THE FAMED KINNYCALLY HALL AND ITS REVIVAL
On the way from St Johnston in the direction of Ardagh, you will find a small stone hall along the road. This is the historic Kinnycally Hall.
It is a single room built of stone. It had a corrugated tin roof. Despite, and perhaps because of, its basic design, it was popular. People gathered there for social reasons and dancing from the 1920s to the 1940s. Then it became famed as a mecca for fans of traditional music. It expanded into a community hall for meetings, sales and football practice took place there too. The hall was a popular location for locals for decades as a music and dance hall, and remained in use through the 1970s. Only minerals were offered for drinking leading it its reputation as a “dry hall”. But has since then fallen into a state massive disrepair.
Community efforts to address this were implemented.
In 2022, the Kinnycally Hall Restoration Project Group and people of the wider St Johnston and Carrigans community expressed delight over a recent Heritage Council announcement that €3,690 had been awarded to assist the process of restoring Kinnycally Hall.
Monies received from The Heritage Council will be applied to the compilation of an architectural conservation report by well-known Moville-based architectural conservation firm Dedalus Architecture.
John-Edward McGill a Group Member declared, “Indeed, one of the hall's founders was James Peoples, who was the grandfather of renowned Irish fiddle player Tommy Peoples.”
Born in Kinny Cally in 1948, Tommy Peoples was a member of the famous Bothy Band in the 1970s whose works are known and revered across the globe.
Group member Rev Oliver McCrossan, “The east Donegal fiddle tradition of playing Mazurkas and Strathspeys came from local men having to go to Scotland for seasonal work picking potatoes. The grandfather of the late legendary Tommy Peoples (one of Ireland’s most highly regarded Irish fiddle players) would have played at the hall often.”
In 2024, a new roof was put on the hall. This was one of many measures suggested to save the hall from collapse including removal of the ivy that threatened to pull it apart.
“It’s a really big part of our history here and the social life in the area…at one time it was a real ‘Ballroom of Romance’ for East Donegal” said Group member Mary Crossan.
