Riverstown

Riverstown Gaelic: aile idir dhá Abhainn
County Sligo
Location
Grid reference:	G742203
Location:	54°7’54"N, 8°23’40"W
Data
Population:	310  (2006)
Post town:	Riverstown
Postcode:	F52
Local Government
Council:	Sligo

Riverstown, historically called Ballyederdaowen is a small village in County Sligo. It is located at a bridging point of the River Unshin (Arrow), about 12 miles south of the county town, Sligo two miles east of the main N4 road. The name 'Ballyederdaowen' comes from the Irish Baile idir dhá Abhainn, meaning the 'town between two rivers'.

Notable buildings include the Garda Barracks, the Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic churches, Cooperhill House and the Post Office. There are also a number of pubs and shops. Each year the village hosts the James Morrison Traditional Music Festival during August and the Riverstown Vintage Festival during June.

In 2002 Riverstown and the Brookeborough Community Development Association launched the Riverbrooke Cross-Border Initiative linking the two villages in a programme of cross-community/cross-border working.

People

• El Marqués de Osorno, Viceroy of Peru, was a Spanish military officer and colonial administrator in Chile and Peru from 1788 to 1801. The Marqués was born Ambrose O'Higgins at Ballynary, on the shores of Lough Arrow, about halfway between Riverstown and Ballinafad. His son, Bernardo O'Higgins, was a commander of Chilean forces against Spain in the Chilean War of Independence. He also served as Supreme Director of Chile (effectively President in today's terms) from 1817-1823.
• Riverstown is also the ancestral home of Munster and Ireland fly half, Ronan O'Gara, whose grandfather hailed from the village.
• Patrick T. Hynes, renowned expert in American / Irish construction laws and customs, was born in Riverstown.
• The Irish musical maestro Michael Bowles was born in Riverstown in 1909. He joined the Army School of Music in 1932 and obtained a BMus from University College, Dublin, in 1936. He trained as a conductor under Colonel Fritz Brase and joined Radio Éireann as conductor of the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra in 1941. He resigned from the army in 1942 and became the first permanent director of music at Radio Éireann. He was guest conductor for the BBC orchestra on numerous occasion. In 1948, he became conductor of the National Orchestra of New Zealand. He moved to the United States in 1954 to take up a professorship at Indiana University and later became director of the Indiana Philharmonic Orchestra. He returned to Ireland in 1970 and ran a small bed and breakfast in Cork. Despite spending only a few of his early years in Riverstown he regularly returned to the house where he was born on his return to Ireland. His last visit to Riverstown was in 1997, a year before he died.
• The journalist Harry Keaney is a native of Carrowreagh, Riverstown. He trained with The Roscommon Herald and was associate editor of the Irish Echo newspaper in New York for 10 years. In 1998 he was selected as New York's "Sligo Person of the Year". On return to Ireland in 2000, he worked with The Sligo Champion for 15 years. He is now a journalist with the local Irish radio station Ocean FM.

References

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Riverstown)