M is for MANOR

You can see the house from the gates, lying at the far end of a road, about two hundred yards long that slopes upwards, towards and past the white building. The slope is less gentle than it seems from a distance and both sides of the avenue are lined with tall trees, planted more than a century ago. The entrance is ornate, consisting of two heavy metal gates that control the main traffic and two small side gates for pedestrian use. On each side of the entrance, a sculptured stone design forms a large semi circular wall and just behind the wall, to the right and left of the gates, are two gate lodges, recently refurbished and now used as private dwellings. For many years they lay derelict and for some time during the early years of the Troubles, they were used by nightwatchmen and security personnel to monitor vehicles entering the premises. I remember regularly warming myself at the gas heater on a cold winter morning inside one of the lodges as we waited for the school bus and lifted the monotony for the security man on duty.

The manor itself was a vast acreage of land enclosed, for the most part, by a stone wall, most of which is still intact and that appears to have been erected during the famine years in order to provide work and wages for the locally less well off. The estate itself was established in the seventeenth century by an Oxford gentleman called Sir Anthony Cope and became the site of the family home for over three hundred years during which time two large residences were built. One of these homes has long since been demolished but one or two locals still possess black and white photographs of the building and its beautiful glass conservatory. Both houses overlooked the lake known as Lough Gall from which the village acquired its name and many people in the area found employment within the demesne walls, either on the land or in one of the big houses. Two sisters who travelled all the way from Cork to work in the house that still occupies the main hill, stayed to marry two brothers and settle in the village. Around 1947, the estate was sold by the Cope family to the Department of Agriculture which, in the subsequent years, then established a farm, a horticultural centre and a plant breeding / research unit on the premises, thereby ensuring that employment continued to be provided for the community.

In the last ten years, the role of the manor estate in the lives of the locals has again altered with the Department of Agriculture providing much of their land, now unused, to the local council to develop as a tourist and leisure attraction. The lake is now awash with piers from which keen anglers spend their days trying to tempt pike and other creatures from the well stocked depths. A path sometimes wooden, sometimes stony allows those wishing to take an energetic or romantic stroll, a very close view of the lake on their travels. For the more energetic a maze of roads meander through the forest and fields and informative notice boards and artifacts remind inquisitive walkers of a time long ago. However, what seems to attract most visitors to estate is the maturing eighteen hole golf course that occupies a large slice of the land and the flat, green area near the car park that is used regularly for football matches and caravan weekends and less often for horse jumping. Completing the present amenities are a children's playground, an adventure playground and various pieces of wooden keep fit apparatus on the routes around the estate. It's all a far cry from the days when local workers built roads, houses and walls and planted trees or large Charolais cattle roamed the paddocks.

As I sit in the school, named after and established by the original owner of the manor, I'm reminded how things are constantly changing all around me. Mr Cope could never have imagined his estate in its present form but it is now long beyond his control.Even the present school building is not the original learning establishment and neither happen to be the building where I received my own primary education in the village. It also helps me to understand that nothing is forever in this world and that when we pass beyond it, we may leave a legacy, either rich or otherwise, but we leave everything else too. I know many people who plan for the future in this world as if it was never going to end for them and yet all their planning and striving will be in vain if they have not taken care to plan for the future beyond the walls of their own estate.

Jesus told His disciples, 'a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.' and later reminded them that 'where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.' Would you rather be Lord of the manor or in the manor of your Lord.