The signs they are a-changin’ on our streets

‘It was always Convent Avenue’

A BRITISH landlord is getting run out of Monaghan – but in name only.

Councillors in Carrickmacross voted to remove the name of the landlord, Bath, from an avenue following a complaint.

However, local representatives are insisting the name change is simply because no one uses the British name any more.

For years the avenue in Carrickmacross was officially known as Bath Avenue, after a family of landlords, but was more commonly known as Convent Avenue.

The name change was prompted by a letter received by the Carrickmacross-Castleblayney Municipal District Council from local resident Francis Cassidy.

In the letter, Mr Cassidy argued that ‘it is now time to cut ties with former British landlords’.

Local Sinn Féin councillor Colm Carthy told the Irish Daily Mail that the name of the avenue wasn’t a contentious issue and it wasn’t until a few years back that anybody used the official name of the street, Bath Avenue.

‘It has always been known as Convent Avenue,’ said Mr Carthy, ‘[but] it has only been in recent years there was a bit of work done carried out by the Tidy Towns to clean up the area and signage was put up. On the sign it was called Bath Avenue, the official name that was on it from decades or even probably centuries ago.’

The history of Lord Bath, the namesake of Bath Avenue, goes back to the Ulster plantations.

Queen Elizabeth I awarded the Barony of Farney to one of her favourite earls, Lord Essex. After his death, without an heir, the land was split between the Shirley family and the Bath family.

The town of Carrickmacross was subsequently split between the two families. The Bath family owned the east part of the town and the Shirleys owned the west.

According to Mr Carthy, many years ago the Bath family signed over the land to the church and the people of Carrickmacross. However, he said the Shirleys still claim the land which they inherited centuries back.

Mr Carthy said that the Shirley estate was still contentious in Carrickmacross because the family still charged rents on the land.

The Shirley estate was a party to case brought before the Supreme Court in 2012 where the court sided with the Shirley estate against a constitutional challenge on ground rents. Mr Carthy said that there wasn’t any animosity towards the Bath family, but rather it was a practical matter.

‘If you asked someone where Bath Avenue was, they would look at you as if you had two heads because no one would have known,’ he said.

‘It was about officially changing a name. It was always known as Convent Avenue. It wasn’t just about trying to get rid of the name of a British landlord.’