Qualla: Ballycastle, County Mayo

Ballycastle, County Mayo: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bob Embleton, CC BY-SA 2.0. Seven kilometres north of this small village in north Mayo, hidden under a metre of blanket bog, lies the most extensive Stone Age site of its kind anywhere on Earth. The Ceide Fields are a network of stone walls, enclosures, and dwellings dating to about 3,500 BC - older than the pyramids of Egypt and older than Stonehenge. Neolithic farmers built them, divided the land for cattle and crops, and then watched the climate turn against them. The bog crept across the fields and sealed them in place for five thousand years. When archaeologists began to uncover the walls in the mid-twentieth century, they revealed something staggering: a settled agricultural landscape that had survived intact because the wet that ended it had also preserved it.

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Image: Bob Embleton | CC BY-SA 2.0

Ballycastle, County Mayo: The Cross Pillar at Doonfeeny

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Munifico, CC BY-SA 3.0. Two miles west of the village stands the Doonfeeny Cross Pillar, an eighteen-foot stone shaft inscribed with bird-head designs and two simple Christian crosses. It is among the oldest standing stones in this part of Ireland, originally raised in pre-Christian times and later mark...

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Image: Munifico | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ballycastle, County Mayo: Tommy Langan

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kiran Madhusudhanan, CC BY-SA 4.0. Tommy Langan was born in Ballycastle in 1921 and grew up to become one of the great forwards of Gaelic football. He won All-Ireland Senior Football Championships with Mayo in 1950 and 1951 - the only senior titles Mayo has won since. In 1999 he was named on the Football Team of t...

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Image: Kiran Madhusudhanan | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ballycastle, County Mayo: The Stags of Broadhaven

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit N Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0. Look west from Ballycastle on a clear day and you can see, far out in the Atlantic, the jagged silhouettes of the Stags of Broadhaven - four steep sea stacks rising sharply from the water, their cliffs slick with white guano from breeding seabirds. They are uninhabited and rarely...

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Image: N Chadwick | CC BY-SA 2.0

Ballycastle, County Mayo: On the Gaeltacht's Edge

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Oliver Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0. Ballycastle sits on the edge of the Mayo Gaeltacht - close enough that Irish is still spoken in the parishes just west, far enough east that English dominates the local conversation. The parish was formed by joining the two ancient parishes of Kilbride and Doonfeeney. The name Ba...

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Image: Oliver Dixon | CC BY-SA 2.0

Ballycastle, County Mayo: Bunatrahir Bay

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit N Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0. Just east of the village, the small inlet of Bunatrahir Bay opens onto the Atlantic. From here, the cliffs roll along the north Mayo coast toward Downpatrick Head - a famous sea stack and headland a few kilometres further on. The whole coastline from Ballycastle east to Killala f...

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Image: N Chadwick | CC BY-SA 2.0