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Ratra is a townland of
just over 325 acres situated in the parish of Tibohine, in the old
barony of Frenchpark and County of Roscommon. It is situated on the
main Mayo to Dublin road, two miles from the centre of the village
of Frenchpark and nine miles from the town of Castlerea, where
Douglas Hyde was born on 17th. January 1860.
The name Ratra does not appear in
“Irish Names of Places” nor does it surface in the townland index to
Sir William Petty’s “Down Survey” or in the land distribution lists
from the 1640’s. It figures prominently, however in Griffiths
Valuation in 1857 as the seat of the Right Honorary the Reverend
John de Freyne, who had a house and just over 76 acres of the
townland in his name. The remaining lands were occupied by his
tenants and divided between several families of Beirne, Callaghan,
Cruise, Drury, Higgins, Kenny, Mahon, Moore and Peyton. The name has
its root in rath, the Gaelic for fort. Joyce says that the part of
the name following this prefix is very often a personal or family
name but in the case of Ratra the name derives from Rath na Tra, the
fort of the strand or beach. The fort once stood beside a lake, long
disappeared, that once covered the area north of the site.
The Hydes moved to Frenchpark, to the
church at Portahard, in 1866 and shortly became friends with John
French, the owners of nearby Ratra house. The Rev. Hyde was related
to the French family through marriage. Ratra had been built by John,
elder brother of Arthur, 4th Baron de Freyne. The friendship was to
grow strong and for the next twenty five years Douglas Hyde was a
regular visitor to the house for tennis and for dinner. When he was
twenty six (in 1886) Hyde wrote in his diary “only for the French’s
of Ratra I would surely die of ennui”.
The Hyde family were active hunters and
shooters and Lord de Freyne gave them shooting rights over the lands
and bogs of his estate. After he died his widow continued to allow
the family to shoot on the land. Hyde continued to enjoy this
privilege for most of his long life. Hyde’s visits to Ratra also
brought him into contact with the locals and it was through them
that his lifelong interest in the Irish language began. One of his
greatest friends during this time was Seamus Hart with whom he spent
many a happy hour roaming the fields and bogs of Ratra.
In 1892 the French’s decided to leave.
This was sad news for Hyde, but within the year – by July 1893, he
had agreed to lease Ratra from the beginning of 1894, at a rent of
£50 a year. “That was a great move” he declared. At this time Hyde
was engaged to be married and on 10 October 1893 he wed
Lucy Kurtz in Dublin. When they arrived home from their honeymoon on 3rd
December there was a tumultuous welcome from the locals. Hyde wrote
“when we came to Ratra there was [a] big arch across the road and ..
many people. They took the horse from under the carriage and drew us
home from the Ratra road … and such shouting and hullabaloo you
never heard. Before long, however, Lucy began to hate the place. By
1896 when she was expecting the couples first child, Nuala, she felt
“isolated and unhappy [and] she developed a massive dislike of
Ratra, Frenchpark and the whole of Roscommon … and the Gaelic
League”. This dislike was to stay with her throughout her life.
In 1904 the Congested Districts Board
moved to buy the estate of Lord de Freyne, of which Ratra was a
part. Hyde knew that it was only a matter of time before they would
be pressing him to either buy the house or leave. While he was
totally opposed to the idea of moving, Lucy was insistent that they
go. Her preferences were either Cork or Dublin. She didn’t have
Hyde’s sentimental attachment to the place, an attachment that had
grown for close to forty years. The crisis over Ratra came to a head
when Hyde chose to withdraw from a proposed tour of America, but
soon the matter seemed to be resolved and he and Lucy went on tour,
a trip that took up the best part of 1905.
On their return home Lucy renewed her
campaign for Hyde to sell “damp Ratra” which she blamed for all her
ills. By January 1907 Hyde had capitulated. Nothing was done
immediately and soon Hyde had developed pneumonia, from which, for a
while, he was not expected to survive. In early 1907, however,
events beyond their control had decided their fate. On 31 January
twenty of Hyde’s closest colleagues signed a circular letter
proposing that Ratra be bought and presented to the Hyde’s. The
£1000 was easily and speedily collected and in a private ceremony,
at Hyde’s request, on 4th August 1908 the freehold was presented to
him by his friend John McNeill. Hyde gratefully accepted the gift
but Lucy could only watch as “the door to Dublin closed gently but
firmly before her”.
Between 1908 and 1933 the Hyde’s lived
at Ratra, though when Hyde was a Senator in the new Government after
1922 and when he was employed at University College in Dublin they
spent a lot of their time in the city. After he retired in 1933 he
moved back to Roscommon and life seemed set to offer him a peaceful
retirement in his beloved Ratra.
But life is never simple and fate was
again set to play it’s hand. After a personal approach from Eamon de
Valera, Douglas Hyde became the first President of Ireland in June
1938. By the end of the year, Lucy, who for so long sought to leave
Ratra, was dead. Hyde continued to return to Ratra during the August
shooting season but when he suffered a stroke in Spring 1940 travel
became difficult. His neighbours of long-standing, the Mahons and
Morrisroes looked after the house, dusting and airing it regularly.
In Spring 1947 Hyde decided to make a
gift of Ratra to the Gaelic League, completing the circle that has
begun some forty years earlier. The decision to transfer the house
was not without problems. It was not until May 1949 that the
transfer was finally approved by the Land Registry and though there
was talk of the house becoming a centre for Irish studies, a school,
or even a TB hospital, in the end the League simply sold the house
without any interest in it’s future. Douglas Hyde, founder of the
Gaelic League, scholar and first President of Ireland, died
peacefully in Dublin on 12 July 1949. He was laid to rest with
suitable ceremony in Portahard.
Almost immediately after the sale the
roof and windows of Ratra were removed (photo below left).
The shrubs and trees were cut down and the hollow shell left open to
the elements. Ownership passed through several hands until, in 1972,
the walls were levelled and the broken stone used as fill under the
new creamery in Ballaghaderreen. But like Hyde’s resurrection of the
Gaelic language from the ashes of Irish history, in 2006, one
hundred and two years after Ratra had become his home, the great
house, like the phoenix, once more rises from the dead (photos
below centre and right). |
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Images not to scale. |
