County Cavan Guide (An Cabhán)
“The Breffni County” - in the province of Ulster. County town: Cavan.
A county of a lake for every day of the year, where the Shannon rises.
A county of a lake for every day of the year, Cavan is rolling drumlin country in the border lakelands of Ulster. The mighty River Shannon rises here, in the Shannon Pot, and the landscape of small hills and water is made for fishing, walking and quiet escape. Wooded, watery and unhurried.
They say Cavan has a lake for every day of the year, and the claim is scarcely an exaggeration: the county's drumlin belt is threaded with hundreds of lakes and little hills left behind by the last Ice Age. This is the old heartland of the Gaelic kingdom of East Breifne, ruled by the O'Reillys, whose name still dominates the local phone book and the GAA team sheet. On the slopes of Cuilcagh mountain rises the Shannon Pot, the traditional source of Ireland's longest river, while underground the county shares the Marble Arch Caves Geopark with Fermanagh, the world's first cross-border geopark.
Though part of Ulster, Cavan lies in the Republic, and its border position shaped centuries of plantation, partition and quiet resilience. The land favours small farms, lakes and hedgerows over big fields, and the county's fortunes were built on markets, linen and later engineering and food businesses in towns like Cootehill, Kingscourt and Ballyjamesduff. Cavan people are famed, with a wink, for their thrift, but the county gave generously of its emigrants: from Marcus Daly, the Copper King of Montana, to the thousands whose descendants come back looking for townlands around Belturbet, Bailieborough and Virginia.
Cities, towns and villages in Cavan
- Cavan - The county town, grown around a 14th-century Franciscan friary, with a fine 1940s cathedral and a strong record of hosting the Fleadh Cheoil.
- Virginia - Planned plantation town on Lough Ramor, founded around 1610 and named in honour of Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen.
- Ballyjamesduff - Market town immortalised in Percy French's song Come Back Paddy Reilly, home to the Cavan County Museum and birthplace of Montana copper magnate Marcus Daly.
- Cootehill - Handsome planter town that prospered on the 18th-century linen trade, named after the Coote family.
- Belturbet - Historic garrison town on the River Erne, now a popular boating base on the Shannon-Erne Waterway.
- Bailieborough - East Cavan market town, birthplace of the pacifist and 1916 martyr Francis Sheehy-Skeffington.
- Kingscourt - Town beside the great gypsum deposits that supply much of the plasterboard used in Irish construction.
- Ballyconnell - Border town at the Cavan end of the restored Shannon-Erne Waterway, in the shadow of Cuilcagh mountain.
- Blacklion - Small border village facing Fermanagh, known for the Cavan Burren's prehistoric landscape and Neven Maguire's MacNean House restaurant.
Famous people from Cavan
- Marcus Daly - Ballyjamesduff emigrant who became the Copper King of Butte, Montana, and one of the richest men in 19th-century America.
- Owen Roe O'Neill - The great Gaelic general of the 1640s, victor of Benburb, who died at Cloughoughter Castle in Cavan in 1649 and was buried at Cavan Abbey.
- St Kilian - Seventh-century missionary from Mullagh who evangelised Franconia and was martyred at Würzburg, where he is still the city's patron saint.
- Francis Sheehy-Skeffington - Pacifist, feminist and journalist born in Bailieborough, murdered by a British officer while trying to stop looting during the 1916 Rising.
- John Charles McQuaid - The formidable Archbishop of Dublin from 1940 to 1972, one of the most influential figures in 20th-century Irish life, born in Cootehill.
- T.P. McKenna - Distinguished stage and screen actor from Mullagh whose career ran from the Abbey Theatre to decades of British film and television.
- John Joe O'Reilly - The Gallant John Joe, captain of the Cavan team that won the 1947 All-Ireland football final at the Polo Grounds in New York.
- Neven Maguire - Celebrity chef and cookbook author whose MacNean House in Blacklion became one of Ireland's most sought-after restaurant bookings.
Did you know?
- The 1947 All-Ireland football final, in which Cavan beat Kerry, was played at the Polo Grounds in New York, the only final ever staged outside Ireland.
- The Shannon Pot on the slopes of Cuilcagh is the traditional source of the River Shannon, Ireland's longest river.
- Cavan is reputed to contain 365 lakes, one for every day of the year, a legacy of its Ice Age drumlin landscape.
- Songwriter Percy French worked in County Cavan as an inspector of drains in the 1880s, and later immortalised Ballyjamesduff in Come Back Paddy Reilly.
- The Marble Arch Caves Geopark, shared between Cavan and Fermanagh, became the world's first international cross-border geopark in 2008.
- The original Ballinamore-Ballyconnell canal was such a failure that only eight boats paid tolls before it closed; reborn in 1994 as the Shannon-Erne Waterway, it now links Ireland's two great river systems.
- The plain of Magh Slécht near Ballyconnell was, according to early Irish texts, the cult centre of the pagan idol Crom Cruach, associated with the carved Killycluggin Stone.
- Much of the plasterboard used in Irish building comes from the gypsum deposits mined around Kingscourt.
Surnames from Cavan: Brady · O'Reilly · McGowan · Smith · Clarke · McCabe · Dolan · Sheridan · McGovern · Fitzsimons · Carolan · Finnegan