Anti-Treaty IRA men burned Moore Hall in 1923 because a Moore brother backed the Treaty, and the novelist's ashes lie on Castle Island in Lough Carra

George Moore made a fortune in the wine and brandy trade at Alicante and came home to Mayo in the 1790s with £200,000. He built Moore Hall from 1792 to 1795. His son John was named President of the Republic of Connacht by the French general Humbert in 1798, was captured, and died in Waterford. During the Famine, in 1846, George Henry Moore entered his horse Coranna in the Chester Gold Cup and won £17,000 in bets, which he spent importing grain for his tenants. The estate recorded no evictions during the Famine. By 1923 the family's head was the novelist George Augustus Moore. His brother, Colonel Maurice Moore, was a senator of the new Free State and supported the Treaty. On 1 February 1923 anti-Treaty IRA men demanded the keys and burned the house. The family library was destroyed. Reports say George Moore later received £7,000 in compensation^†. He died in 1933, and his ashes were buried on Castle Island in Lough Carra, known locally as Moore's island. After his death the estate passed to the Irish Land Commission and then to the state forestry company Coillte. In 2018 Mayo County Council bought the shell of the house, its courtyard, the walled garden and 80 acres of woodland, and plans to restore the site.