Groups audience:
Glantane had an old RIC barracks and the Lombard descendants, Sir James Laurence Cotter and Robert Delacour were the landlords during famine times. It was abandoned in 1920 for safety reasons and the local IRA Company burned it down soon afterwards. The O Mullane family became owners after that and built the present house on the site when their old thatched house burned down. These were the same O Mullanes whose ancestor, Catherine was Daniel O Connells mother. The O Mullanes lost most of their territory after the Cromwellian confiscations and the Lombards of Lombardstown acquired about 1500 acres at that time. The Lombards gave most of it back to the O Mullanes in c.1685 but they lost it again through borrowings and moved to Whitechurch where Catherine was born. Interestingly, Daniel o Connell bought back the Brittas townland section where the ancestral home was situated. It was known as Elm Vale. When the O Mullanes died out in the 1970’s the O Connor family (See headstone CO-GLSJ-0327 Glantane in www.historicgraves.com) became owners of the RIC site and are still in possession. Some RIC officers who served there included Ins. R.C. Carter and Const. Daniel Moloney.
