Moore Hall, on the shores of Lough Carra is a ‘Big House’ which was built to impress by George Moore, great-grandfather of renowned novelist, dramatist and cultural activist, George Augustus Moore (1852-1933). Built out of the spoils of the elder Moore’s lucrative wine business in the 1790s, it became home to generations of high-achieving Moores, from George Augustus’ great-uncle John who, in 1798 was dubbed ‘President of Connacht’ by General Humbert after the Rebellion, to his own father, George Henry’s good works, advocacy and service as an MP in the British Parliament. Known as a fair landlord (a rare moniker in those times) who used his gambling fortune to provide food and cattle for his tenants during the famine (when Mayo was badly stricken) George Henry was a defender of the rights of Catholic farmers. A memorial on the grounds of Moore Hall reads:
Burial Place of the Moores of Moore Hall
This Catholic Patriot family is honoured
for their famine relief and their refusal
to barter principles for English gold.
The most famous of the Moores, George Augustus Moore, is seen by some as the first great modern novelist and he played an important role in the Celtic Literary Revival, an important political and cultural movement, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Moore, together with W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn created the Irish Literary Theatre (precursor to the Abbey Theatre), whose mission it was to provide a theatre for Irish plays.
Highly accomplished and somewhat the enfant terrible, Moore’s stint in Paris had him rubbing shoulders with the likes of Pissarro, Degas, Renoir and Monet. But it was Emile Zola who made the greatest impact on Moore’s development. A prolific writer and cultural activist, his influence spread far and wide and portraits of him by Manet, Degas, Orpen and Yeats adorn the walls of collectors and galleries around the world.
The house is situated between Claremorris and Ballinrobe, on the shores of Lough Carra in Muckloon townland, a location which was considered unlucky by locals when it was built, as it was supposed to have been the site of the ancient slaying of the King of Connacht’s Druid, Drithliu, around 400 A.D.
Architect John Roberts, who built Waterford Cathedral and Tyrone House in Galway, designed the house, taking care to align the house with the lake to offer the best possible panoramic views over Lough Carra. George Moore and Oscar WIlde undoubtedly had lively conversations on that lakeshore during the months when the Wilde family came to their nearby summerhouse, Moytura House.
The estate was owned by the Moore Family until it was burnt down during the Civil War in 1923. Being a “Big House” it succumbed to the rebels, more for what it symbolised than for its history. Today, owned by the State, Moore Hall is a shadow of its former glory and its tenants now, less celebrated, extend to the Lesser Horseshoe Bat. The grounds have a lovely looped walk which takes you through the woods surrounding the house, though the house is not accessible to the public.
The glassy stillness of Lough Carra is a pleasure at any time, but as you walk through the woods and imagine the passionate conversations and heated debates which must have taken place in the house through generations of turbulent and challenging times in Irish history, not only among the Moore family themselves, but among their many accomplished and influential visitors, including St. John Gogarty, Lady Gregory, Douglas Hyde, Maria Edgeworth and W.B. Yeats, one cannot help but wish that the trees could talk and imagine what wonderful things they might say.