Hidden secrets of historic Castle Lane in Mayo county town

By Tom Gillespie

THE late Michael Basquill from Newport Road, Castlebar, penned an article for the Castlebar Parish Magazine some years ago which revealed some interesting but little known facts surrounding General Humbert and the Races of Castlebar, which took place on August 27, 1798.

The article was headed Castle Street, or as Michael referred to it, Castle Lane, as it is better known to ‘auld stock’ of the county town.

In the Year of the French a family resided in a house in Castle Street now occupied by Thomas Collins. The woman of the house was Mrs. Thompson - her maiden name was Canton - and her grandfather and his brother were both responsible for carrying a wounded French officer from the Main Street, where the main offensive occurred at the river junction, to what was the residence of the Connolly family.

The same day General Humbert called to the house to enquire as to the condition of the injured officer. The general was welcomed by the owner of the house, Mrs. Canton. She invited him to stay at the house, which was coach house and an inn, which he did.

One of the daughters of the house, Miss Canton, later married the injured French officer and the couple returned to reside in France.

The couple had two daughters, who later joined the nuns, and they used to send gifts to their relations in Castlebar, particularly Mrs. Thompson in Castle Lane. One of the gifts was a rosary beads, which Michael Basquill’s mother, May, saw as a young girl.

Michael suggested in the article that should, at a future date, a plaque in memory of General Humbert be erected in the town, the appropriate place would be what was Connolly’s and Mandel’s shops, which then was one building - now Rings & Things and Next Step and the Great Indian restaurant upstairs.

Michael said many would remember where the Castle Bistro stood on Castle Street, at the entrance to Castle Street car park. Prior to the Bistro the Basquill family, relations of the author, had a tailor shop or pub there.

It was in this building that Michael Davitt held many meetings in connection with the formation of the Land League, which took place on August 16, 1879, in the nearby Imperial Hotel on the Mall. One of the co-founders of the Land League was James Daly, proprietor of The Connaught Telegraph.

During the Races of Castlebar a blockade was erected by the British in one last stand at Bridge Street, just below the Connolly/Mandel residence.

A yeoman who had been attending his cattle spotted the French/Irish advance party as they approached Castlebar from the Lahardane direction. He fled to the town to alert the British.

Library Ireland has the following account of the ‘Races’: At the bridge over Castlebar River a horrible crush ensued. The main body of the British army had converged to that point, and the narrow structure was blocked with field guns, caissons (a two-wheeled cart designed to carry artillery ammunition) and supply wagons, against which the struggling mass of humanity surged in unreasoning terror.

Here it was every man for himself, the alternative to the luckless foot soldier being death under the hoof or a plunge into the waters beneath.

To increase the confusion some shots fell in among the fugitives, and in their desperation they turned their weapons against each other.

How many perished on the bridge has never been fully ascertained, but for weeks afterwards the river and the lough nearby threw up mutilated corpses in the uniform of the British line and the Anglo-Irish yeomanry.

But the battle was not yet over. The most desperate fighting was still to come.

Unable to hold their ground the British retired to the bridge, and took up position there with a curricle gun.

To dislodge the enemy from both these positions Humbert detached his cavalry from his centre and moved it on to the town, with some infantry.

A Protestant citizen present at the battle thus related some of the details of this conflict: “Colonel Miller,” he says, “rushed into the town crying: ‘Clear the street for action!’ when in a moment, as a dam bursting its banks, a mixture of soldiers of all kinds rushed in at every avenue.

A British eyewitness said: “Four brave Highlanders at a cannon kept up a brisk fire on the French, but were killed while loading, the gunner taken, and the guns turned on our men. Now the street action became hot; before it was peal answering peal, but now thunder answering thunder; a black cloud of horrors hid the light of heaven - the messengers of death groping their way, as in gloomy hell, whilst the trembling echoes which shook our town concealed the more melancholy groans of the dying.

“When the French approached the jail, our sentinel (a Fraser Fencible) killed one Frenchman, charged and killed another, shot a third and a fourth and, as he fired at and killed the fifth, a number rushed up the steps, dashed his brains out, tumbling him from from his stand, and the sentry-box on his body.

“The street action lasted nearly an hour, during which period every foot of ground was obstinately disputed. The British, still having the advantage of position and numbers, inflected severe losses on their opponents, and were only overcome in the end by the sheer pluck and hard fighting on the part of the latter.”