Castlebar

In August 1798 a French expeditionary force and Irish rebels routed a much larger government army here so completely that the retreat is still called the Races of Castlebar. A short-lived Republic of Connacht was declared in the town. The Land League was founded in Castlebar in 1879.

Castlebar is Caisleán an Bharraigh, Barry's castle: by 1235 the Norman de Barrys had built a castle on the Castlebar River, and the town grew around it. The Burkes held it later, and in 1586 it was granted to Sir John Bingham, whose family, later Earls of Lucan, held Castlebar for generations. James I gave the town a charter in 1613. The Linen Hall was finished in 1790.

In 1798 General Humbert's French and Irish army routed the garrison so completely that the battle became known as the Races of Castlebar, and John Moore was declared president of Connacht; he is buried on the Mall. In the Famine era the 3rd Earl of Lucan was called "the Exterminator" for his mass evictions. On 21 October 1879 Michael Davitt founded the Irish National Land League at the Imperial Hotel. In 1940 Jewish refugees from central Europe opened the Western Hat Factory here, which employed up to 270 people.

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

• Balla · round tower · 13 km
• Doon Castle · castle · 12 km

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

• Ballintubber Abbey · Founded by a king of Connacht in 1216, Mass has been said here every week since — roofless for 250 years through Cromwell and the Penal Laws, never abandoned.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.