Sunday, March 10, 2013

Welcome to Ireland, Texas!


Yep.  This is it.  Completely deserted and silent, except for some gunshots echoing in the distance.  Here's what the TSHA has to say about it:

 Ireland is on Farm Road 932 sixteen miles northwest of Gatesville in northwestern Coryell County. It was first known as Hamco because of its location on the Hamilton-Coryell county line, but in 1911, with the completion of the Stephenville North and South Texas Railway, residents applied for a post office in the name of Ireland, in honor of Governor John Ireland. The Ireland community reached its peak in the 1920s, when it had three general stores, three churches, a bank, several other businesses, and a population of 400. When the railroad was abandoned in the early 1940s, the community declined rapidly; by the late 1940s it had only forty residents. By 1970 the post office at Ireland had become a rural branch of the Gatesville postal service. The community reported a population of sixty in 1990. The population remained unchanged in 2000.



Was this a jail? The only surviving brick structure.











Several signs for the cemetery...


Turns out, we never could find it.