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MAYOBRIDGE

CO. DOWN · IE

Mayobridge
Droichead Mhaigh Eo

The Mourne, Gullion & Ring of Gullion
STOP 06 / 06

Droichead Mhaigh Eo · Co. Down

The Sands family's village — a small place that sent its songs around the world.

Mayobridge is a small village south-east of Newry, on the road that climbs out of the Clanrye valley toward Hilltown and the high Mournes. A chapel, a school, a GAA pitch, a clutch of houses around a crossroads — that's the shape of it. You can drive through in a minute and barely notice you were there.

What earns it a page is the Sands family. Tommy, Anne, Colum, Ben and Dino grew up here in a farmhouse where the kitchen sessions ran past midnight and the doors were never locked. They went on as the Sands Family in the 1960s, toured Europe and the United States, and seeded a small Down village into the wider folk-revival map. Tommy is the songwriter you have heard of even if you didn't know it — "There Were Roses" is his, written out of a sectarian killing in these parishes during the Troubles, recorded since by Joan Baez, Cara Dillon and a long list of others. The song travelled. The grief did not.

Don't come for a day out — there is no day out to be had. Come for an evening on the way somewhere else. Drive up the B7 from Newry, look at the country the songs come out of, push on to Rostrevor for the Fiddler's Green Festival that the same family started in 1987, or carry on north to Hilltown and the Mourne foothills. Mayobridge is a quiet place to know the name of. The rest is in the music.

Population

~900

Walk score

A crossroads, a chapel, a GAA pitch — ten minutes end to end

Coords

54.1500° N, 6.2667° W

01 / 05

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The Sands family

A folk dynasty out of one farmhouse.

Tommy, Anne, Colum and Ben Sands grew up here in the 1950s and 60s and turned the family kitchen sessions into a touring folk group that went on to play across Europe and North America. The songs they carried out went a lot further than the village.

Stories & lore → 02 "There Were Roses"

Tommy Sands's song about two friends.

Written about a sectarian killing in the surrounding parishes during the Troubles — one Catholic, one Protestant, friends of the Sands. Recorded by everyone from Joan Baez to Cara Dillon. The song travelled. The grief it came out of stayed here.

Stories & lore → 03 The road south

Between Newry and Hilltown.

Mayobridge sits on the B7 between Newry and Hilltown, in the rolling drumlins south-east of the city before the Mournes properly start. The chapel, the school and St Patrick's GAC are the village; the rest is farms.

Getting there →

02 / 05

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

A farmhouse, four siblings, a kitchen full of tunes

The Sands Family

Tommy, Anne, Colum and Ben Sands grew up on the family farm near Mayobridge. Their parents played; the house was a session house. By the mid-1960s the siblings were performing as the Sands Family, recording for Elektra, touring in Germany, the United States and across Ireland, and showing up at folk festivals from Tønder to Cambridge. They never moved away in any final sense — Tommy still presents a long-running folk programme on Downtown Radio. The kitchen they came out of is not a museum. The village does not advertise itself on their name. They are simply from here.

A song that travelled further than the village

"There Were Roses"

Tommy Sands wrote "There Were Roses" in the late 1970s about the deaths of two friends — one Catholic, one Protestant — killed in tit-for-tat sectarian attacks in the parishes around Mayobridge during the Troubles. The chorus is the line everyone remembers: "An eye for an eye, that was all that filled their minds." Recorded since by Joan Baez, Cara Dillon, Dick Gaughan and a long roster of others, the song is now one of the standard pieces of Troubles songwriting. It started here.

The festival they started in Rostrevor in 1987

Fiddler's Green, up the road

The Sands siblings founded Fiddler's Green Festival in Rostrevor in 1987 — a one-night event that grew over the decades into a five-day, two-hundred-artist gathering in mid-July. Rostrevor is the venue and gets the credit, but the engine that built it sat in a farmhouse outside Mayobridge first. If you are passing through in the third week of July, the village is quiet because the family is fifteen minutes south on the lough road, working.

Gaelic football, parish league, taken seriously

St Patrick's GAC

St Patrick's GAC Mayobridge is the village club, fielding teams in Down county leagues and championships. South Down is strong GAA country — the parish rivalries between Mayobridge, Burren, Rostrevor and Hilltown are old, sharp and survive any change of personnel. A Sunday in summer with a championship match on means the village is at the pitch and nowhere else. If you happen by, pay in at the gate.

03 / 05

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar–May

Drumlins green up, the road south to Hilltown opens out, and you can pair Mayobridge with a Mournes walk in an hour.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun–Aug

Fiddler's Green is fifteen minutes down the lough road in mid-July — book a bed in Rostrevor or Warrenpoint if you want to pair the two.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep–Oct

The hedgerows turn, the road to Hilltown is at its best, and the GAA championship is in full swing on Sunday afternoons.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov–Feb

Short days, dark drumlin roads, very little open. The chapel and the GAC pitch are the village, and both keep their own hours.

◐ Mind yourself

04 / 05

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Coming looking for a Sands Family museum

There isn't one. The family are from here; they are not memorialised here. The point is that this is the country the songs came out of, not that you can buy a postcard of it.

Treating Mayobridge as a destination day

It is genuinely small. Half an hour gets you the village. Pair it with Rostrevor, Warrenpoint or Hilltown for an actual outing.

Looking for a session in the village

The music infrastructure is up the road in Rostrevor — Fiddler's Green every July, sessions in Fearon's and The Rostrevor Inn the rest of the year. Drive the fifteen minutes.

Getting there.

By car

Newry to Mayobridge is about 15 minutes on the B7 south-east via Barcroft. Rostrevor is 15 minutes south on lough-side roads. Belfast is about 1 hour via the A1 and Newry. Dublin is 1 hour 30 by motorway to Newry, then 15 minutes.

By bus

Translink Ulsterbus services run between Newry and Hilltown via Mayobridge, several times a day on weekdays, fewer on Sundays. Check Translink for the current timetable.

By train

No station. Newry (Bessbrook) is the nearest rail stop, on the Belfast–Dublin Enterprise line, about 20 minutes away by car.

By air

Belfast International (BFS) is about 1 hour 15. Belfast City (BHD) is about 1 hour. Dublin (DUB) is about 1 hour 45.