Qualla: Ballinrobe https://qualla.com/ballinrobe en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/3/ballinrobe-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Ballinrobe https://qualla.com/ballinrobe Ballinrobe: Introduction https://qualla.com/ballinrobe/ Photo credit Fetler, CC BY-SA 3.0. In September 1935, exhausted after 23 hours fighting Atlantic weather, the Lithuanian-American pilot Feliksas Vaitkus brought his single-engine, single-seat plane Lituanica II down in an open field at Ballinrobe. Dublin was fogged in. The entire route east to the Baltic Sea was unflyable. He had hoped to reach Kaunas in Lithuania, the homeland of his parents, but his fuel was running out. He spotted Ballinrobe from the air and made the decision to land. The plane was wrecked. Vaitkus walked away uninjured. He became the sixth person to successfully cross the Atlantic solo in a single-engine plane. The townspeople of Ballinrobe found themselves hosting one of the most unusual aviation events in Irish history, and Vaitkus, after being crated up along with his airplane for shipment back to Lithuania, eventually arrived in Kaunas to a hero's welcome.

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Image: Fetler | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/3/ballinrobe-wp/gc93-ballinrobe-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Ballinrobe: The Market Town Charter https://qualla.com/ballinrobe/ Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 6 December 1606, King James I granted a Royal Patent to the people of Ballinrobe, allowing the town to hold fairs and markets. Obtaining such a charter required a spokesperson with access to royal favour, and the result was the economic foundation that made Ballinrobe the larg...

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Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/3/ballinrobe-wp/gc93-ballinrobe-the-market-town-charter.mp3 0:06 2 full Ballinrobe: The Workhouse in the Famine https://qualla.com/ballinrobe/ Photo credit Mikeconneely, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1839, six years before the Great Famine, the Union Workhouse of Ballinrobe opened. By 1847, with the Famine at its height, the workhouse held 2,000 inmates and was overwhelmed. The Mayo Constitution that March described the building as one horrible charnel house, with paupers,...

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Image: Mikeconneely | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/3/ballinrobe-wp/gc93-ballinrobe-the-workhouse-in-the-famine.mp3 0:06 3 full Ballinrobe: Harry Clarke's Windows https://qualla.com/ballinrobe/ Photo credit MickReynolds, CC BY-SA 4.0. Saint Mary's Catholic Church in Ballinrobe holds one of the largest collections of Harry Clarke stained glass in Ireland. Clarke, the great early twentieth-century Irish stained-glass artist, was commissioned by Monsignor d'Alton in autumn 1924 to make nine low-light windows. The...

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Image: MickReynolds | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/3/ballinrobe-wp/gc93-ballinrobe-harry-clarkes-windows.mp3 0:06 4 full Ballinrobe: The Shoe Corner https://qualla.com/ballinrobe/ Photo credit André Justin Carpio, CC BY-SA 4.0. At the corner of the Neale Road and the Lough Mask Road, a wooden sculpture of a pair of boots stands as a quiet acknowledgement of what life was like for most people in rural Ireland not very long ago. The plaque beside it explains: in the past, people from the countryside walke...

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Image: André Justin Carpio | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/3/ballinrobe-wp/gc93-ballinrobe-the-shoe-corner.mp3 0:06 5 full Ballinrobe: The People Ballinrobe Sent Out https://qualla.com/ballinrobe/ Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. Charles Boycott, the British land agent whose ostracism by the community around Ballinrobe gave the world a new verb, died in 1897. Andrew Boyle, born in Ballinrobe in 1818, eventually made his way to early Los Angeles and became prominent enough that the Boyle Heights neighbourh...

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/3/ballinrobe-wp/gc93-ballinrobe-the-people-ballinrobe-sent-out.mp3 0:06 6 full