Ballinroche

**Ballinroche** was a village in Ireland that survived through the Great Reckoning. It was close to the home of Gráinne Lynch's family and in 1973, Clíodhna Byrne spent time there working as a care-at-home nurse.

## History

Ballinroche was historically known for its pigs and its sheep, and was quite renowned for its botanic gardens. There were reportedly wild roses dating back thousands of years, and imported flowers from the rest of Europe, such as tulips and hollyhocks. When the English colonised Ireland, the gardens became private.

Many of the residents of Ballinroche and its nearby villages participated in the war and its efforts at the beginning of the twentieth century, enlisting as soldiers, nurses, mechanics, or other wartime jobs. The area was hit by catastrophic crop failures, floods, and volcanic winters in the 1920s. The entire region was hit by airstrikes over three months in 1924. Between 1931-34, there were three straight summers of droughts and three straight autumns of floods, and the flowers it was known for stopped blooming on their own. By this point in the Reckoning, Ballinroche's population was greatly depleted and no one remained to care for the gardens. At an unknown point, Ballinroche went without a local newspaper for twelve years.

In 1973, Ballinroche consisted of a grocery, a couple of pubs, a small health clinic, a bookshop, and a library which was run by Yesenia. The Saucy Noggin pub was opened in 1792 and survived through the following century and the Great Reckoning. At some point, one of the owners started framing local news stories and hanging them on the wall, and Maria, the owner in 1973, had wallpapered the bathrooms with them. Maria also hosted a monthly book club at the Noggin. Old Joseph used to run deliveries for the grocer, but when he died, Colm took over and would take groceries out to Grainne every week for fifteen years. Colm himself wasn't a grocer, instead was possibly a plumber.

### Gráinne's village

The village where Gráinne grew up was about fifteen miles from central Ballinroche, and consisted of four or five streets with a couple of small shops. Gráinne's street, which had six terraced houses on each side, was possibly called Lake Row, although there was no lake anywhere close by. The Connell family, who had lived in the village, had kept pigs as pets, and claimed that pigs were smarter than dogs and some humans. When Gráinne was young, her family bought chickens, and soon had a surplus of eggs. Gráinne would take fresh eggs round to their neighbours in the mornings, and when there got to be too many eggs for a single trip, a boy from next door, Pádraig, let her borrow his toy wagon.

Oisín and Conor Lynch, Gráinne's younger brothers, enlisted in the army with other men from the area in 1913. In 1917, there was an obituary in the local paper for someone with the surname Lynch, but it was an ordinary death, likely of the illness that Gráinne mentions. Oisín died during the fighting, but the family never received news of Conor. The village was "flattened" by airstrikes in 1924, leaving Gráinne's house standing but not many others. Gráinne says "the virus" spread through the remainder of the village, which is most likely the pandemic of cobbler's flu which peaked in 1917, 1921, and 1924.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Season 6, Episode #7: Sunday 28 October 1973
2. ↑ The eruptions of Mount Etna and Yellowstone in 1921 and 1923 combined created a volcanic winter that lasted until 1927. YFIJBTR, p.66
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Season 6, Episode #1: Monday 22 October 1973
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Season 6, Episode #3: Wednesday 24 October 1973
5. ↑ Season 6, Episode #4: Thursday 25 October 1973
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Season 6, Episode #10: Samhain
7. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.12