Ferbane
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Ferbane Féar Bán |
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Location | ||
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Province: | Leinster | |
County: | County Offaly | |
Elevation: | 128m | |
Population (2006) | 785 |
Ferbane (Féar Bán in Irish, meaning "white grass") is a small town on the north bank of the River Brosna in County Offaly, Ireland, between Birr and Athlone. The name of the town is said to come from the white bog cotton which grows abundantly in the surrounding Bog Of Allen.(A Land by the River of God - A History of Ferbane Parish , Brendan Ryan (1994) )
Ireland's first milled-peat fired power station was commissioned by the Electricity Supply Board (ESB) at Ferbane in 1957. Since the station's closure in 2001, the Shannon Development agency and the ESB have invested €1.4 million in the development of a new Business & Technology Park which opened in 2005. A new playschool was also built on the site which opened in September 2006. In 2006, Supermacs was set up on the main street of Ferbane.
Less than a kilometre south of the town, on the site of an ancient monastery founded by the Welsh missionary Saint Canoc in 492, stands Gallen Priory (today a convent of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Cluny).
The Grand Canal, which links up with the River Shannon, passes through Gallen townland.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Ferbane homepage
- Offalynet - Ferbane
- The Story of Gallen Priory
- Ferbane Feis Ceoil
- Lough Boora Parklands