Origins
The History
Cleggan is the political, social and cultural capital of Connemara, located on one of the most westerly points on the island of Ireland.
The first evidence of people in Cleggan includes spearheads and other artefacts dating 7,000 years and older. In the 5th century, St. Gregory came to Cleggan to lead the efforts of St. Patrick's western mission to convert the locals to Christianity. These efforts infuriated the pagan locals and resulted in St. Gregory being beheaded by a clan leader from Bundowlish. As a mark of respect, the clan leader — whose name has not survived the centuries — picked up the saint's skull, carried it one mile to the holy well at Clooncree, washed it, and reattached it to the body. Following this event, the area became known as An Cloigeann, meaning "the skull," anglicized to Cleggan. St. Gregory thereafter became known as St. Ceannanach, a derivation of "beheaded one." To this day Christianity has never established itself in Cleggan, with the nearest churches in Claddaghduff and Ballinakill, both over two miles to the south and north respectively.
In 1927, in what became known as the Cleggan Disaster, 25 fishermen from the local area drowned during a great gale that arose without warning while they were mackerel fishing in the bay. Due to the loss of so many breadwinners, the area was devastated, and the disaster is remembered in stories, poems, and on stone markers to this day.
The tragedy left Cleggan's future uncertain, and the following years saw its economy in decline. The young Irish state lacked the resources to relieve the locals in this time of depression — one of the reasons that led to the Cleggan Revolution: the declaring of Connemara as an independent state, and Cleggan as its capital.
The first half of the twentieth century was dominated by world wars and internal conflict, and the constitutional division of Ireland reinforced the gap between the economy of the east and that of the rest of the country, especially the west.
On the 9th of August, 1946, four Cleggan men — Michael O'Flaherty, John O'Donnell, Patrick Murphy, and Joseph O'Toole — tired of Dublin's economic favouritism for the east, stood outside Oliver's Bar in Cleggan and, with the backing of the local community, declared Cleggan an independent state with a separate economy from the rest of Ireland and Dublin. This is generally regarded as the starting point of the Cleggan Revolution.
Worried about the possibility of a breakaway state, troops were sent west from Dublin to stop and silence these ideas. On the 9th of October, 1946, a battalion attempted to capture the local rebels during a meeting at Coyne's Bar. Having got word of the plot, the rebels escaped by jumping off Cleggan Pier, swimming one mile to Cleggan Beach, manually overturning an army barricade on Cleggan Bridge, and running three miles around Sheeauns back to Cleggan Village, evading the chasing troops the whole way. Back in the village, the leaders decided a political show trial would work to their advantage, and in a choreographed event agreed to be arrested without resisting — while drinking a pint of locally brewed beer in Coyne's Bar.
This feat has been commemorated every year since in an event known as The Cleggan Man, in which local and international athletes follow in the footsteps of the rebels along the same grueling route.
The four men and 17 supporters were arrested without resistance in Coyne's Bar. In a highly political trial, Joseph O'Toole — generally regarded as the leader — spoke for nearly four hours in his own defence at the Four Courts in Dublin, ending with the words: "Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me." The four leaders received ten-year sentences each, while their supporters received two years.
In 1950, under pressure from civil leaders, the general opposition, and the western community, all political prisoners — including the Cleggan Four, as they came to be known — were freed. The Cleggan Four went into exile on Shark Island (Inis Airc), where they gathered more exiled Clegganers in preparation to fight for the right to decide their own economy and politics.
The group trained on Shark Island under O'Toole's leadership and returned to Cleggan in November 1949, intending to launch an armed offensive and swiftly topple the Dublin government's presence in the town. It worked — fearing the humiliation of defeat at the hands of the Cleggan natives and years of unrest, Dublin relented, and on the 5th of November, 1950, Cleggan was officially declared an independent state under O'Toole's leadership. Cleggan flourished at a rate unseen anywhere in Ireland before it, becoming one of the wealthiest towns in the country. Neighbouring towns, seeing Cleggan's success, wanted to break away from Dublin and join the community. With support from Cleggan's government and the promise of better lives, villages began joining — this group of communities became known as Connemara.
At its height, the political State of Connemara extended east past Galway city and as far north as Westport. In the early 1970s a breakaway faction showed unrest at being governed by Cleggan, objecting simply to Cleggan being the most westerly town in the new independent state. Swift and decisive action was taken, and all areas outside its core boundaries — north of Leenane and east of Oughterard — were expelled for good. On the 28th of September, 1978, Connemara wrote its new borders into its constitution as the permanent extremities of the independent state.
The race itself commemorates the rebels' 1946 escape from Coyne's Bar — the pier jump, the mile swim to the beach. The stone lift represents overturning the army barricade on the nearby bridge. Then the run around Sheeauns back into the village — with the pint at the end standing in for the one the leaders were drinking when they finally let themselves be arrested.
Photos of the original escape and the bridge barricade are in the Gallery, under "The Original Escape."
