Avoca, County Wicklow

This article is about the town in County Wicklow. For other uses, see Avoca (disambiguation). For the mountain glen in Ireland, see River Avoca.

Avoca (Irish: Abhóca, formerly Abhainn Mhór, meaning 'the great river')^[2] is a small town near Arklow, in County Wicklow, Ireland. It is situated on the River Avoca.

Avoca Abhóca
Town
Main Street
Avoca Location in Ireland
Coordinates: 52.857°N 6.215°W / 52.857; -6.215
Country	Ireland
Province	Leinster
County	County Wicklow
Elevation	35 m (115 ft)
Population  (2016)[1]	771
Irish Grid Reference	T201801

The Avoca area has been associated with its copper mines for many years and the valley has been celebrated by Thomas Moore in the song "The Meeting of the Waters". The name of the song derives from the meeting of the Avonmore and Avonbeg rivers, about 3 kilometres from the village of Avoca. The song is said to have been written under a tree, the stump of which remains by the Meetings. Avoca is also famous for its handweaving, with Avoca Handweavers based there.

Avoca has been used as a filming location for several films and television series. The BBC series Ballykissangel was filmed there.^[3] In 1967, Avoca was one of the locations used in the film Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon, and it was the setting for the comedy film Zonad which had a general Irish release in 2010.

The red kite, recently reintroduced to Ireland, is now commonly seen in and around Avoca.

Toponymy

Avoca was once known as Newbridge. It subsequently became known as Ovoca, and then in Victorian times as Avoca. Ptolemy mentions the river Oboka on his early map of Ireland. The official name of the village is now Avoca in English and Abhóca in Irish. None of the other names are used today.^[2]

Mining

Copper mining is reported to have begun in the Avoca River valley around 1720 and it continued, with interruptions, until 1982. Earlier mining, perhaps dating back to the Bronze Age, may have occurred. The East Avoca site, today, is composed mainly of a number of rock waste spoil heaps, abandoned quarries (Cronebane and East Avoca open pits) and disused roads. The largest spoil heap, Mount Platt, was built up from waste rock excavated from Cronebane open pit. There was a mineral tramway built from the West Avoca mines, through the village (on the opposite side of the river) and on to Arklow Harbour. The route of most of this was subsumed into the Dublin-Rosslare railway line, but an arch and a tunnel under the road from Rathdrum to Avoca remains.^{[citation needed]}

Avoca river at Avoca village; note copper-coloured stones on the river bed

Transport

Avoca lies on the R752 regional road linking Rathnew with Woodenbridge. The village is served by Bus Éireann route 133 from Dublin (66 km) and Wicklow (21 km) to Arklow (10 km), with two departures in each direction on Mondays to Saturdays and one each way on Sundays.

There has been some local political pressure^[4] to reopen Avoca railway station, from which passenger services were withdrawn on 3 March 1964, almost 101 years after its opening, on the Dublin-Rosslare railway line, on 18 July 1863.^[5]

International relations

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in the Republic of Ireland

Avoca has a town twinning agreement with Bromham, Wiltshire in England.^[6]

Notable people

• Noel Andrews (1932–2011), Irish radio and television commentator ran The Avoca Inn from 1970 to 1990^[7]
• George Barret Sr. (c. 1730–1784), Irish landscape artist painted at Avoca^[8]
• Niall Byrne, guitarist in Irish band The Redneck Manifesto^[9]
• Oliver Byrne (1810–1880), civil engineer and author of scientific works was born in the Vale of Avoca^[10]
• Harry Harrison (1925–2012), American science fiction author lived in the area in the 1970s^[11]
• Lawrence Kavenagh (c. 1810–1846), Irish-Australian convict bushranger was born in either Newbridge (now called Avoca) or nearby Rathdrum^[12]
• Pauline Mellon, Irish mathematician was born in the town^[13]
• Abraham Mills (c. 1750–1828), English mining company manager and geologist, one of the earliest advocates of investment in Irish gold mining, spent time mining for copper in Avoca^[14]
• John O'Hagan (1873–1930), Irish priest who served as Rector of the Pontifical Irish College in Rome from 1919 to 1930 was born in Ballykillageer near the town^[15]
• Akihiko Okamura (1929-1985), Japanese photographer
• Chris Pontius (born 1974), American stunt performer and cast member of reality stunt show Jackass lived in the town from 2004 to 2008^[16]
• Donald Pratt (born 1935), Irish businessman and former first-class cricketer purchased Avoca Handweavers in 1974^[17]
• Günther Schütz (1912–1991), German citizen who worked for German Intelligence (Abwehr) during World War II retired in Avoca^[18]
• Emily Wynne (1872–1958), Irish author and textile artist worked at Avoca Woollen Mills^[19]
• Myles Kavanagh (1918-2009), Local and active community member who worked at the Avoca Mines for 38 dedicated years as a shift boss. ^[20]

See also

• List of towns and villages in Ireland
• Avoca, Victoria, Australia which was named after the Avoca in Wicklow
• The Avoca School, Blackrock, County Dublin

References

Notes

1. "Sapmap Area - Settlements - Avoca". Census 2016. Central Statistics Office. April 2016. Retrieved 28 March 2020.
2. "Abhóca/Avoca". Placenames Database of Ireland (logainm.ie). Retrieved 19 October 2021.
3. "Ballykissangel". Wicklow Film Commission. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 5 December 2010.
4. "Dick urges Council to "Get together with CIE to reopen Avoca Station"". Retrieved 1 November 2007. ^{[dead link‍]}
5. "Avoca station" (PDF). Railscot - Irish Railways. Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 September 2007. Retrieved 9 September 2007.
6. "WELCOME TO BROMHAM". Bromham Wiltshire. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
7. "Boxing commentator Noel Andrews is laid to rest". Independent.ie. 4 December 2012. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
8. There is a landscape view of Avoca in the National Gallery of Ireland, Bodkin p. 76
9. "Enter the cosmos". Hot Press. 24 June 2003. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
10. "Oliver Byrne: The Matisse of Mathematics - Biography 1810-1829 | Mathematical Association of America". Retrieved 12 March 2023.
11. Priest, Christopher (15 August 2012). "Harry Harrison obituary". The Guardian. London. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
12. Two sources from 1842 show either option as Kavenagh's "native place": (1) Register (Van Diemen's Land), Description lists of convicts convicted locally or arriving on non-convict ships (1842), page 111; Lawrence Kavanagh; age 33; "New Bridge, County Wicklow" (Ancestry.com); (2) Indents of Convicts Locally convicted or Transported from Other Colonies (Van Diemen's Land), Marian Watson indent 1842; Lawrence Kavenagh (Police No. 860); age 30; native place: "Redrum, Wicklow".
13. "Atlas of Irish Mathematicians". cardcolm. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
14. Alborn, p. 375.
15. Hagan Introduction Irish College Rome Archive.
16. Coyle, Colin (13 October 2013). "Wicklow wife in Jackass divorce". The Times. Retrieved 26 April 2022.
17. "Donald Pratt". Irish Independent. 22 October 2006. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
18. Greystones Archaeological & Historical Society.
19. Gillespie, Sarah M. (2017). "Wynne, Emily Adelaide". In McGuire, James; Quinn, James (eds.). Dictionary of Irish Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
20. Irish Independent.

• Timothy Alborn, An Irish El Dorado: Recovering Gold in County Wicklow, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 50, No. 2 (April 2011), pp. 359–380. Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The North American Conference on British Studies. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/658187. PDF.
• Bodkin T. (1920) Four Irish Landscape Painters: George Barret R.A., Irish Academic Press, 2nd ed. 1987. ISBN 0-7165-2405-8

External links

• Avoca Cemetery Headstones
• Mining, Metal Resources and Exploration in the Republic of Ireland in German, English summary