Garrafrauns
Na Garfráin

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Na Garfráin · Co. Galway

A 202-acre townland where the church still anchors everything.

Garrafrauns is a village in north Galway, four miles from Dunmore, in flat farmland close to the Roscommon border. The name comes from either Garra bhfearán (garden of the wild brambles) or Garbhthráin (rough grassy place). The village consists of four things: a church, a school, a garage, and a community centre. That is how villages work when they work.

St. Patrick's Church arrived in 1820 as sandstone and thatch. A replacement was finished in 1913 and consecrated by Archbishop Gilmartin of Tuam. The school opened in 1975, expanded in 1985. In 2003 a Heritage Group formed and later published a local history. The old mill that stood here — Heverin's Mill, built 1842 — is gone now. What remains is what has stayed standing.

Population

~200

Coords

53.6336° N, 8.8250° W

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Stories & lore.

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

The original and the replacement

St. Patrick's Church

A sandstone church with a cruciform plan and gothic detail stood in the village from 1820. The roof was thatch, the interior whitewashed. A new church was built across the road and finished in 1913. Archbishop Gilmartin of Tuam came to consecrate it. The old building is gone now. The bell tower from the replacement was removed at some point. What survives is what the parish still uses.

1975 onwards

The school

Garrafrauns National School opened in 1975 with three rooms. In 1985 it merged with nearby Strawberry Hill National School and expanded. Over time it has grown again. The pupils tend a vegetable garden. The school takes part in the Green School Project, which is about environmental awareness. It is not much, but it is deliberate.

1842

Heverin's Mill

A thatched mill was built here in 1842 with a single waterwheel eleven feet across and two feet eight inches wide. Corn came in to be dried in two kilns built from stone and covered in straw, heated by a turf fire. The mill stood until it did not. What remains is the fact of it.