly from Essex, it was Sir Georges nephew who was to have the most dramatic impact on Ardagh. The heritage village as seen today was designed and built by the famous Victorian architect John Rawson Carroll, a friend of the fetherston's, as a memorial to Sir George. Many of the buildings in the village were built at this time.

The story of Ardagh is one not only of religious and archetectural history, but also literature and storytelling due to its association with Goldsmith, Sir Walter Scott and Maria Edgeworth. The village features most significantly in Goldsmith’s ‘She Stoops to Conquer’. In was in 1744 that one of the most famous incidents in Ardaghs history occurred. This was the visit of a young Oliver Goldsmith who was fooled into mistaking Ardagh House for an Inn. His endeavors to court the Fetherston daughters in the belief that they were servant girls formed the plot of his most successful play "She Stoops to Conquer ", a comedy which explores the contemporary themes of sexual morality and double standards.

Ardagh Heritage Village

For further information contact:

00353 (0)43 42577/ 00353 (0)85 8888876
info@longfordtourism.ie
http://www.creativeardagh.com/
www.ardaghnews.com

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Ardagh Heritage Village