The island of Ireland, showing location of County Leitrim.Glencar Waterfall at Glencar Lough
Leitrim is the 26th in size of the 32 counties by area (21st of the 26 counties of the Republic) and the smallest by population.[7] It is the smallest of Connacht's five counties in both size and population. Leitrim is bordered by the counties of Donegal to the north, Fermanagh to the north-east, Cavan to the east, Longford to the south, Roscommon to the south-west and Sligo to the west. Fermanagh is in Northern Ireland while all the other neighbouring counties are within the Republic of Ireland.
Leitrim has a hilly and mountainous landscape in its northwest and is relatively flat in the southeast, each separated from the other by Lough Allen in the middle of the county. Leitrim has the shortest length of coastline of any Irish county that touches the sea. At Tullaghan, the coastline is only 4.7 kilometres (2.9mi) long.[8] The Shannon is linked to the Erne via the Shannon–Erne Waterway. Notable lakes include:
In ancient times Leitrim formed the western half of the Kingdom of Breifne. This region was long influenced by the O'Rourke family of Dromahair, whose heraldic lion occupies the official county shield to this day. Close ties initially existed with the O'Reilly clan in the eastern half of the kingdom, however, a split occurred in the 13th century and the kingdom was divided into East Breifne, now County Cavan, and West Breifne, now County Leitrim. The Normans invaded south Leitrim in the 13th century but were defeated at the Battle of Áth an Chip in 1270.
Much of the county was confiscated from its owners in 1620 and given to Villiers and Hamilton. Their initial objective was to plant the county with English settlers. However, this proved unsuccessful. English Deputy Sir John Perrot had ordered the legal establishment of "Leitrim County" a half-century prior, in 1565. Perrott also demarcated the current county borders around 1583.
Leitrim countryside
Long ago Ireland was covered in woodland,[9][10] and five great forests are traditionally said to have stood in Leitrim, with a 19th-century county survey stating- "a hundred years ago almost the whole country was one continued, undivided forest, so that from Drumshanbo to Drumkeeran, a distance of nine or ten miles, one could travel the whole way from tree to tree by branches".[11] Many of these great forests were denuded for the making of charcoal for iron works around Sliabh an Iarainn.[9] Working of the county's rich deposits of iron ore began in the 15th century and continued until the mid-18th century. Coal mining became prominent in the 19th century to the east of Lough Allen at Sliabh an Iarainn and also to the west in Arigna, on the Roscommon border. The last coal mine closed in July 1990 and there is now a visitor centre.[12] Sandstone was also quarried in the Glenfarne region.
The Stone bridge at Drumsna that connects counties Leitrim and Roscommon.
Writing in 1791, the geographer Beaufort suggested the county housing population encompassed 10,026 homes with "upwards of 50,000 inhabitants", the primary agriculture being cattle production, and the growth of flax sustaining the linen industry.[13] Leitrim was first hit by the recession caused by the mechanisation of linen weaving in the 1830s and its 155,000 residents (as of the 1841 census) were ravaged by the Great Famine and the population dropped to 112,000 by 1851. The population subsequently continued to decrease due to emigration. After many years, the wounds of such rapid population decline have finally started to heal. Agriculture improved over the last century. Leitrim now has the fastest growing population in Connacht.
The Book of Fenagh is the most famous medieval manuscript originating here. In the 19th century the poet John McDonald (of Dromod) lived in the county, and William Butler Yeats spent the turn of the twentieth century fascinated with Lough Allen and much of Leitrim. Glencar Waterfall, 11 kilometres (7mi) from Manorhamilton, inspired Yeats and is mentioned in his poem The Stolen Child.
Subdivisions
North and South Leitrim
Geographically, the county is almost evenly divided by Lough Allen (itself part of the River Shannon) and the River Shannon upstream from Lough Allen. While this boundary within the county runs from south to north, separating east from west in its immediate vicinity, the county extends much further north to the west of this line and much further south to the east, and the two parts of the county are commonly known as North Leitrim and South Leitrim, respectively. Uniquely among Irish counties, there is no way to cross from North Leitrim to South Leitrim as defined above (or vice versa) by road without leaving its boundaries. An alternative boundary between North and South Leitrim follows Sliabh an Iarainn east from Lough Allen rather than the River Shannon upstream from it, separating the baronies of Drumahaire to the north and Leitrim and Carrigallen to the south, as in the map in this section, although this boundary is crossed by a few roads including the regionalR207 road. North Leitrim under at least one definition is slightly larger than the south, comprising 51% of County Leitrim's land area. However, South Leitrim, with towns such as Carrick-on-Shannon, Ballinamore and Drumshambo, is significantly more populous, containing approximately 65% of the county's population as of 2016.[14]
Baronies
There are five historic baronies in the county. While baronies continue to be officially defined units, they are no longer used for many administrative purposes. Their official status is illustrated by Placenames Orders made since 2003, where official Irish names of baronies are listed under "Administrative units". They are Carrigallen, Drumahaire, Leitrim, Mohill and Rosclogher.[15]
Rural districts
Under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, County Leitrim was divided into the rural districts of Ballyshannon No. 3 (later renamed Kinlough), Bawnboy No. 2 (later renamed Ballinamore), Carrick-on-Shannon No. 1, Manorhamilton and Mohill.[16][17] The rural districts were abolished in 1925.[18]
Leitrim has the fastest-growing population of any county in Connacht. As measured by the census, the population rose by 36% between 2002 and 2022 to 35,087.[22]
2005 HEA statistics identified that Leitrim has the highest rate of participation in higher education in Ireland with 75% of 17- to 19-year-olds being admitted to a higher course.[23]
The county town is Carrick-on-Shannon (population 4,062).[19] It is a highly developed, prospering river port on the River Shannon and many tourists hire cruising boats here to explore the Shannon and the Shannon–Erne Waterway, which is a 63km canal linking the two river systems. It is amongst the fastest growing towns in Ireland and has grown by 25% in the past few years.[24]
Leitrim is part of the Dáil constituency of Sligo–Leitrim. This constituency existed from 1948 to 2007, and previously from 1923 to 1937 as Leitrim–Sligo. From 1937 to 1948, the county formed the Leitrim constituency. From 2007 until 2016, County Leitrim was divided between two constituencies: Roscommon–South Leitrim and Sligo–North Leitrim. This proved controversial, and at the 2007 general election there was no TD elected whose domicile was in the county. Sligo–Leitrim was recreated at the 2016 general election.
Supplementing the local and regional road networks are the N15 (Sligo-Leitrim-Donegal), N16 (Sligo-Leitrim-Enniskillen) and N4 (Sligo-Leitrim-Dublin) national roads.
The Cavan and Leitrim Railway opened on 17 October 1887. It consisted of two branches, meeting at Ballinamore which connected Dromod and Arigna with Belturbet. Services carried goods, passengers and coal from around Lough Allen. Although protested, the line finally closed on 31 March 1959. A revived heritage railway centre and transport museum with a running line has been based at Dromod since the 1990s.[27]
↑Archived 9 March 2005 at the Wayback Machine for post-1821 figures 1653 and 1659 figures from Civil Survey Census of those years Paper of Mr Hardinge to Royal Irish Academy 14 March 1865 For a discussion on the accuracy of pre-famine census returns see J. J. Lee "On the accuracy of the pre-famine Irish censuses" in Irish Population Economy and Society edited by JM Goldstrom and LA Clarkson (1981) p54 in and also New Developments in Irish Population History 1700–1850 by Joel Mokyr and Cormac Ó Gráda in The Economic History Review New Series Vol. 37 No. 4 (Nov. 1984) pp. 473–488.
↑County of Leitrim Local Electoral Areas and Municipal Districts Order 2018 (S.I. No. 623 of 2018). Signed on 19 December 2018. Statutory Instrument of the Government of Ireland.Archived from the original on 23 November 2019.Retrieved from Irish Statute Bookon 1 September 2020.
↑Grossman, Stefan (2016). Deluxe Anthology of O'Carolan Music for Fingerstyle Guitar. Mel Bay Publications, Incorporated. p.4. ISBN9781609740153.
Secondary sources
Historical
Boate, Gerard (1652). Irelands Natural History (Digitized 2009ed.). Samuell Hartlib, For the Common Good of Ireland, and more especially, for the benefit of the Adventurers and Planters therein; Imprinted at London for John Wright at the Kings Head, in the Old Bayley. Archived from the original on 24 February 2017. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
Henry (1914). "Woods and Trees of Ireland". Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society. Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society Vol. 3, No. 3 (Dec) (3). County Louth Archaeological and History Society: 237–245. doi:10.2307/27728012. JSTOR27728012.
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