A Duel at Dawn and Other Stories

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Location

Ballymoney
Ireland
51° 43' 45.2424" N, 8° 57' 1.5264" W
IE

Michael O’Connell and the Ballineen Enniskeane Area Heritage Group (BEAHG) recently launched a book entitled The Story of Old Ballymoney A History from Headstones. The book is the second publication by the group and focuses on the many fascinating stories and mysteries contained within Ballymoney graveyard close to the twin villages of Ballineen and Enniskeane in Co. Cork. The previous publication provided the raw data in the form of a plan of all the graveyard memorials and a record of all the legible inscriptions. Michael O’Connell believes that one of the major achievements of the group was the unravelling of the mystery surrounding the lost dedication for the old church at Ballymoney. The book reveals that the real name for the church is Croise na hEiri or Cross of the Resurrection. The book is on sale locally and is also available online through Bandon Books.

The Historic Graves project spent a very pleasant morning in the graveyard surrounding the old church at Ballymoney with four members of the group; Michael O’Connell, Bernie White, Oriana Conner and Richard Sweetman. We had the pleasure of touring the graveyard while recording some of the stories from the new book as recounted by those present. We used two Zoom H2 audio recorders one of which was connected to a Rode NTG-2 microphone. 
 
In one story Michael describes the tomb of Jane Wilson who was married to Joseph Daunt. Oriana Conner continues with a description of a famous duel fought between  Joseph Daunt and Daniel Conner following a courtroom disagreement. The duel was fought across the county boundary in Co. Waterford. Joseph Daunt was shot and is buried in the castellated Daunt Tomb in Ballymoney Graveyard.
 
The stories below were recorded that morning and together with the photographs and maps form a multi media tour of an Irish historic graveyard. The project was funded by the West Cork Development Partnership and supported by Catryn Power, Cork County Council Archaeologist.
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