Ballaghaderreen

A town in the north-west corner of Roscommon that was part of County Mayo until 1899, and whose GAA club still plays for Mayo. It is the cathedral town of the Diocese of Achonry. In 2017 it became a reception centre for hundreds of refugees from the Syrian civil war, and the community won a People of the Year Award in 2018 for welcoming them.

In 1837 the town had 1,147 people in about 200 houses and was described as rising in importance as a post town on the new mail-coach road from Ballina to Longford. By the mid-19th century it had a Friday market, seven fairs a year, a courthouse, a market house and an infantry barracks for 94. The cathedral of the Diocese of Achonry was dedicated here in 1860. In 1899 the town and parish were transferred from Mayo to Roscommon under the Local Government Act of 1898. The railway, opened on 2 November 1874, closed on 4 February 1963. In March 2017 Ballaghaderreen became an Emergency Reception and Orientation Centre for refugees from Syria, and the people of the town were honoured in April 2018 for the welcome they gave.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Ballaghaderreen ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Cashelmore · fort · 6 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.

• Carrowkeel passage tombs · Fourteen Neolithic tombs on the Bricklieve ridges, one aligned so the midsummer sunset shines down its passage — the mirror of Newgrange, with no crowds.
• Rathcroghan (Cruachan) · Queen Medb's royal seat: 240 monuments over four square miles, including Oweynagat, the cave called 'the gate to Hell' — one claimed home of Halloween.
• Moytura · Second Battle of Mag Tuired: the Tuatha Dé Danann against the Fomorians. Lugh of the Long Arm kills his grandfather Balor of the Evil Eye with a sling-stone through the eye.
• Rathcroghan — Oweynagat · The 'cave of the cats', birthplace of Queen Medb and doorway to the Otherworld: at Samhain its creatures pour out into the world. One root of Halloween.
• Cruachan — Medb's court · Where Medb and Ailill's 'pillow talk' about whose wealth was greater started the Cattle Raid of Cooley — over one brown bull.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.