Ballina

Mayo's town at the mouth of the Moy was founded as a garrison town in 1723 by O'Hara, Lord Tyrawley. Behind the railway station stands the Dolmen of the Four Maols, known locally as the Table of the Giants, said to cover four brothers hanged for murdering a 7th-century bishop. Irish was the town's main language until the early 1900s, and in April 2023 President Joe Biden spoke here to tens of thousands about his family's links to Ballina.

The Dolmen of the Four Maols on Primrose Hill is a Bronze Age cist sometimes dated to about 2,000 BC; legend makes it the grave of four brothers who murdered Ceallach, a 7th-century bishop of Kilmoremoy, and were hanged at Ardnaree, the hill of executions. Settlement on the site dates from around 1375, when an Augustinian friary was founded, and the Battle of Ardnaree was fought in 1586. Charles O'Hara bought the Belleek lands in 1704/5, and Ballina was founded as a garrison town in 1723. In 1798 a French and Irish army under General Humbert, landed at Killala Bay, defeated the English garrison here. During the Famine the Ballina workhouse served the whole north-west coast of Mayo, and in February 1847 people were dying of fever there at almost ninety a week.

Irish was the main language until the early 1900s, but by the 1920s English had taken over, and the town was left out of the Gaeltacht designations of 1929. The War of Independence brought raids on tax collectors' homes, shootings of police and, in 1921, the torture and murder of a local tailor and IRA member, Michael Tolan. In the Civil War anti-Treaty forces burned Castle Gore in 1922. On 14 April 2023 President Joe Biden closed his visit to Ireland with a speech here, and in 2024 the barracks of 1742 reopened as the Ballina Innovation Quarter.

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

• Dolmen of the Four Maols · tomb · 1 km
• Killala · round tower · 11 km
• Rappa Castle · castle · 6 km
• Deel Castle · castle · 6 km

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