A visit to Gormanston, Co. Meath in 2019

A slideshow of photos I took during my first visit to Gormanston in County Meath on Monday 28th January 2019. Gormanston (Irish: Baile Mhic Gormáin) is a village in the east of County Meath. It is by the Irish Sea and is near the mouth of the River Delvin. The River Delvin to the south of Gormanston forms the Meath-Dublin border. Gormanston is east of the M1 Dublin-Belfast motorway. The old N1 Dublin-Belfast road used to go through Gormanston and is now the R132. There is also Gormanston railway station, which opened in May 1845, on the Dublin-Belfast line. Gormonston is served by direct trains to Connolly Station and Pearse Station in Dublin, Bray, Drogheda and Dundalk. Bus Eireann Route 101 between Dublin and Drogheda serves Gormanston. East of the railway station is Gormanston Beach. Gormanston Castle dates from the 14th Century. The present castle building was rebuilt around 1820. It was home to the Preston Family until 1947. The Franciscan Friars established a secondary school called Franciscan College Gormanston at Gormanston Castle in 1956. It was mainly a boarding school in its early years. Since 2015, the school has been managed by Meath VEC under Franciscan trusteeship and is now largely a day school. Gormanston Camp is currently home to B Company, 27 Infantry Battalion of the Irish Army and is a former aerodrome of the Irish Air Corps. The camp was founded in 1917 as a training depot for the Royal Flying Corps during World War 1. During the War of Independence Gormanston was used by the Royal Irish Constabulary Black and Tans as a sub-depot for the training of new recruits, and as well as a despatch centre to send Black and Tans all over the country. The officers who had been recruited in the United Kingdom and thus were almost all British or Irish, with allegiance to the Crown, were responsible for a policy of drunken violence - beating and murdering, in cold blood, local Citizens. The camp was also used at this time as an internment camp for Republican prisoners. After the Treaty of 14 January 1922, Gormanstown became the main demobilisation centre for the Black and Tans. The evacuation of the force was meant to be completed by 31 March 1922, but due to delays it was August before the last Black and Tans left Gormanstown and the camp was handed over to the National Army. This was during the Irish Civil War which started on 28 June 1922. Gormanstown then became the Headquarters of the Transport Section of the National Army with the ceremonial opening of Gormanston on 8 October 1922. When the Irish Civil War broke out in 1922 an Internment camp was then built in Gormanston to house the vast numbers of Republican prisoners that were captured by the Irish Free State. The Internment camp was under the command of Commandant Morken. The first prisoners to be interned in the camp arrived on 9 September 1922 and there were about 1,000 Republican prisoners interned there, the internees included Oscar Traynor who was made OC by the prisoners, and famous names like Tom Barry who escaped on 28 September 1922, Sean T O'Kelly, Connie McNamara and author Frank O'Connor. Although the Civil War ended on 24 May 1923, the Free State continued to hold over 12,000 Republican prisoners as hostages throughout Ireland to ensure hostilities did not break out again. A hunger strike was organised by Republican commandant Oscar Traynor in October 1923 to protest at conditions in the camp as well as continued internment. It was in December 1923 when the last prisoners left the camp. During World War II , the camp was used as accommodation for up to 2,000 men who were billeted in forty Nissen huts and the camp was used for a time as an internment camp for the detention of up to 40 RAF aircrews who had crashed landed or made emergency landing in the state. The RAF prisoners were repatriated in two groups one in 1943 and the remainder in May 1944. The airfield had been used on an annual basis since 1935, it was not until 1945 that the Air Corps occupied the camp on a permanent basis. No 1 Fighter Squadron was stationed there in 1944 and were equipped with Hawker Hurricanes. After the war the Hurricanes were replaced with Spitfires in 1947, and in 1956 the Fighter Squadron was transferred to Baldonnel Aerodrome, whilst an Air Corps training faculty remained at the station. When the Troubles in Northern Ireland broke out in 1969; Gormanston Camp was designated as a refugee centre in August 1969. Large numbers of people mainly from Belfast moved southwards to escape the violence and were housed in the refugee camp. By the end of October 1971 up to 12,000 persons had passed through the camp. The airfield was closed officially from 2002 but it is still used extensively for Air to Ground Firing and local army activities.