Qualla: Ballygar https://qualla.com/ballygar en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Ballygar https://qualla.com/ballygar Ballygar: Introduction https://qualla.com/ballygar/ On the first day of every month, Denis Henry Kelly walked through every house in Ballygar. If your home was clean, he gave you a ticket. At the end of the year, the tenant with the most tickets won thirty shillings - a serious sum in 1820s Connacht. The runner-up got ten and sixpence. Everyone who had earned tickets was invited to dinner at Castle Kelly. This is how a small village in County Galway got built: by a landlord who owned 13,500 acres, established a toll market in 1820, and ran the town's social life like a benevolent contest. By 1840, Ballygar's market was second only to Athlone's in Connacht trade. Twenty years later, the Bagott trial would shake it. And one of its sons would write the song every Civil War-era American knew by heart.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/0/ballygar-wp/gcd0-ballygar-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Ballygar: Before the Market https://qualla.com/ballygar/ The townland and farm at Ballygar - historically Beallagarr - are recorded as far back as 1585. That August, the chieftains and landowners of Galway and Roscommon were summoned to Galway city to meet the Lord Deputy, Sir John Perrot. They were to surrender their lands to Elizabet...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/0/ballygar-wp/gcd0-ballygar-before-the-market.mp3 0:06 2 full Ballygar: The Tidiest Town in Connacht https://qualla.com/ballygar/ Kelly planned Ballygar with the precision of an engineer: a wide main street, a market square, a diamond at the entrance to his Castle Kelly estate, two back streets for rear access to every premises. He built the shops and houses himself and let them to tenants he selected caref...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/0/ballygar-wp/gcd0-ballygar-the-tidiest-town-in-connacht.mp3 0:06 3 full Ballygar: An Gorta Mor https://qualla.com/ballygar/ The Great Famine - An Gorta Mor - hit Ballygar like every part of rural Connacht. Between 1845 and 1849 the potato failed, and the failure killed people the local landlords kept demanding rent from. Few firsthand accounts survive. The history was too painful, the local people too...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/0/ballygar-wp/gcd0-ballygar-an-gorta-mor.mp3 0:06 4 full Ballygar: The Bagott Trial https://qualla.com/ballygar/ In 1863 the Kelly estate went on the market under the Encumbered Estates Act - 12,000 acres including the castle and town, bought by Christopher Neville Bagott for £105,000. The Bagott family ran the estate at arm's length. Christopher kept a London house and threw lavish parties...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/0/ballygar-wp/gcd0-ballygar-the-bagott-trial.mp3 0:06 5 full Ballygar: When Johnny Comes Marching Home https://qualla.com/ballygar/ Ballygar's most famous son left as a young man, emigrated to America, joined the Union Army, and became the leading bandmaster of the United States. Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore was born here in 1829. By the 1860s he was bandleader for the 24th Massachusetts Regiment, then for Gener...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/0/ballygar-wp/gcd0-ballygar-when-johnny-comes-marching-home.mp3 0:06 6 full