The McMahon Archival Collection is one of the largest collections of primary
source documents in Clare County Council’s Archives’ repository.
The collection was donated to the National Archives in the 1970s through
the Business Records Survey by Dermot McMahon of Sherry Fitzgerald McMahon,
O’Connell Square in Ennis. The collection was subsequently re-accessioned
by Clare County Council’s Archives’ Service in 2010.
Before its acquisition by the National Archives, the collection had been stored in the basement of offices in a three storey building in the centre of Ennis, where Michael McMahon (Dermot McMahon’s grandfather) operated an auctioneering and estate agency business from the late 1800s.
The dominant landed families within the McMahon Archival Collection include the Burtons of Carrigaholt, Rovigo and Stamer families of Ennis & Carnelly, the Barclays of Ballyartney, near Labasheeda and the Burtons of Corofin. Additionally sixty other Clare family names, mainly the 19th and 20th century, have records within the McMahon Archival Collection. The estate records include; correspondence, deeds, leases, rental accounts listing; names of tenants, denominations of their holdings and amount of rents they paid; leases, grants, marriage settlements, wills; account registers and probate valuations. It gives a fascinating insight to local history, genealogy, land acquisition and social history in the 18th, 19th and 20th century and is an invaluable resource of primary source material. Additionally the collection contains documents relating to the East Clare Election of 1917, due to the fact that Michael McMahon was also Clerk to the Presiding Officer at Ennis Courthouse during the East Clare Election of 1917.
McMahon
Collection Descriptive List [PDF]
Marie
de Rovigo of Carnelly House