page_title: Cliffoney
section_title: Fr. Michael O'Flanagan
hierarchical_section_title: Cliffoney / History / Fr. Michael O'Flanagan
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of From Cliffoney to Crosna, depicting a re-enactment of the 1915 turbury-rights protest led by Fr. Michael O'Flanagan.
context_page_description: Cliffoney, officially Cliffony, is a village in north County Sligo, Ireland. It lies on the N15 national route at its junction with the R279. It is only three kilometres away from Mullaghmore which is popular with surfers.
  Cliffoney has historical connections to Lord Palmerston, British Prime Minister and Father Michael O'Flanagan, Vice-President and later President of Sinn Féin, who was known as the Republican Priest. Brigid MacGonigal, mother of Harry Clarke, was a native of Cliffoney.
  There are several megalithic monuments close to the village, including Creevykeel Court Tomb. There are also several ringforts and cashels in the area. Saint Brigit's cross-slab, possibly dating to the eight century, has a swastika carved in the top of the cross.
context_section_description: Fr. O'Flanagan was sent to Cliffoney at the end of July 1914, shortly before the start of WW1. O'Flanagan, a widely travelled curate with strong nationalist, socialist and republican ideals, may have been moved by Bishop Bernard Coyne for his support of the Sligo Dock Strike in May 1913. One of O'Flanagan's first initiatives was to write to Colonel Ashley of Classiebawn Castle, and he secured the old school house as a community hall for the villagers.
  Upon discovering social inequity in land redistribution, he led the villagers on a campaign against the Congested Districts Board to secure rights to cut turf on the Cloonerco Bogs adjacent to Cliffoney. This action, which began on 29 June 1915 became known as the Cloonerco Bog Fight. The case simmered on all summer, and the villagers harvested large quantities of turf which was distributed throughout the locality. Eventually the case was settled in favour of the people of Cliffoney.
  O'Flanagan was invited to attend the funeral of veteran Fenian Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa in August 1915. He gave a passionate speech at the Reception of Remains in City Hall, where he was photographed with Tom Clarke, Mary Jane and Eileen O'Donovan Rossa. At the graveside O'Flanagan recited the funeral prayers in Irish before his friend Padraig Pearse made his incendiary speech.
  
  In October O'Flanagan attended a tillage meeting held in Sligo Courthouse, where T. W. Russell was campaigning on behalf of the British Government, for increased tillage production to aid the war effort. When a motion to that effect was proposed, O'Flanagan objected and proposed a counter-motion, advising the people to "ignore the Board of Agriculture and adopt their own remedy...... They should 'Stick to the oats.' This call has ever since been associated with the curate of Cliffoney."
  O’Flanagan’s speech ended with a rousing call: ‘The famine of 1847 would never have been written across the pages of history if the men of that day were men enough to risk death rather than part with their oat crop. Let each farmer keep at least as much oats on hand to carry himself and his family through in case of necessity till next years harvest.
  The speech was widely reported in the newspapers, and within days O'Flanagan was removed from Cliffoney by Bishop Coyne. In response, on 17 October the villagers of Cliffoney locked the door of St. Molaise's church, and refused to allow a replacement to enter, demanding instead that O'Flanagan be sent back to Cliffoney. The standoff, which became known as the "Cliffoney Rebellion" was to last for ten weeks. The people of Cliffoney knelt on the ground outside the locked church and said the Rosary for the return of O'Flanagan. The villagers marched 15 miles into Sligo to have an audience with the Bishop, but he refused to meet them. They also sent a petition to the Pope which was unsuccessful. Eventually the church was re-opened on Christmas Eve, 1915.
  An unfinished memoir, written by O'Flanagan in 1920, describes his version of the events that took place during his time in Cliffoney. The memoir was published as "From Cliffoney to Crosna" in 2016 by the Fr. O'Flanagan Memorial Group in Cliffoney.
caption: Cover of From Cliffoney to Crosna, depicting a re-enactment of the turbury-rights protest led by Fr. Michael O'Flanagan in 1915.
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