Charlestown, County Mayo-born, John Healy (1930-1991) is remembered regularly and widely in Ireland as one of its most renowned journalists and social commentators. John Healy started his career in 1948 with the Western People newspaper in Ballina, before moving to Dublin in 1950 and working for the Irish News Agency, the Irish Press and Evening Press, before becoming editor of the Sunday Review and the Evening Mail and moving to the Irish Times. There, he wrote the popular ‘Backbencher’ column, which was compulsory reading for anyone interested in politics. It was always well-informed from within the system, iconoclastic, and regularly set the national political agenda. John Healy was a close friend of Douglas Gageby (1918-2004), who was editor of the Irish Times from 1963 to 1986, after being brought back after a short retirement in 1974. In 1967, Healy won a Jacob’s Award for television scriptwriter of the year in respect of the programme Headlines and Deadlines and later presented the Hurler on the Ditch. He wrote a popular weekly column for the Western People and was a co-founder (with James McGuire), part owner, and contributor to the Western Journal, which was published in Ballina from 3 June 1977 to 11 March 1983. Healy supported many causes and the people who promoted them, in particular any initiative designed to improve economic and social conditions, like community development, western development, education, amateur drama, and the European project. In particular, he eulogised Donogh O’ Malley following his announcement of free secondary education in September 1966, immediately capturing its transformative and empowerment potential. Healy wrote numerous brilliant obituaries for people he knew, especially for O’Malley, following his sudden death on 10 March 1968, at the age of 47. A great champion of the west of Ireland, John Healy was a big supporter of what became Ireland West Airport Knock. A keen supporter of ambition in people, in communities and in what he called ‘nation-shaping’; he had little time for those he termed ‘verbalisers’ (talkers but not ‘doers’). His big interest in art led him to running a gallery in Achill for a number of years. Mayo Person of the Year in 1967, John Healy wrote three celebrated books, No One Shouted Stop (formerly Death of an Irish Town, 1968), influenced by all the young people he saw leaving Charlestown weekly as part of the then mass emigration from the area, Nineteen Acres (1978), championing a small family landholding which meant so much to his mother’s people and similar families in the west of Ireland at the time, and Healy, Reporter (1981), all of which are important sociological records written from personal experience. In 1989, he was given an honorary doctorate by the National Council for Educational Awards. John Healy died suddenly on 6 January 1991 and was buried in Shanganagh Cemetery, Dublin.

Croke Park in Dublin, the national stadium and headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), is one of the finest sports stadia in Europe, with a capacity of 82,300. The GAA was founded on November1, 1884, in Thurles, County Tipperary, by Michael Cusack (1847-1906), a Dublin-based teacher from County Clare, and six other men. It was founded as part of the Gaelic cultural nationalism of the time to foster an Irish identity, and promote athletics for all classes of people as well as to revive and promote the traditional sports of hurling, Gaelic football, handball, and rounders. It works closely with sister organisations to promote camogie and ladies Gaelic football. The GAA grew to become perhaps the greatest amateur sports organisation in the world, now with a presence in all five continents.

  The first All-Ireland finals were played in a ground on Jones’s Road in 1896 that was purchased by a GAA supporter, Frank Dineen, in 1908. In 1913, this ground was purchased from him by the GAA. and called after Archbishop Thomas Croke of Cashel, one of its three inaugural patrons (the other two were the big nationalist leaders of the time, Charles Stewart Parnell and Michael Davitt). The first stand there in 1913 was replaced by a new one in 1924, and later named in honour of Michael Hogan, a Tipperary player who was shot during a game in November 2020 during the Irish War of Independence. This was replaced by a new stand in 1959. The second stand was named in honour of Michael Cusack in 1938. There was a small stand near the Hogan called after Patrick Nally, a Mayo man and an exceptional athlete who influenced Cusack to found the GAA. Big developments took place in Croke Park from the 1990s to 2005, with a full reconstruction and the provision of modern amenities. The new Cusack Stand was completed in 1995, followed by a new stand at the canal end called after Maurice Davin, the first President of the GAA. The new Hogan Stand was completed in 2002. The Nally Stand was removed and the area is now a terrace. The best-known standing terrace at Hill 16 is now also named in honour of Frank Dineen. A GAA Museum was established, and it is now one of the big tourist attractions in Dublin. The GAA Club Wall at the entrance to the museum, unveiled in 2009, displays the crests of all clubs in the association. The National Handball Centre is also there.

  Croke Park hosted numerous great games in Gaelic football and hurling down through the years, as well as a Muhammad Ali fight in 1972, several concerts with artists like Neil Diamond, U2, One Direction, Celine Dion, Ed Sheeran, and Taylor Swift, the closing ceremony of the 50^th international Eucharistic Congress in 2012, American football, and several other major events. However, for many the two most memorable events were the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2003 Special Olympics, with a world-wide audience, the first time the event was held outside the USA, and a historic rugby game on February 24, 2006. This game was between England and Ireland in the Six Nations Championship (when the Aviva Stadium was under construction). The playing of God Save the Queen, without interruption, in an arena where fourteen innocent people (thirteen spectators and a player) were killed by British auxiliaries on November 21, 1920, was a statement to the world that there was now a new mature relationship between the two countries. It was a huge occasion for the GAA, for Irish rugby football, and for the maturity of a new confident modern Ireland to embrace inclusiveness, but also for the great stadium that is Croke Park.

 After the reform of the Irish Church in the twelfth century from a monastic to a diocesan structure, religious orders were encouraged to set up houses in Ireland to facilitate this process. A number of early monastic sites in Mayo, including Cong, Ballintober, Mayo, Inishmaine and Errew, were occupied and developed as abbeys for Canons Regular of Saint Augustine under the patronage of Gaelic families such as the O’Connors in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The best-known abbey in Mayo, and one of the most famous in Ireland, is Ballintober, where Mass has been said without a break since its foundation in 1216. These Canons Regular of St Augustine were distinct from the later order of Augustinian friars (OSA). Their Canons’ regulations were introduced to Ireland by St Malachy of Armagh about 1140, who wanted to end the isolationism of the Irish church and link it with the universal church in Rome. He was also responsible for the Cistercians establishing their first Irish foundation at Mellifont, County Louth, in 1142. They established an abbey at Knockmoy in County Galway in 1189, with a subordinate foundation on Clare Island at the entrance to Clew Bay in County Mayo in 1224. The Cistercians were supported by benefactors.

  Most new religious communities established in Ireland from the early thirteenth century onwards were mendicant friars, who begged for alms to supplement their incomes. Friaries were established in County Mayo by the four main mendicant orders, Dominicans, Carmelites, Franciscans and Augustinians, with the support of both Anglo-Norman and Irish families. The Dominicans started in Ireland in 1224, and were thus the first of the mendicant orders to be established here. The first Mayo friary was established at Straide for the Franciscans between 1240 and 1250, but it was transferred to the Dominicans in 1252. The Dominicans also established a friary at Rathfran, near Killala, around 1274. Around 1434, the Mac Costellos established the Dominicans at Urlaur in the parish of Kilmovee, with another house founded at Burrishoole, near Newport, around 1486. The Carmelite order, was instituted in Ballinsmaula, near Claremorris, around 1288 under the patronage of the Prendergasts. The Carmelites established a foundation at Burriscarra, near Ballinrobe, in 1298 with the support of the Stauntons, but it was abandoned after about eighty years, and later taken over by the Augustinian Friars.

  The First Order of Franciscans was for friars, the Second Order for nuns, with the Third Order for lay men and women. The Franciscans started in Ireland around 1230. After establishing a friary at Straide in the 1240s, which (as mentioned above) was transferred to the Dominicans in 1252, they had no presence in Mayo until the fifteenth century. Rosserk Friary, beside Killala Bay, was founded about 1441 for the Franciscan Third Order, and Moyne Friary, nearby, for regular Franciscan friars around 1455.

  The Augustinian Friary in Ballinrobe, established about 1312, was the first of their nine foundations in Connacht, including four others in County Mayo: Ardnaree, Ballyhaunis, Burriscarra (after its abandonment by the Carmelites) and Murrisk. The Augustinians developed a friary at Ardnaree about 1400 with the support of the O’Dowds, and the Mac Costellos established them in Ballyhaunis around 1430. Murrisk Friary, overlooking Clew Bay, was started about 1456 by the O’Malleys. After the dissolution of the abbeys and friaries in Mayo during the Reformation in the sixteenth century, many of the new owners of confiscated religious property allowed the friars to return and continue their work. The foundations just mentioned were all attractive buildings, with the surviving structures still impressive archaeological monuments on the landscape of County Mayo.

Michael Davitt (1846-1906), ‘the Father of the Irish Land League’, social reformer, Member of Parliament, international humanitarian, and author, was a great champion of education for the empowerment of men and women. In his book Leaves from a Prison Diary (1885), he deplored the limited educational opportunities for girls and strongly recommended that the system should provide equal opportunities for both genders at all levels.

  Highly intelligent and self-educated to a great extent, Michael Davitt’s reading embraced English literature, history, politics, economics, biographies, and the Bible. His intellectual curiosity turned every experience into a learning opportunity, especially his numerous journeys abroad. Shortly after his arrival in Philadelphia in July 1878, on his first visit abroad following, he explored the historic sites of the city, recording the experience in his diary. He visited Independence Hall, where the American founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and where the US Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, Congress Hall, where Congress met from 1790 to 1800 when the city was the first capital of the US, as well as Christ Church, where he saw in the adjacent burial-ground the grave of Benjamin Franklin, who helped draft the US Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Amongst other sites and places, he also saw the Liberty Bell, which rang out on July 4, 1776, the Free Library, Fairmount Park, and of course, the local prison. Thereafter, he really enjoyed travelling and loved exploring different places, always learning and eager to see how things could be improved in Ireland. He loved reading, writing and when the opportunities arose attending theatres, concerts and operas. According to Dr T. W. Moody, Davitt had some knowledge of French, Spanish, German, Italian and Latin, which is amazing in view of his limited learning opportunities

  Davitt’s biggest intellectual accomplishment was the publication of six books, an enormous achievement having regard to his life and disability (he had to learn to write with his left hand following the amputation of the right one). His six books encapsulate his enormous ability, concentration, dedication and work-rate as well as his desire to disseminate knowledge and ideas for the betterment of society. No other Irish political figure has bequeathed to posterity such a valuable record of contemporary affairs.

  Appreciating the role of education as a source of empowerment for individuals, families, society and the economy, he made several recommendations in his writings for widening access to everyone able and willing to avail of it. After his own experience of the Mechanics’ Institute in Haslingden, England, he had a big interest in the provision of suitable evening courses for working people, and supported the establishment of similar Institutes in Ireland. Michael Davitt believed strongly in the transformative role of education in developing the talents of people, in enhancing their opportunities to earn their livelihoods, in improving their living conditions, as well as enabling them to enjoy social and cultural activities. He deplored the limited educational opportunities then available, and really campaigned all his life for their improvement.

The film Mrs Robinson, directed by Aoife Kelleher and produced by Cormac Hargaden and Trisha Canning for Loosehorse went on general release at the end of August 2024. The film tells the life story of Ireland’s first female Head of State, and of her battles over fifty years for gender equality, human rights, and social justice for all humankind, and in later years for climate justice.

  On December 3, 1990, Mary Robinson, a constitutional lawyer, caused a national and international sensation with her election as the seventh President of Ireland. Born Mary Bourke in Ballina, County Mayo, on May 21, 1944, she was the only daughter in a family of five born to Aubrey Bourke and his wife Tessa, née O’Donnell from Carndonagh, County Donegal, both medical doctors. Mary was educated at Ms Ruddy’s private school in Ballina before going to Mount Anville Secondary School in Dublin, then to a ‘finishing school’ for a year in Paris, before going on to become a distinguished law student at Trinity College, Dublin, the King’s Inns, and Harvard Law School. After qualifying as a barrister, she was appointed Reid professor of constitutional and criminal law in Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of twenty-five. Later, she took a number of high-profile constitutional cases in Ireland as well as to the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice on issues like women’s right to sit on juries, access to legal aid, the concept of ‘illegitimacy’, decriminalisation of homosexual acts, and discrimination against married women under the social welfare acts, which led to many changes in the law. After her election to Seanad Éireann as a representative of the University of Dublin in November 1969 (a seat she held until July 5, 1989), she promoted the liberalisation of Irish law, and used the chamber to support reform in women’s rights, gender equality, human rights, and social issues in general.

  Following her election as President of Ireland, she paid a special tribute to the women of Ireland, mná na hÉireann. In her inaugural address, she spoke about her ambition to represent ‘a new Ireland: open, tolerant, inclusive’. A very successful and popular president, she completely transformed the conservative nature of the office, using her position to promote inclusiveness and empowerment, especially with voluntary community organisations and minority groups. She reached out to the Irish diaspora, placing a light in the window of the family kitchen in Áras an Uachtaráin as a symbol of her concern for those who had left Ireland, and she made numerous visits to Irish communities around the world. One of her major achievements was to bring the suffering of the people of Rwanda to world attention in October 1995 after a terrible civil war in that part of central Africa. In May 1993, Mary Robinson visited Queen Elizabeth in Buckingham Palace, the first official meeting between the Irish and British Heads of State since Irish independence in 1922. She insisted on being addressed by her correct constitutional title, President of Ireland. Her single presidential term ended on September 12, 1997, when she resigned to become United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, a position she held until September 12, 2002. In her United Nations’ role, she visited numerous countries promoting human rights, including China, and was courageous in ‘speaking truth to power’, wherever she saw abuse.

  For eight years after leaving the United Nations post, Mary Robinson led ‘Realizing’, an organisation pioneering the implementation of economic and social rights, especially in African countries. She established the Mary Robinson Foundation — Climate Justice in 2010, addressing how people are affected by climate change, and became a world champion for climate justice. In 2014, she was appointed as the United Nations special envoy on climate change and later to a number of other posts. Mary Robinson has served as Chancellor of the University of Dublin and as honorary President of Oxfam. She received numerous honorary degrees, awards and honours, including, in July 2009, the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama, the highest civilian honour awarded by the USA. In 2007, she was invited to join a group to be known as The Elders, a small number of independent world leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela to foster reconciliation, respect for human rights, and hope wherever there is conflict in the world, and she is now its influential moral leader. In the film, she recalls these battles over her lifetime in her own words. Bono and Irish songwriters Gemma Doherty and Morgan Mac Intyre contributed a special song for the film’s soundtrack ‘Women of the World’.

  Dr Gay Corr, who died at the age of 85 on July 1, 2024, was the Founding Father of the Regional Technical College (RTC), Galway, which became Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology in January 1998 (GMIT, now part of Atlantic Technological University since March 1, 2022), serving as its inspirational and visionary leader for thirty years. He made an inestimable contribution to the promotion of higher education in the West of Ireland, and across the country. One of his achievements on the national stage was serving for three terms on the Higher Education Authority (HEA), and as its chairperson from 1990 to 1993. A gentleman, with great integrity and decency, he had a deep sense of public service, and was held in the highest of esteem by staff and students.

  Gay Corr was born on November 22, 1938, the only son of James Corr and his wife, May, née Concannon near Irishtown, close to the Mayo Galway border. After completing his primary education at Logboy National School, he won a scholarship to St Jarlath’s College, Tuam, from 1952 to 1957. He then went to University College, Galway, to study science. After graduating with a first-class honours degree in 1961, he secured employment as a chemist with the Central Laboratory of the Irish Flour Millers’ Association until 1964, before moving to the Dublin Health Authority, and later to An Forás Talúntáis. During that time, he lectured part-time at Bolton Street College of Technology. He was appointed Head of Science at the new Regional Technical College in Athlone in September 1970.

  After a public competition, Gay Corr, was appointed as Principal of the new Regional Technical College, Galway, early in 1972 (the title was changed to Director in 1993 and to President in 2007). On April I, 1972, he started in RTC Galway, and did Trojan work to have staff and students in the new college in September that year. He established a college of high morale and a wonderful atmosphere.

  On December 16, 1974, Richard Burke, Minister for Education, caused consternation when he made a major announcement in relation to higher education, including a decision to remove degree-awarding powers from the National Council for Educational Awards (NCEA), which then had legal responsibility for validating all higher education programmes outside the universities. The first submission for a degree in a RTC came from Galway for a programme in Hotel and Catering Management, which had been evaluated before the December 1974 decision, and was approved shortly afterwards. When the NCEA was re-constituted in February 1976, its powers to grant and confer awards applied to National Certificates and Diplomas only. When the Galway students were to be conferred with ‘Advanced Diplomas in Hotel and Catering Management’, they refused to accept then on November 15 1976. Gay Corr, in a firm and courageous public address, fully supported the students in their actions. It was the finest hour of Gay Corr’s distinguished career, for which he received deserved praise far and wide, including editorials in local and national newspapers. Within a few days of becoming Minister for Education on December 2, 1976, Peter Barry informed the NCEA that it could award degrees to the 1976 class, which happened on May 9, 1977.

  From the late 1980s, RTC Galway established other campuses in the region, including the Agricultural College in Mountbellew (1986), Connemara West in Letterfrack (1987), a Mayo Campus in Castlebar (1994), and the Cluain Mhuire in Galway City (1994). The new Learning Resource Centre at the main campus was completed in 2002.

  Gay Corr had a big role in getting research established as an integral part of the work of RTCs. As Chairperson of the Association of Principals of the RTCs from 1987 to 1990, he had a pivotal role in the deliberations that preceded the enactment of the Regional Technical Colleges’ Act of 1992, under which each college became an autonomous institution of higher education, and enabled each to engage ‘in research, consultancy, and development work’. He served as a council member and later as vice-chairperson and chairperson of HEDCO, the Higher Education for Development Co-operation, and of EURASHE, the European Association of Higher Education Institutions outside the universities, serving for two years as its president.

  In recognition of his outstanding contribution to RTC Galway and to higher education in Ireland, he was conferred with the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa by the NCEA on November 30, 1992. Nominated by the Students’ Union, he was selected as one of the Rehab Galway People of the Year in 2002. After directing the affairs of the college for thirty years with intelligence, shrewd judgment, energy, humane management, and respect for everyone, he retired on October 4, 2002. Dr Gay Corr deserves to be remembered as a pioneer in Irish Higher education from 1970 until his retirement in 2002.

The inhabitants of the parish of Kilfian, between Crossmolina and Ballycastle, in North Mayo, Ireland, have honoured a daughter of the parish, Sarah McElroy (1881-1949) and her Scottish-born husband, Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), by erecting a stone monument and bronze busts of the couple on August 6, 2001, beside Kincon Church. After going to London, she qualified as a nurse. She met Alexander Fleming and they were married on 23 December 1915. Their only child, Robert 1924-2015, became a doctor.

  Alexander Fleming was the physician and microbiologist who discovered penicillin in 1928, for which he shared the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine in 1945, (with Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, who devised procedures for its large-scale production). His discovery has saved millions of lives around the world. He was knighted for his discovery in 1944. There is a museum in his honour in St Mary’s Hospital, London, where he made his famous discovery. In 1999, Sir Alexander Fleming was named in Time magazine as one of the 100 most important people of the twentieth century. He was also named one the 100 Great Britons in a BBC nationwide vote in 2002.

  Sarah was one of twelve children born on May 28, 1881, to Bernard McElroy, who came to Mayo from County Tyrone, and his wife, Maria, née Flynn, a native of the adjoining parish of Lackan. In London, Sarah ran a nursing home for a number of years, which she sold to help support her husband’s research. After her death on October 28, 1949, she was buried in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, and where his cremated remains of Alexander were buried in 1955.

  Michael Davitt, ‘the Father of the Irish Land League’, was born at the height of the Great Irish Famine, on March 25, 1846, in Straide, County Mayo, the son of Martin and Catherine. His father, Martin Davitt, who was born in or around 1814, was a yearly tenant farmer on the estate of John Knox in Straide. Martin, who probably attended a local hedge-school in his youth, was literate, bi-lingual, and a good reader, with a big interest in Irish and American history.  He had a reputation as a good seanchaí, or storyteller, and these stories were to nurture strong patriotic feelings in Michael as well as a big dislike of the landlord system. As a young person, Martin was involved in a local agrarian secret society during the 1830s and, arising from these activities, he went to England for a period before returning home to farm a small holding of land.  Martin married Catherine Kielty from the nearby parish of Turlough in or around 1840. Four children were born to Martin and Catherine Davitt in Straide: Mary (1841), Michael (1846), Anne (1848) and Sabina (1850); a fifth child, a boy named James, was later born in England but he did not survive.

  The late 1840s was a difficult period in which to rear a young family in County Mayo.  With the frugal subsistence of most families deteriorating each year, it was a major struggle to survive.  Despite securing work on a local relief scheme and going to England as a migratory labourer for the summer of 1849, Martin Davitt was unable to pay off the arrears of rent which had accumulated during the Great Famine.  After being served with an ejectment notice in 1849, the Davitt family were evicted as part of the “Great Clearances” at the end of the Great Famine, an unforgettable experience for any family. The Davitt family went to the workhouse in Swinford, Co. Mayo, but when Catherine Davitt was told that male children over three years of age had to be separated from their mothers, she promptly took her family away. Sharing the fate of many thousands of Irish dispossessed by the famine, the Davitt family emigrated to Haslingden, a small textile town in Lancashire, north of Manchester, where Martin undertook a variety of jobs.

  Michael Davitt’s eldest sister, Mary, married a Mayo-man Neil Padden in May 1863 in Haslingden. Shortly afterwards, Neil emigrated to the United States and ended up in Scranton, an industrial town in the north-east of Pennsylvania, where Mary joined him in 1865. Five years later, having regard to his involvement in Fenian activities, Michael persuaded his parents and other sisters, Anne and Sabina, to emigrate to Mary and Neil Padden in the United States.  It was their wish to return to Ireland if they could make a living there, but acceding to Michael’s pressure they decided to emigrate to America.  Preceded by Anne and Sabina, Martin and Catherine Davitt sailed from Liverpool and arrived in New York in April 1870, from where they went to Scranton. They were never to see Ireland or England again, which was the experience of almost all emigrants to America at that time. Michael was arrested and sentenced on to fifteen years’ penal servitude on July 18, 1870, most of which was served in Dartmoor prison in Devon.

  Of all the hardships Michael endured in prison, his most depressing experience was when he learned of his father’s death in December 1871, at the age of about fifty-seven.

Michael had great love and respect for his father and agonised about his role in persuading his parents to emigrate to the USA. Martin was buried in the Padden family plot at number 24, section D1, at the Cathedral Cemetery, Oram Boulevard, Scranton, Pennsylvania. After Martin’s death, Catherine Davitt and two of her daughters, Anne and Sabina, moved to Manayunk, Philadelphia, in search of better employment opportunities. After her death there on July 18, 1880, she was buried in the grounds of the Church of Saint John the Baptist in Manayunk.

  The National Museum of Ireland-Country Life, located just off the N5 at Turlough, 8 km east of Castlebar in County Mayo, is now one of the main tourist attractions in the west of Ireland, and it is free. It was opened in September 2001 to house the Irish folklore collection, most of which was in storage until then. However, with a collection of over 50,000 items, and constantly growing with donations, only a fraction of it is on public display. Mayo County Council purchased Turlough Park House and estate for the state in 1991, and were successful in having the National Museum of Ireland locate its country life collection there, their only branch outside Dublin.

  The Museum of Country Life is designed with modern exhibition galleries on four floors in the spectacular grounds of Turlough Park. Here you travel back in time and experience a vanished civilisation incorporating artefacts from rural Ireland, chiefly from about 1850 to the 1950s, with displays using archival video material and interactive screens. These include farming and fishing activities, the homes in which people dwelt, examples of furniture, dress and footwear, items relating to religion, education, emigration, politics, games, past-times, customs, festivals, as well as a wide variety of trades and crafts, like the blacksmith, tinsmith, thatcher, carpenter and cooper. The Education Room is fully equipped to offer a range of educational programmes for schools and groups.

  Surrounded by landscaped parklands of 29 acres, beautiful gardens, a modern freestanding glasshouse, and an artificial lake (known as a turlough), visitors can also see Turlough Park House, which was extensively restored by the Office of Public Works. The house was built in 1865 by the Fitzgerald family, who received the estate under the Cromwellian settlement in the seventeenth century. Turlough House and adjoining courtyards were designed by Thomas Newenham Deane, who was also responsible for the Church of Ireland in Westport and the National Museum in Kildare Street, Dublin.

  There is a 2.9m high sculpture by Ballintober-born artist, Brother Joseph McNally, in the grounds of the National Museum of Country Life. The Portal sculpture by Barry Linnane symbolises a link between past and present.

(www.museum.ie/en/intro/country-life)

 Mark Rode (born 1965) is a distinguished figurative sculptor, whose work can be seen in several Irish counties, especially in County Mayo. His speciality is creating a perfectly modelled figure in bronze, with empathy, subtlety, and a desire to connect with viewers. After studying art, anatomy, proportion, and bronze-casting in his native Australia, he moved to Europe in 1998, and gained experience in England, France, Italy, and Germany before settling in Ireland with his Irish wife, Jacinta Guinan. They eventually took up residence in Killasser, Swinford, County Mayo where his business is located.

  One of his early Irish figures was the Brother Walfrid sculpture in Ballymote, County Sligo. It was unveiled on October 24, 2004, to honour Andrew Kerins (1840-1915), a native of Cartron Phibbs, Ballymote, who emigrated to Glasgow and later joined the Marist order, taking the name Brother Walfrid. He became the founder of Glasgow Celtic Football Club on November 6, 1888, which became the most successful sporting institution of the Irish diaspora, winning the European Cup in 1967. Mark’s other early public work include the Mayo County Crest, Castlebar (2005), Leaping Salmon, Foxford (2005), as well as Man Reading Newspaper and Man with Suitcase, Kiltimagh (2006), both with artist Sally McKenna, the Jim McPadden Memorial in Leitrim (2006) In co-operation with Tim Morris, Mark Rode was the sculptor of a woman and child from the 1950s entitled Strength of a Woman, donated to Swinford in 2007 to remember the women who looked after their homes and families while their men worked in England.

  One of his best known Irish public sculptures is the Champions in Tralee, County Kerry. Four metres in height, it depicts four footballers jumping for a ball, and was commissioned by Kerry County Council to celebrate the county’s long and proud tradition in Gaelic footballa Over a tonne of bronze was used in this spectacular sculpture, which was unveiled in Tralee on May 14, 2007. He did the Tour de France Memorial in Enniscorthy, County Wexford (2008), and the All-Ireland hurler in Birr, County Offaly, in 2009. The bronze statues and ship bow in the Addergoole Titanic Memorial Park in Lahardaun, County Mayo, are the work of Mark Rode. The park was opened on April 12, 2012, to remember the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic on April 14, 1912, with twelve local people on board, eleven of whom perished. Mark did the Marish Brother in Athlone in 2012.

  Mark’s sculpture of John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, who played the roles of Sean Thornton and the feisty Mary Kate Danaher in The Quiet Man film in 1951, was unveiled in Cong, County Mayo in October 2013. He did the Thomas McDonagh Sculpture in Cloughjordan, County Tipperary (2016), one of the seven leaders of the Easter 1916 Rising, who was born there. In 2018, Mark’s sculptures of President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama were unveiled at the Barack Obama Plaza, a popular service station at Moneygall, County Offaly, at junction 23 on the M7 Dublin to Limerick Motorway. Moneygall was the ancestral home of a maternal great-great-great grandfather of the forty-fourth President of the United States, who visited the village in 2011.

  Mark’s most recent work was a sculpture of Grace Kelly (1929-1982), who won an Oscar for her role The Country Girl in 1954 and a year later married Prince Rainier of Monaco, was unveiled in Newport, County Mayo, in 2023. Her paternal grandfather, John Kelly, came from near Newport. In January 2024, his sculpture of Grace O’Malley, was also unveiled in Newport. She was the pirate queen along the wild Atlantic coast of Connacht during the second half of the sixteenth-century, and lived for some time in Rockfleet Castle, near Newport. In addition to his public sculptures, Mark Rode has exhibited his work in galleries in Australia, England and several venues around Ireland. His sculptures are held in many public and private collections in Ireland, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Saint Patrick was a fifth-century British-born missionary bishop, who is chiefly credited with the conversion of the then pagan Irish to Christianity. Several holy people in early Christian Ireland who devoted their lives to spreading the faith and founding churches were often described as saints (it was many centuries later before the formal church process of canonization was introduced). Nevertheless, Patrick is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, and other churches. Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17, the date on which he is believed to have died (but the year in uncertain), is celebrated by Irish people at home and around the world in honour of Ireland’s patron saint. It is believed that the first St Patrick’s day parade was held in Boston in 1779, now a big feature of the day everywhere, with the biggest every year in New York City. It is now customary for the Irish taoiseach to visit Washington DC on St Patrick’s Day and present a bowl of shamrock to the President of the United States. March 17 became a Catholic Church holiday in Ireland in the seventeenth century, and a public holiday in 1900.

Christianity was introduced to Ireland at the start of the fifth century, if not earlier, and Pope Celestine appointed Palladius as first bishop to the Irish Christians, but it is Saint Patrick who is credited with the spread of Christianity in Ireland. According to his own writings, he came from an ecclesiastical family in Britain and that his father was named Calpurnius, a deacon in the church. After capture by Irish raiders at the age of sixteen, Patrick was sold into captivity herding sheep on the slopes of Slemish mountain in County Antrim. There, he spent many hours in prayer, which was critical to his spiritual development. After six years, he escaped and returned home. He later said that in a dream he heard ‘the voices of the Irish’ asking him to return. After ordination at Auxerre in France he was appointed as bishop of the Irish and returned to Ireland. His early years in Ireland as a missionary bishop were in the north and, according to various accounts written in the seventh century, as first bishop he made Armagh the capital of his Irish church (to this day it is the capital of both Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland in the country, with both cathedrals there named in his honour). He appears to have spent some time in County Mayo in the west of Ireland, including, according to legend, forty days and nights on the summit of Croagh Patrick, fasting and praying for the people of Ireland. Other Patrician sites recorded for the county include Aghagower near Westport, Ballintober, Kilmoremoy, near Ballina, and various parts of north Mayo as far west as Ballycastle.

Saint Patrick is said to have baptised thousands, ordained many priests, and became the chief evangelizer of the natives, bringing Ireland within the See of Rome and part of universal Christendom. Saint Patrick is associated with the shamrock, because it is said that he used a three-leafed shamrock to explain the concept of The Holy Trinity (three persons in one God, The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit). The shamrock became an Irish symbol. He also lit a paschal fire on the hill of Slane in County Meath in defiance of the local high king. The legend that he drove all the snakes from Ireland is a fallacy, as there were never snakes in the country.

St Patrick wrote two concise documents in Latin, his autobiographical Confessio and his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus. These were the earliest writings to be penned in Ireland, and they are preserved in manuscripts that are kept in Continental libraries, although an abbreviated version of the Confessio is found in the Book of Armagh, an early ninth-century manuscript, now in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. A text written in the late seventh century by Bishop Tírechán, from Tirawley in north Mayo, suggested that the area west of Killala was the location of Silva Vocluti, ‘the wood of Fochluth beside the western sea’ mentioned by Patrick in his Confessio.

  It is believed that St Patrick died at Saul, in County Down, and that he was buried nearby in the grounds of Down Cathedral at Downpatrick.

Peadar (Peter) O’Dowd, who died on January 3, 2024, at the age of 82, will be remembered as a lecturer, a newspaper columnist, a great Galway historian, and a prolific author. Born in Bohermore, Galway City, on June 29, 1941, Peadar was the eldest of four children. His formal education started at St Brendan’s Primary School in Woodquay, Galway, where he developed a life-long interest in nature, especially birds, trees, and shrubs. After his secondary education as a day pupil in St Mary’s College from 1954 to 1959, he attended University College Galway, graduating in 1962, and with a Higher Diploma in Education the following year. His first teaching post was in Abbeyknockmoy Vocational School in County Galway before going to Glenamaddy for eight happy years until the end of 1972. In January 1973, he was appointed as a lecturer in business studies, and later in heritage studies, in the newly established Regional Technical College in Galway, giving outstanding service until his retirement on August 31, 2006. There, Peadar gravitated towards the Archaeological, Historical, and Folklore Society, which organised an annual programme of lectures and outings. Peadar became hooked on all aspects of heritage, and in effect developed a parallel career in that field.

  Peadar became a gifted communicator with the ability to convey his wide knowledge of Galway’s heritage with clarity, precision, and language, always stating that he was writing for the general reader and not the specialist. His books include Galway City Waterways: A Walking Guide (1985), Old and New Galway (1985), Vanishing Galway (1987), Galway: Heart of the West (1991), Touring Galway: A Guide to County Galway (1993), Down by the Claddagh (1993), The Great Famine and the West (1996), Galway on the Bay (2002, with Derek Biddulph and Dick Byrne), In From the West-the McDonagh Dynasty (2002), Galway in Old Photographs (2003), A History of County Galway (2004), Galway Lawn Tennis Club (2005), Christmas Tales of Galway (2006), More Tales of Galway (2007), Final Tales of Galway (2008), Tracing Your Galway Ancestors (2011), The Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora: An Illustrated History (2011), St Mary’s College Galway Centenary 1912-2012 (2012), and editing his last book in 2018, Glenamaddy Boyouragh: Our People-Our Heritage.

  He became a weekly columnist with the Connacht Sentinel from 1992 until November 2014, and thereafter with the Connacht and Galway City Tribune to his last article on December 29, 2023. He also contributed articles to various publications like Galway Life, Galway Now, Galway Roots, Ireland’s Own, New Horizon, and the Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society.

  Peadar gave numerous public lectures on various aspects of Galway’s heritage, conducted innumerable tours, broadcast on radio and television, as well as serving for 13 years as secretary of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society and five as president. He was also a member of the Old Galway Society, the Royal Society of Antiquaries, and a director of Galway Civic Trust. One of the people Peadar impressed during a walking tour of Galway was the wife of Richard Daley, Mayor of Chicago. This led to her nominating Peadar and his wife, Mary, to be invited to Chicago as the Irish representatives for a big celebration on December 31, 1999 to inaugurate the new millennium with two representatives from every country in the world. One of the Rehab Galway People of the Year in 2003, he received a mayoral award in 2007, an honorary MA degree from the National University Galway in 2011, and was honoured by Galway City Council for their huge contribution to local heritage in 2013. Galway has lost a great champion.

  Downpatrick Head, near Ballycastle on the north coast of County Mayo, is one of the most fascinating heritage sites in Ireland. Rising to 38metres from the sea, it is a Signature Discovery Point on the Wild Atlantic Way. It is renowned for its spectacular sea stack, known as Dún Briste, ‘the broken fortress’, which broke from the mainland in 1393 in some natural cataclysm caused by the wild Atlantic waves. The sea stack, with its myriad layers of rock about 228m from the shore, once measured 63m by 23m, but further erosion has taken place in recent years. It was once the site of a promontory fort, one erected during the Iron Age, 600 BC to AD 444, with large earthen banks or stone ramparts on a natural coastal site. The headland is named after St Patrick, who is said to have founded a church there, and who is reputed to have had a big association with north Mayo. The ruin of an early church (possibly a successor of a still earlier church) can be seen there, as well as a holy well and a statue of St Patrick.

  The headland was once a place of pilgrimage on Garland Sunday (the last Sunday of July). The name of the headland, in Irish Ceann Dhún Pádraig, Patrick’s headland fortress, comes from St Patrick and from the promontory fort on Dún Briste. On the east side of the headland there are the remains of a smaller promontory fort. The headland has an underground cavern with open crevices and a blow-hole with a subterranean channel to the Atlantic Ocean. A sensitive architectural and landscape installation, known as The Crossing, was erected as a safety installation there from 24 June to 4 July 2014 by Travis Price and architectural students on the Spirit of Place Programme from the Catholic University of America, Washington DC, in co-operation with local landowners and Mayo County Council. Twenty-five local people lost their lives there while hiding in the aftermath of the defeat of the French/Irish at Ballinamuck in 1798.

  The location provides great views of the Atlantic Ocean and the fascinating Belderg cliffs. There is an observation hut, or lookout post, from the Second World War there, built to help guard the coast of neutral Ireland. Each such hut had a unique number, the one on Downpatrick Head being number 64. The country’s name, ÉIRE, was laid out nearby with white flagstones to warn approaching aircraft of the State’s neutrality. There are great views on the horizon from Downpatrick Head as far away as the mountains of Sligo and Donegal. The cliffs are a natural haven for wildlife, especially nesting sea birds. Visitors are warned by a notice at the carpark that they are entering at their own risk, as the area is dangerous with blow-holes, subsidence and eroding cliffs. This is in an area of great scenic beauty and interest, but extremely dangerous and should be treated with caution

One of the most popular plays ever staged in the west of Ireland was The Country Boy by John Murphy from 1959, chiefly by Charlestown Theatre Group and produced by a doyen in local amateur dramatic circles, Paddy Henry. The play had many resonances which were familiar in the west of Ireland at the time. Located near Castlebar in County Mayo in the late fifties, The Country Boy is based on the theme of emigration and its effects on those who went and on those who stayed, with the dreams, thoughts and fears as seen from both sides of the Atlantic over two generations. The plot centres around the family of Tom Maher and his wife, Mary Kate, who farm a small holding. They have two sons, Eddie and Curly. Eddie has just arrived back from the USA after fifteen years, with his American-born wife, Julia, and is hailed as a paragon of success. Curly, 25, now wants to follow Eddie to America, chiefly to escape from the stultifying influence of his obdurate, dominating, and uncommunicative father. After a short time, the initial boasting of their success by Eddie and Julia gives away to exchanges which show a troubled marriage and that their real lifestyle, of hardship, alcoholism, and numerous regrets, is far from what they led their family in Ireland to believe. As a result, Eddie does not want Curly to follow in his footsteps and tries to convince him that he would be far better off to remain at home. Curly has a girlfriend, Eileen Tierney, and is torn between his love of her and his desire to escape to a new life. Tom Maher, a product of his time, place, and circumstances, has inevitably to accept change. It results in a happy ending, but with a final revealing comment from the aging patriarch. Eventually Curly and Eileen agree to marry and stay at home. He informs his parents of the news and that the wedding will take place on Monday… three weeks. His father, Tom, responds:

“Monday, three weeks (slowly something dawns on him and he turns back into the kitchen, his face a mixture of pain and frustration), well wouldn’t you swear he does it to me on purpose. Monday, three weeks! The bloody fair-day in Castlebar!”

  John Murphy (1924-1998) was born in Bellaghy, Charlestown, County Mayo. As a youth, he was a member of the Charlestown Dramatic Society. Like so many young men and women of his generation he was forced to leave and seek employment in England. After some time in England, he went to Belfast, working as a ship engineer for a company based in Rugby. There, he regularly attended plays staged by the Ulster Group Theatre. He wrote The Country Boy in Belfast in 1958. Its first production was by the Ulster Group Theatre in Belfast on April 7, 1959, followed by a month later by the Abbey Theatre in Dublin on May 11. It proved to be a great success. After attempting to secure employment in RTÉ, John Murphy became disillusioned with Ireland and, after marrying Kathleen Rodgers from Sonnagh, Charlestown, they left the country, settling for a few years in England before emigrating to Los Angeles. He worked as a lighting technician and engineer in Hollywood for Disney, Paramount and 20^th Century Fox. He started another play, “The Man from Ballybeg”, but it was not published or produced. John Murphy came to Charlestown in September 1996 to see the local Dramatic Society unveil a plaque on the house in Bellaghy where he was born. (Thanks to Paddy Henry, I had the pleasure of meeting him on that occasion). John Murphy died in Los Angeles on May 31, 1998, and his ashes were buried on the side of Nephin Mountain in County Mayo at his request.

       James Daly (1836–1911) has been described by historian Joseph Lee as ‘the most undeservedly forgotten man in Irish history’ in his book The Modernisation of Irish Society 1845-1918 (1979, pp.69/70).  He had a big role in the land agitation that started in the west of Ireland in the late 1870s, which led to the formation of the Land League and eventually to tenant farmers becoming owner-occupiers of their holdings within a generation.

       A native of Boghadoon in the parish of Addergoole in north Mayo, James Daly inherited a large holding of land on the Palmer estate from his father.  He was educated locally and at the Franciscan Friary at Errew, near Castlebar. With Alfred O’Hea, he purchased the then Mayo Telegraph newspaper in February 1876, and changed its name to the Connaught Telegraph.  Due to illness, O’Hea sold his share of the newspaper to Daly in January 1879.  A strong nationalist, a town commissioner and Poor Law Guardian, James Daly served as secretary of the Mayo Tenants’ Defence Association from 1878, and became a tireless constitutional champion of agrarian reform. Under his editorship, the Connaught Telegraph became the most important newspaper in the country for articulating the grievances of tenant-farmers and social conditions in general in the west of Ireland.  Despite his large farming interests, James Daly was a big supporter of those with small holdings.

         Some tenants on an estate near Irishtown, County Mayo, who were under threat of eviction in January 1879, met James Daly, and asked him to publish their grievances in the Connaught Telegraph.  He rejected their request, in fear of libel action, but advised them to hold a public meeting to ventilate tenant grievances in general, as well as demanding a reduction in their rents.  A meeting was held in February 1879 in Claremorris attended by James Daly, Michael Davitt and others at which arrangements were made for a demonstration to be held at Irishtown on Sunday April 20, 1879.   The Irishtown meeting, which was attended by a large crowd and chaired by James Daly, ignited the flame that was to change the face of rural Ireland. The eviction notices were withdrawn and the rent was reduced by twenty-five per cent. The next big meeting took place in Westport on June 8, 1978, again chaired by James Daly, at which both Charles Stewart Parnell and Michael Davitt spoke.  All such land meetings were well publicised in the Connaught Telegraph.  The National Land League of Mayo was established on August 16 ,1879, in James Daly’s Hotel in Castlebar.  This evolved into the Irish National Land League, which was established in Dublin on October 21 1879, with Parnell as President and Michael Davitt, its organiser-in-chief, one of the secretaries.  After becoming a member of its central committee, it is said that James Daly addressed over a hundred Land League meetings.  He, Michael Davitt and James Killen were arrested for alleged seditious speeches on November 19, 1879, at Gurteen, County Sligo and sent to Sligo Jail, but the trial against them later collapsed.  The Land War lasted from 1879 to 1882. After the introduction of the Coercion Act in 1881, James Daly was arrested and spent five weeks in Galway Jail.

         The pioneering work of James Daly in ventilating the grievances of tenant-farmers in the Connaught Telegraph created hope that the system could be changed.  His major roles as secretary of the Mayo Tenants’ Defence Association from 1878, in organising and chairing the important meetings in Irishtown and Westport, in his influential evidence to the Bessborough Commission in 1880, which led to major changes in the 1881 Land Act, as well as his involvement in the Land League campaign deserve special recognition.  However, it was Michael Davitt who recognised the potential of the local agitation in the west of Ireland to change the landlord system.  It was his vision, organising genius, and networking skills which transformed this local protest in Mayo into a county movement and later into a national one with the immediate goal of protecting the rights of tenants and the ultimate radical objective of replacing the landlords with tenant-owners within the law.

         A rift developed within the Land League, and James Daly felt that it had deserted the social group for which it was founded, and left the organisation. In 1888, he sold his newspaper to Thomas Gillespie, who had managed the paper for him, and became a full-time farmer. He was elected as a Castlebar Town Commissioner and from 1899 as a member of Castlebar Urban District Council. He supported the United Irish League after its establishment in 1898 campaigning for the redistribution of large ranches to small farmers. James Daly died in January 1911 and is buried in the new cemetery in Castlebar.

A woman  and a lighthouse on the north-west coast of County Mayo in the West of Ireland had a huge and unexpected role on the outcome of the Second World War. The weather-monitoring unit at Blacksod Bay Lighthouse, at the southern end of the Mullet Peninsula, had a big influence on the D-Day landings in Normandy, in France, on June 6, 1944.   At that time during the Second World War, most of France was occupied by Hitler’s German army. Weather forecasts from Blacksod Lighthouse on June 3, which had to be repeated three times, showed a sharp drop in atmospheric pressure and the arrival of a storm. They were taken by Maureen Flavin, on her twenty-first birthday, for Ted Sweeney, the lighthouse keeper at Blacksod, the man she would later marry.   A native of Knockanure, County Kerry, Maureen came to Blacksod to work in the local post office. The forecasts were relayed to the UK Meteorological Office in Dunstable, north of London, and carefully considered by the Allied Command.  The readings showed a storm coming over the Atlantic to arrive in Normandy on June 5.  Plans were underway for the biggest seabound invasion in world history on Monday June 5 at full moon and low tide, depending, however, on the weather. Partly because of the adverse weather forecast sent by Edward Sweeney (1906-2001) from Blacksod, the landing did not take place on June 5 as planned.  General Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied cross Channel invasion of the European mainland, considered the opposing weather forecasts from the UK and USA weather forecasters. Good weather was required for the landings and the necessary back-up air support.  Eisenhower took the weather forecast received from County Mayo and decided to delay one of the biggest and important military seaborne operations in world history by one day, when the weather forecast showed a short window as an opportunity. The Normandy landings, known as ‘Operation Overlord’, took place on June 6 1944 on several beaches in Normandy, and their success, together with the heroic role of the Russians in the east, paved the way for the liberation of Europe. 

            Maureen celebrated her hundred birthday in June 2023. In June 2021, the US House of Representatives presented Maureen Sweeney with a special award to recall her special role in world history. Michael D Higgins, President of Ireland, in a letter to her in July 2021 wrote: “Yours is such a story and your legacy a most important and enduring one. Your actions so long ago in Blacksod Bay have had a significant influence on the journey that has brought the world to this contemporary moment”.

       County Mayo, in the west of Ireland, stretches from Lough Corrib and the long fjord of Killary Harbour in the south to Killala Bay and Erris in the North, and from Achill Island, Clew Bay and the Mullet peninsula in the west to the counties of Sligo and Roscommon on the east.   It has astonishing scenery, with an unspoilt natural environment, where people have lived in harmony with their surroundings for over 6,000 years. The natural beauty of the green countryside and varied landscape, with mountains, lakes and rivers, is a dream for lovers of nature. Each vista has its own special delight.

       Its coastline, the longest of any Irish county, has three major bays: Clew Bay, Blacksod and Killala. The landscape varies from the relatively flat carboniferous limestone terrain in East Mayo, through a chain of beautiful lakes down the middle of the county from north to south:  Lough Conn, Lough Cullin, Lough Carra, Lough Mask, and the northern section of Lough Corrib, all renowned for their game fishing, to the quartzite peaks along the indented Atlantic coast, where there are cliffs interspersed with pristine sandy beaches.  The cliffs have some of the oldest rocks in the country to delight geological enthusiasts. Large tracts of blanket bog in North Mayo contrast with the mountains of South Mayo, and illustrate the diversity of topographical features that characterise the county, varying from valley to valley.   Mweelrea (817m), the highest mountain in Connacht, situated just north of Killary Harbour, is the start of a charming mountain range: Ben Gorm, Ben Creggan, the Sheeffry Hills, Maumtrasna and the Partry Mountains. This area has some of the most beautiful scenery in the country.

      Further north, the landscape is dominated by Croagh Patrick, where for a thousand years and more, thousands of pilgrims annually have worn a path to the summit. The view from the top is enchanting on a clear day; the islands of Inishturk and Inishbofin rise out of the pounding Atlantic waves on the southwest, with Clare Island on the northwest, the drumlin-studded Clew Bay to the north, and Achill Island in the background.  There are spectacular sea cliffs on Achill Island.  The Nephin Beg range of mountains lies north of Clew Bay, with peaks of Nephin Beg (627m), Slieve Carr (722m), Glennamong (628m) and Nephin (806m), giving way further north to a large area of blanket bog.  South of Ballina, the River Moy (100km from its source in the Ox mountain range in County Sligo to Killala Bay) forms a fertile valley around the western end of the Ox Mountains in County Mayo.  There is a drumlin area between Lough Conn and Lough Mask and westwards to Clew Bay. Spectacular sea-cliffs can be enjoyed along the North Mayo coastline, especially between Benwee Head and Downpatrick Head, and several sandy beaches all the way along the indented shoreline to Enishcrone (alias Inniscrone) in County Sligo.

          If Monsignor James Horan, parish priest of Knock from 1967 to 1986, were alive today, he would be delighted to see his dream being realised with the success Ireland West Airport. The airport received considerable publicity on April 14, 2023, when President Joe Biden arrived and departed from there on his visit to County Mayo.  The airport also welcomed two pontiffs, John Paul 11 on September 30, 1979 and Pope Francis on August 26, 2018.  It is going from strength and strength and expects to carry about 850,000 passengers in 2023.

          Overcoming numerous obstacles, the airport was built after a long and controversial campaign under the leadership of Monsignor James Horan, on schedule and within budget.  James Horan was born on  May 5, 1911 in the townland of Tooreen in Partry, County Mayo, the son of Bartley and Catherine Horan, née Casey.  After his education at Partry National School, St Jarlath’s College, Tuam, and St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, he was ordained in 1936.  After serving for a number of years in the diocese of Glasgow, he returned to his native diocese of Tuam and worked in Ballyglunin, Tiernea and Lettermullen in County Galway, and Tooreen, County Mayo (where he built a popular dancehall), Cloonfad, County Galway, before his appointment to Knock in 1963, first as curate and parish priest in 1967.  In co-operation with Mayo County Council, he had a development plan prepared for the village, which was implemented over the following years.  His big achievement there was the erection of the new church in 1976, which was later designated the Basilica of Our Lady, Queen of Ireland.  He also oversaw the refurbishment of the Shrine of the 1879 Apparition Gable, the building of hostels for the sick, St Joseph’s Rest Home for residential invalids, a Rest and Care facility, a new confessional chapel, a processional square, and a museum.  His work also ensured that the area around the shrine was landscaped and generous provision made for car parking, as well as arranging for Mayo County Council to make huge improvements in the local village.

           Father James Horan asked the Irish hierarchy to invite Pope John Paul II to visit Knock for the centenary of the apparition, and had the pleasure in welcoming the Pope to Knock Shrine on September  30, 1979. The Pope said in his homily that day: ‘Here I am at the goal of my journey to Ireland, the Shrine of Our Lady of Knock’.  The Pope elevated the new church in Knock to the status of a basilica and promoted James Horan to the rank of Monsignor. Monsignor James Horan, who was chosen as Mayo Person of the Year in 1984, died suddenly on  August1, 1986 on a pilgrimage to Lourdes.  He was buried four days later beside Knock Basilica.         

           Monsignor Horan was totally committed to the development of the west of Ireland and his big project was the erection of an international airport, with the help of a small group of committed friends. They moved quickly to secure an option on about hectares of land from 27 local farmers.   After approval of the project, a new government, facing a crisis in national finances, withdrew support after a commitment of £9.6m. Monsignor Horan and his supporters had to overcome numerous obstacles, and raised nearly four million pounds in private subscriptions in the west of Ireland, the USA and Australia to complete the airport.  This was a huge undertaking by a small group of people on a voluntary basis. However, after Trojan work, the airport was completed and officially opened by Charles J Haughey on Friday May 30, 1986.    The story of the origin and building of the airport as well as the people involved is told by Terry Reilly in his book On a Wing and a Prayer: the Story of Knock Airport, now known as Ireland Airport Knock (2006).  It also inspired a song by Christy Moore, and a musical, On a Wing and a Prayer, directed by Tommy Marren of MidWest Radio in collaboration with Terry Reilly in 2010.

       Situated 5.6km SW of Charlestown and 20km from Knock, Ireland West Airport Knock is an international airport and the gateway to the west, north–west and midlands regions of Ireland. It was first used on October 25, 1985, for three Aer Lingus charter flights to Rome. In 2006, its name was re-branded to Ireland-West Airport, Knock. Passengers like the convenience, value, parking facilities and hassle-free nature of using Ireland West Airport Knock. It is a major amenity for the west and midlands of Ireland, and recent growth, after a very severe recession and COVID-19, is very impressive. (www.irelandwestairport.com )

           This year 2023, Ballina, in County Mayo in the west of Ireland, is celebrating the tercentenary of its foundation.   The town made world headlines on Friday April 14, 2023, when the President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, visited the ancestral homeplace of his great, great, great grandfather, who emigrated from there to the USA in the 1850s. He had visited the town as Vice-President of the USA in June 2016.        

           From the early fifteenth century onwards, a small settlement developed around the friary on the east side of the River Moy, but the modern town of Ballina was founded in 1723 by James O’Hara, second Baron Tyrawley (1682-1774).  James was a member of the O’Hara family from Annaghmore, County Sligo.  Their support for the Crown was rewarded with the title Baron Tyrawley in 1706.  The founder of Ballina built the first street, on which he set up a linen mill.  After establishing a colony of weavers from Ulster, he secured a patent for a weekly market and a fair. Ballina quickly developed into an important commercial town and small seaport.   A military barracks was erected in 1740, followed by two bridges over the River Moy. The town was briefly captured by General Humbert and his Franco-Irish forces in 1798.

          Ballina (Béal an Ātha, ‘the mouth of the ford’) is now a busy industrial, commercial and tourist town at the mouth of the River Moy, and a gateway to north Mayo.   Originally called Belleek according to Samuel Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary (1837), it is the cathedral town of the Catholic diocese of Killala.  St Muredach’s Cathedral (1827-1834), overlooking the River Moy, was designed in the Neo-Gothic style by Dominick Madden.  The spire was erected in 1858.  Ballina is a renowned angling centre, the ‘salmon capital of the world’, with excellent river, sea and lake waters nearby.  The Ridge Pool in the town, about 275m from the head of the tidal waters at the fish traps to Ham Bridge, is the most famous beat for salmon angling in Ireland.  Belleek Woods, on the west bank of the River Moy, are a delightful haven for relaxation, exercise and leisure, with walking, cycling, and nature trails. The quay and marina are also big attractions.

              The principal local landlord family, the Knox-Gores, had a big role in the development of the town.  Investment during the early nineteenth century led to the construction of roads, the quay and two new bridges over the Moy, the five-arched Ham Bridge erected in 1836 and the lower one built by Armstrong and West in 1835.  Other developments from this period included the port, the courthouse and the cathedral as well as several new houses. Belleek Manor was designed by the Dublin architect John Benjamin Keane (d.1859) in the Neo-Gothic style and erected between 1825 and 1831 as the opulent residence of the Knox-Gore family. 

           The Jackie Clarke Collection, which was opened to the public in Ballina on 15 June 2013, contains an amazing accumulation of more than 100,000 items relating to Irish history over four centuries, especially the struggle for freedom. It was assembled over a lifetime by Ballina businessman and politician, Jackie Clarke (1927-2000), and gifted in perpetuity to Mayo County Council and the Irish State by his widow, Anne, in 2005.  Jackie Clarke served as a councillor on Ballina Town Council from 1957 to 1974 and held the office of cathaoirleach in 1960 and 1968.  He attended antiquarian and second-hand book sales in Ireland and abroad, purchasing Irish historical books, maps and documents. The collection is housed in a former Provincial Bank on Pearse Street.  Now a listed building, it was designed by Thomas Newenham Deane in the 1880s, and acquired by Mayo County Council.  It was completely renovated and refurbished to store and exhibit the Clarke Collection.

        The town will soon have another major attraction, the Mary Robinson Centre, which has been developed in her childhood home to celebrate the extraordinary career of the first woman to become President of Ireland, 1990-1997. The main themes explored there are human rights and climate issues.

 For more information on the year see www.Ballina2023.ie

        The medals of the late Mayo All-Ireland winning footballer Dr Pádraig Carney were presented to the county by his son, Cormac, on Wednesday 26 April in the Library and Cultural Centre in Swinford,  where they will be displayed. A photographic exhibition there will showcase his career as a Mayo footballer. Cormac Carney, Pádraig youngest son, said:“ my siblings and I are delighted that our father’s medals  will return home to Mayo for all to see”. Bernard 0’Hara, a good friend of Padráig’s for over 40 years, said that he “is delighted with the foresight and generosity of the Carney family to keep their father’s medal collection together in the town where he grew up”.

         Pádraig Carney, ‘The Flying Doctor’ who passed away in Southern California on 8 June 2019 at the age of 91, was perhaps Mayo’s best ever Gaelic footballer, in my opinion the greatest, and one of the all-time greats in the history of the game.  He wore the green and red senior jersey of Mayo with distinction from the age of seventeen in 1945 until his emigration at his prime in March 1954 at the age of twenty-six.   After qualifying as a doctor in 1951, Pádraig married Wexford-born Moira McCabe, a member of his UCD medical class, on 14 October 1953, and he was as determined to succeed in medicine as he had on the football field.  Their decision to emigrate caused consternation in the county and shock throughout the country. The 1950s Ireland was a decade with few opportunities and massive emigration. Mayo had qualified for the National Football League semi-final prior to Pádraig’s emigration and the Mayo County Board brought him back from New York for that game against the favourites Dublin on 25 April 1954.  After completing a day’s work on Friday evening, he left New York for the then twelve-hour flight to Dublin. He captained Mayo the following Sunday to a thrilling 0-11 to 0-7 victory, scoring seven points. It was his finest hour in the green and red and he was once again ‘sports star of the week’. Micheál Ó Hehir, the wonderful commentator, immortalised Pádraig that day as ‘The Flying Doctor’. Pádraig was brought back again for the 1954 League final, where he once again led Mayo to victory.   Mayo County Board told him that they could win the 1954 Connacht championship without him to save money, but that they would bring him home for the All-Ireland semi-final and final, such belief.  However, Galway and the great Séan Purcell had other ideas and they defeated Mayo in the Connacht semi-final. That was the end to his football career with Mayo. We can never forget the joy that Mayo team of the late 1940s and early 1950s brought to the people of this county during a very bleak period in its history.

       Pádraig Carney won every honour in Gaelic football: two All-Ireland back-to-back senior football medals in 1950 and 1951, four Connacht senior medals 1948, 1949, 1950 and 1951, two National League medals 1949 and 1954 and one Connacht Minor, 1946.  In addition, he won three Sigerson Cup medals with UCD in 1945/46, 1947/48 and 1949/50 and was captain in 1947-48. After playing for the Combined Universities in 1948, 1949, 1950 and 1951, he was selected for the Rest of Ireland against the Combined Universities in 1952 and 1953.  He won a Railway Cup medal with Connacht in 1951, as well as two Mayo senior football championship medals with Castlebar Mitchels in 1951 and 1952 (while working in the County Hospital) and a junior championship medal with Charlestown Sarsfields in 1953 (while serving as a doctor in Charlestown).  

      Pádraig Carney was not selected on the team of the century, or the team of the millennium; in both cases he was nominated against Seán Purcell (1928-2005) at centre forward and because of the latter’s long and distinguished record there was only going to be one winner there. With all players on the millennium team included in the newly established GAA Hall of Fame in 2000, Pádraig Carney was nominated to the GAA Hall of Fame in 2001, the first year two new players were to be nominated each year (the other nominee was Jack O’Shea of Kerry).  This indicates how close he was to selection on the team of the millennium, and the result would be the same regardless of who was nominated against Seán Purcell.  A postage stamp (30p/38c) was issued in Pádraig’s honour on 5 September that year. He was selected at centre-field on the Connacht team of the Century in 2000, when all positions were keenly contested except for centre-forward where there was only one sole nominee, Seán Purcell of Galway, who was widely regarded as the best player of the twentieth century. Pádraig Carney was selected on the Sigerson Cup (for universities) team of the Century in 2011 (the only other Mayo player selected was Seán Flanagan). He was inducted into the Western People Hall of Fame in February 2005. The above is an incredible list of football achievements for a career that ended at the age of twenty-six.

        Pádraig Carney was outstanding in most games, and really excelled in many, including the 1948 Connacht final replay against Galway. He was playing centre-field against his great rival, Séan Purcell, which many people regard as the two greatest displays ever seen on a football field in Connacht. Pádraig Carney scored nine points that day in Mayo’s 2-10 to 2-7 victory.  James Laffey in his excellent book, The Road to 51: The Making of Mayo Football, stated:

“The Swinford man was still only 20 and knowledgeable football men in the county were already saying they had never seen anything like him…. The nine-point salvo in the Connacht final replay propelled Carney’s burgeoning reputation through the stratosphere. The finest young footballer in the country had been revealed in all his splendour. And he was wearing a Mayo jersey. The famine of the Forties was officially over.“

Seán Flanagan, captain of the Mayo 1950/51 team, in a tribute in 1979 said:

“Pádraig Carney was gifted, fearless and at his best majestic. He combined great strength with the most delicate touch and gained more possession than any of his contemporaries. Of his greatness there is not and never will be any doubt and he is deservedly a legend!”

 Bernard O’Hara said:

“It is wonderful to have the medal collection of this football legend in Swinford. I would like to compliment Cormac Carney and his siblings, Brian, Terence and Sheila, and all ten grandchildren in the next generation, for their foresight to keep all Pádraig’s medals together and for their generosity in presenting them to County Mayo. It is an act of exceptional generosity having regard for the esteem in which he is held by his own family.  It has been decided to place the medals with a photographic collection in Swinford Library, in the town where Pádraig grew up. Here they will be treasured as long as Gaelic football is revered in this county, and, hopefully, that will be forever.”