An Chríoch - "the end"
The river that named the end of the barony
Cree takes its name from the Irish Críoch, meaning "the end" or "the boundary". In the medieval division of Clare into baronies, the village stood on the border of Ibrickane and Corca Bhaiscin, and the placename simply marks the line. The Creegh River runs under the humpback bridge in the centre of the village and works its way west to the Atlantic at Doughmore Bay near Doonbeg. The riverbanks are a known spot for anglers; the bridge is the picture most people stop for.
A Cree fiddler, 1905-1976
Patrick Kelly and the west-Clare fiddle
Cree's real claim is musical. The fiddle player Patrick Kelly (1905-1976) was born and lived here, and is one of the keepers of the distinctive west-Clare fiddle style - slower, lonelier, full of droning and double-stops, his fiddle often tuned GDGD so he could carry a drone under the melody. His playing traced back through the Kerry fiddler George Whelan, and his settings of tunes like the Foxhunters Reel were passed on to a generation of local players he taught around Cree. His music survives on recordings such as "Ceol an Chláir", and the west-Clare sound he helped preserve is exactly what you might hear on a good night in Walsh's down the road.
Built 1828, Kilmacduane parish
St Mary's and the Famine parish
St Mary's Church at Cree was built in 1828, part of the Catholic parish of Kilmacduane that takes in Cree and Cooraclare (the parish church, St Senan's, is in Cooraclare, finished 1836). This is the slice of west Clare the coast roads skip - small parishes with long memories. The land here was hit hard by the Famine and again by emigration through the twentieth century; the parish that held thousands in the 1830s holds a fraction of that now. The fields are bigger than they used to be, the houses fewer, and one of the two schools shut in 2023. The pub is still the pub.