Qualla: Ballyconnell https://qualla.com/ballyconnell 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/d/e/ballyconnell-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Ballyconnell https://qualla.com/ballyconnell Ballyconnell: Introduction https://qualla.com/ballyconnell/ Photo credit Deadstar, CC BY-SA 3.0. Colonel George Talbot was appointed Surveyor-General of Maryland in 1683. He owned an estate in Cecil County on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay, and he gave it a name that meant nothing to his American neighbours but everything to him. He called it Ballyconnell, after the small Cavan town where his grandparents had been the lords and his father had been born. The original Ballyconnell still sits today on the banks of the Woodford River, a fording point on the old border between the Gaelic kingdoms of Fermanagh and Breifne, won and lost a dozen times by the Maguires, the O'Rourkes, the O'Reillys and the McGoverns before any of the Talbots ever set foot in it.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/e/ballyconnell-wp/gcde-ballyconnell-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Ballyconnell: The Ford in the Forest https://qualla.com/ballyconnell/ Photo credit Eric Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0. Before there was a town there was a crossing. The Woodford River — *Sruth Gráinne* in Irish, the Gravelly Stream — ran through dense oak forest between Slieve Rushen and the higher land to the south, and a single shallow stretch let travellers across without boats. People had bee...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/e/ballyconnell-wp/gcde-ballyconnell-the-ford-in-the-forest.mp3 0:06 2 full Ballyconnell: Walter Talbot's Bawn https://qualla.com/ballyconnell/ Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. In June 1610, King James VI and I granted the lands of Ballyconnell to Hugh Culme as part of the Ulster Plantation; Culme immediately transferred them to Walter Talbot, an Anglo-Irish Catholic with permission to keep his estate so long as he could prove he was bringing in settler...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/e/ballyconnell-wp/gcde-ballyconnell-walter-talbots-bawn.mp3 0:06 3 full Ballyconnell: Lost and Won https://qualla.com/ballyconnell/ Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. The seventeenth century was hard on Catholic landlords in Ulster. The 1641 rebellion saw Talbot's estate confiscated; he was given lesser land in Roscommon. After the Cromwellian wars the estate passed to Captain Thomas Gwyllym, who renamed the town Gwyllymsbrook in his own honou...

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Image: Kenneth Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/e/ballyconnell-wp/gcde-ballyconnell-lost-and-won.mp3 0:06 4 full Ballyconnell: The First GAA Club in Ulster https://qualla.com/ballyconnell/ Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1885 Ballyconnell did something quietly historic: it founded the first Gaelic Athletic Association club in Ulster, only a few months after the GAA itself had been established. The club was called Ballyconnell Joe Biggars, in honour of Joseph Biggar, the West Cavan MP and pione...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/e/ballyconnell-wp/gcde-ballyconnell-the-first-gaa-club-in-ulster.mp3 0:06 5 full Ballyconnell: Modern Ballyconnell https://qualla.com/ballyconnell/ Photo credit Deadstar, CC BY-SA 3.0. The town's population at the 2022 census was 1,422. Its largest single industry is the cement factory established by Sean Quinn, once Ireland's richest man, now a more complicated figure in the country's economic history. The Shannon–Erne Waterway, reopened in 1994, passes throug...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/e/ballyconnell-wp/gcde-ballyconnell-modern-ballyconnell.mp3 0:06 6 full