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| St Peter's
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Fingal
Quiet and attractive rural town
The beauty of the Fingal district has been an
inspiration to a number of writers and poets.
James McAuley, who spent a lot of time on
Tasmania's east coast, wrote of Fingal in his
poem 'Fingal Valley'.
The blonding summer grasses
The stubble-fields, the green,
The sheep in pools in shadow,
Mauve thistledown between.
The jagged ridge stands sharper
Without a bushfire haze;
The river winds in silence
Through wide blue hours, days.
Located 237 km east of Launceston via the
Tasman Highway and 249 km north east of Hobart,
Fingal was named, probably after Fingal's Cave
in the Hebrides, by Roderic O'Connor who
surveyed the area with John Helder Wedge in
1824.
Shortly after the survey, land was granted in
the district and two substantial holdings were
taken up by William Talbot ('Malahide' - located
2 km north of the town it is a gracious two
storey stone Georgian house which was built in
1828) and James Grant ('Tullochgoram' - the
property is located 5 km out of Fingal on the
road to Avoca).
Fingal came into existence in 1827 when it
was established as a convict station. It grew
dramatically, if briefly, after the discovery of
gold at Mangana, 10 km north west of Fingal, in
1852. This discovery is widely regarded as the
first discovery of payable gold in Tasmania.
Here's a thought about the town's naming from
Steven Jutton: "The Talbots occupied Malahide
Castle for about 800 years. The castle is
located to the north of Dublin. The last of the
Talbots, the Hon. Rose Talbot sold the castle to
Dublin County Council in the 1970¹s. She now
lives in Malahide, near Fingal in Tasmania. Her
ancestors acquired land and gold mining rights
in Tasmania in the 1820¹s. Bearing in mind that
the names Malahide and Talbot made it to
Tasmania (the Fingal Hotel is located on Talbot
Street) I am guessing that the same is true of
Fingal. Fingal is an area north of Dublin and
formally became a county in 1994, when the old
Dublin County Council was abolished and replaced
by three new ones. The name Fingal has long been
associated with the area around the Talbot
family ancestral home of Malahide Castle and it
seems quite likely that this would account for
the name appearing in Tasmania."
Things to see:
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| Fingal Hotel
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Historic Buildings
The town has a number of historically
significant buildings, particularly in Talbot
Street, the town's main street. The Holder
Brothers Store dates from 1859 and nearby is the
old Tasmania Hotel, constructed, in part, from
the stones which were originally used to build
the Prison barracks in the 1840s. It became a
hotel in the 1850s and is now the local Tourist
Centre. It sells arts and crafts from the
district.
Also in Talbot Street is the Fingal Hotel, a
two storey hotel built in the 1840s which, in
the spirit of the town's name, has a fine
collection of Scotch whiskies - reputedly the
largest in the southern hemisphere. And, at the
west end of the street, opposite the Town Hall
(1882) is St Peter's Anglican Church, the town's
oldest church which was consecrated in 1867.
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| Fingal Post
Office |
In Seymour Street, which runs south from
Talbot Street, there are a number of
historically significant buildings. The local
primary school, with some modern additions,
dates from 1884 (it is one of the oldest primary
schools in Tasmania) and Uniting Church (1881)
and St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church (1880)
indicate a period when, towards the end of the
nineteenth century, the town was growing
rapidly.
