An Muileann Iarainn · Co. Cavan
Named for four men who dug iron out of the hills and left before the timber ran out.
Swanlinbar sits in the north-west corner of Cavan, a few kilometres from the Fermanagh border, on the N87 between Blacklion and Ballyconnell. The population is around two hundred. The village is small enough that the main road through it is also the high street, the main square, and the edge of town all at once. This is not unusual for Cavan. What is unusual is how much history ended up concentrated in a place this size.
The ironworks came first. In 1682 a group of four entrepreneurs - Swift, Saunders, Darling, and Barry - took a lease on the land and began smelting. The village name is their initials joined together: Sw-and-Ling-Bar. Jonathan Swift, who may or may not have been related to one of them, wrote about the etymology in 1728 as if it were already an established curiosity. The smelting used charcoal from the surrounding oak forests. By the early 1800s the forests were gone and the ironworks closed. The townland of Furnaceland remembers where the furnaces stood.
The spa era followed the ironworks and lasted about fifty years. Sulphur springs were found nearby - mineral-rich, smelling of bad eggs, exactly what Georgian medicine prescribed for half a dozen ailments. The gentry of Ulster arrived each summer, took lodgings, and drank the waters. At its peak the springs were described as the strongest in County Cavan. By 1824 the fashion was fading and by 1836 the resort trade had largely gone. The village stayed. It has been quietly agricultural ever since.
Locally it is called Swad. The GAA club is Swanlinbar St Mary's. The Cladagh River runs nearby. If you are coming to walk Cuilcagh, this is the nearest settlement in the Republic. That is enough of a reason.
