Hare Island: Medieval Times

After 1185 the Dillons, a Norman family who occupied the nearby barony of Kilkenny West are said to have built a monastery here. Perhaps they rebuilt the earlier monastery as a base for the Augustinian canons. It would seem that the church remains which survive on the island today may be a relic of this twelfth century development. The extant remains include a late Romanesque nave and chancel church surrounded by traces of a monastic enclosure and other earthworks.

There is a suggestion that the monks from Hare Island may have transferred to the monastery at Saints Island. The Dillons survived as proprietors of Hare Island after the dissolution of the monastery until Sir James Dillon went into exile in Flanders in 1653 until the restoration.

In the parliament of 1661 Athlone was represented by a Dublin merchant, Ridgely Hatfield, who was sheriff of Westmeath, and Lt. Arthur St. George, both of whom were ex-commonwealth supporters. In the Cromwellian settlements Hatfield was granted land including Hare Island. It passed from the Hatfield family to a family named Hackett in the eighteenth century. The Hackett family in turn sold the island to the Handcock family, one of the two ruling families of Athlone, who had their seat at Moydrum Castle and a sporting lodge on Hare Island.

Apart from the landlords of the island there was also a peasant population. A family called Duffy, the proprietors of the island today, has had a connection with the island for over 200 years. In common with many of the other islands it is virtually impossible to say when they arrived on the island but educated guess would suggest that it was following seventeenth century land confiscations in Roscommon.