Welcome to Dunn’s Hill, Rostrevor, Co. Down and the story of Hedgeschool Master and United Irishman, Tom Dunn.
“The Tom Dunn Project grew out of a family field on Dunn’s Hill, a conversation with a neighbour, and a question that the community wouldn’t let go: how do we make sure this story is still told a hundred years from now?”
The ground on Dunns Hill takes its name from Tom Dunn, a hedge school master who once taught local children here – reading, writing, in Irish and English, Latin, history – at a time when it was against the law for him to teach at all. He was also a United Irishman, and he paid for it dearly: when offered his life for the names of his comrades, he refused, and was flogged almost to death rather than betray a single one of them.
Tom is buried close by, in Kilbroney graveyard, Rostrevor. Dunn’s Hill has carried his name, has been passed down through the generations and the years. Tom’s direct descendants are custodians of the land today and the ash trees that stand on it now have grown tall the same way his story has: slowly, rooted, refusing to be cut down.
Stand here a while with us, and you’re standing where he once stood.