Wreath laid on the grave of a great Mayo man, Patrick Knight

Members of Belmullet Town’s Bicentenary Committee have discovered the grave of Patrick Knight, the architect who designed the north Mayo town.

They did so as part of their work to remember the lives and work of those who founded the town 200 years ago.

The tomb in the Old Cemetery, Castlebar, was significantly overgrown.

However, thanks to the generous work of local men Ernie Sweeney and Colin Kneafsey, the tomb was cleaned up before the Belmullet 200 Committee laid a wreath on it in remembrance of Patrick Knight's contribution to the development of their community.

On its Facebook page, Belmullet 200 penned the following article about Patrick Knight (c1790 to 1844), engineer, surveyor, architect, geologist, cartographer, land agent, landlord, folklore and song collector and author.

He was an uncle of the poet Olivia Knight, who is fondly remembered in the county town and has an estate 'Knightspark' named in her honour.

The article outlined: "Patrick Knight’s legacy continues to be felt in the Barony of Erris today.

"A man before his time, who appreciated the heritage and culture of our home.

"Knight leaves us clear directions in a letter which he inscribed to the town's developer-landlord and patron, William Henry Carter.

"It stated: ’The history of the present state of Erris will, in a few years, become only a matter of curiosity, as comparing it with progressive improvements.

"To an individual who has been one of the great causes of its commencement and steady advance, after ages will be grateful, and he himself will retire from the stage of existence with the happy consciousness of being the benefactor of his fellow creatures, and that he leaves behind him a successor, who has the judgment and good sense to pursue those well-laid plans, which are the foundation of all improvement.’

"Born to a working-class Catholic merchant family in Castlebar, c1790, Knight advanced rapidly alongside his brother Simon as an apprentice surveyor and cartographer.

"Both men were employed from 1809 to 1812 as assistant engineers to William Bald in his surveys of the bogs of south and east Mayo for the Royal Commission.

"Concurrent with this commission, Patrick Knight was employed by Bald as an assistant cartographer in Bald’s Trigonometrical Survey of County Mayo, 1809-1813.

"From 1817 to 1822, Patrick Knight was again noted to be working alongside Bald as an assistant engineer in the creation of the Castlebar Road to Tarmon Pier via Belmullet.

"The eminent engineer Alexander Nimmo was drafted-in to complete the road between 1822 and 1824 with the aid of Knight.

"On the completion of the Castlebar-Erris road in 1824, a work described as having ‘thrown open Erris to improvement’, Knight was approached by the principal landlord of Erris, William Henry Carter of Castlemartin, County Kildare, to plan and construct a new town to serve the vast rural district of Erris, to be situated on the isthmus between Blacksod and Broadhaven Bays.

"Having been responsible for in-depth surveys of the wider region in the preparation of maps and for the implementation of infrastructure, Knight held a unique understanding of the local context in terms of material and resources, which informed his plans for the construction of an ambitious new town in the rural outer reaches of Erris.

"Knight laid-out the exemplary planned town of Belmullet from 1824 on a constructed polder which was reclaimed from the marsh which then existed at this isthmus.

"A regular rectilinear grid of streets was laid out, radiating from a central square. Knight’s understanding of contemporary European urban design is clearly demonstrated within this planned composition.

"Belmullet Town emerged, described by Knight as a ‘mirage in the desert’, uniquely and strategically positioned between two sheltered bays which provided optimum safe anchorage for Atlantic trade.

"Although of limited means, Knight contributed significant personal funds to ensure the town’s advancement and to improve trade and prosperity in this impoverished region, ‘..who from a feeling of ambition to have as good a pier at Belmullet (of which he was the original projector) as at any other part of Erris, executed the work in a style equal, if not superior, to any other in the country (though not obliged to do so by his specifications), at an additional expense, entirely borne by himself, of £227 1s. 1d. This is the only exporting pier in Erris.’

"During his lifetime, Knight integrated within the Erris community, marrying Sarah Gamble, the daughter of Arthur Gamble of Surgeview, a family known for their generosity to their tenants, particularly in times of hardship.

"Poetry, song and music was clearly part of the Knight household.

"Patrick Knight must also be thanked for collecting for posterity many of the songs and verse of Erris’s most noted poet, Riocard Bairéad. Knight often visited Riocard at Leam Cottage, referring to him as a man of ‘real genius…a more original, feeling, delightful composer in his native language to all the grand and soul-stirring airs of Carolan, never delighted a native Irishman.

"Further, Patrick Knight’s niece, Olivia Knight (1830-1908), emerged as an important Irish-Australian poet and essayist, having been forced to leave their impoverished conditions in Ireland in 1859 for Queenstown, Australia, where she continued to contribute to nationalist writing and publications.

"Patrick Knight published his town plan in 1836 in his treatise on the region, ’Erris in the Highlands and Atlantic Railway’.

"He remarked in this book that this publication was ’intended to be one of nine others, for each Barony in Mayo, but professional avocations which called away the author to another part of Ireland prevented, for the present, the completion of the design.’

"These professional avocations may well have involved Richard Griffith, of the valuations Office, who had drawn the bog maps and reported on Erris for the Royal Commission.

"In 1840 Knight is recorded to be resident in Trim, Co. Meath, and in 1841 Knight was reported to be working with the Valuation office on Baggot Street, Dublin, at which time he became a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Three years later in 1844, his death is recorded in the minute papers of the institution.

"Members of the Belmullet 200 team have been attempting to trace the lives of the town founders, William Henry Carter (landlord), John Crampton (land agent), Patrick Knight (town planner), William Ivors (principal merchant), Charles Nash (merchant and landlord) and Captain John Nugent (commander of the coastguard).

"As we unearth further research on the town’s origins and its founders, we will continue to disseminate this material via our social media platforms."