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Randoon

Archaeological sites in County WestmeathForts in IrelandMountains and hills of County WestmeathUse Hiberno-English from March 2021Viking Age in Ireland
Randoon morning sky
Randoon morning sky

Randoon (Randún) is a Turgesius Viking fortress located southwest of Lough Lene in Ireland. The fortress is situated upon a hill in Ranaghan, dominating by its height all other ringforts in the area, and overlooking Lough Lene between the towns of Castlepollard and Collinstown. The locally used term fort refers to any of the multitude of ringforts, many of which have been overgrown by vegetation. These remain today as historical relics Early Medieval Period of Ireland and Western Europe; they protected by Irish national heritage law.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Randoon (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 53.657 ° E -7.252 °
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Address

L5741
N91 Y168 (Kinturk ED)
Ireland
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Randoon morning sky
Randoon morning sky
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Nearby Places

Fore, County Westmeath
Fore, County Westmeath

Fore (Irish: Baile Fhobhair, meaning "Townland of the Spring") is a village, next to the old Benedictine Abbey ruin of Fore Abbey, situated to the north of Lough Lene in County Westmeath, in Ireland. The village, (sister parish of nearby St. Mary's Collinstown) is situated within a valley between two hills: the Hill of Ben, the Hill of Houndslow, and the Ankerland rise area. There can be found the ruins of a Christian monastery, which had been populated at one time by French Benedictine monks from Évreux, Normandy. Fore is the anglicised version of the Irish name that signifies "the town of the water-springs" and was given to the area after Saint Feichin’s spring or well, which is next to the old church a short distance from where the ruined monastery still stands. It was St. Feichin who founded the ancient Fore Abbey around 630. By 665 (the time of the yellow plague) there were 300 monks living in the community. Another important aspect of Fore is the Fore Crosses one of which is in the village of Fore. There are 18 crosses; some crosses are plain (most likely to wind and rain erosion) whilst others still remain carved. These are spread out over 7 miles on roadways and in fields and bore witness to religious persecution during penal times. The Monk Gerald of Wales related the following legend of Féchín: " Chapter LII (Of the mill which no women enter) "There is a mill at Foure, in Meath, which St. Fechin made most miraculously with his own hands, in the side of a certain rock. No women are allowed to enter either this mill or the church of the saint; and the mill is held in as much reverence by the natives as any of the churches dedicated to the saint. It happened that when Hugh de Lacy was leading his troops through this place, an archer dragged a girl into the mill and there violated her. Sudden punishment overtook him; for being struck with infernal fire in the offending parts, it spread throughout his whole body, and he died the same night".

Castlepollard Mother & Baby Home

The Castlepollard Mother & Baby Home (also known as the Sacred Hearts Home) that operated between 1935 and 1971 in the town of Castlepollard, County Westmeath, Ireland, was a maternity home for unmarried mothers and their children in the former Kinturk Demesne or Manor previously owned by the 'Old English' Pollard family. The Home was run by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a religious order of Catholic nuns.Over the course of its operation, 4,972 unmarried pregnant women were sent to the Home to give birth and work while 4,559 children are known to have been born in the home, at times with little medical assistance despite the employment of a local doctor as medical supervisor. Higher than average infant mortality, irregular adoptions and physical and/or emotional abuse have been alleged at the Home. Castlepollard was one of 18 homes investigated by the Irish government following the discovery of the remains of hundreds of babies at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway and Bessborough in County Cork. The report reported decades of abuse and negligence resulting in the deaths of hundreds of children, and in some cases mothers, in mother and baby homes in general. It has been alleged that many children born in mother and baby homes were irregularly or illegally adopted to families in Ireland and the US, often in exchange for money, after mothers were coerced to sign non-legal papers assigning their parental rights over their children to the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts or their agents. These allegations relate to certain periods in the history of the homes and may not relate throughout the whole history of their existence.