Reference: Adrian Sandes - Chapter 1 Annex A, Part 2, Page 6-01

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010-001-0013
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Sunday, 3 May, 2020
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John (0603) of Moyvane was born in 1715. He was a JP for Co. Kerry in 1785, and married Mary, daughter of William (or George?) Gough of Toureen, Co. Limerick, and Agnes Rose, by whom he had six children. Toureen might be Tooreendonnell, a locality about seven miles east of Newtown Sandes. John died in 1793.
It is possible that ‘Moyvane’ stands for either the village of Newtown Sandes, formerly known as Moyvane, or a house of that name near the village, or both. Moyvane (Maigh Mheain) means ‘the middle plain’ or ‘a whitish plain’. In 1992 I asked in the village for Moyvane House, and was directed to a farmhouse about a mile to the south-west, on the south side of the road to Listowel. The house proved, like Cloonbrane, to be perhaps about thirty years old, and was occupied by a Mrs Nolan. I was told that the old house had been long, low and thatched, with twelve rooms, and that it had stood close by to the south-east, in what is now pasture. Bary recalls the address as Moyvane House, Marhur, Tarbert.
Gaughan records that Newton Sandes was so named after the Sandes family who were proprietors in the district until the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, but that due to the misconduct of members of the family, particularly George (E 0301), the name became odious to local people. In 1886 it was resolved to change it to Newtown Dillon, after the local MP, in 1916 to Newtown Clarke in honour of one of the local rebel leaders, and in 1939 to Moyvane. In 2000, a plebiscite of the 868 ratepayers of Newtown Sandes was held to approve an official proposal to change its name back to Moyvane, but although 407 voted in favour this was not enough for a valid majority. So Newtown Sandes remains in use today; a typically Irish situation?

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