Qualla: Ballygilgan https://qualla.com/ballygilgan 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/v/ballygilgan-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Ballygilgan https://qualla.com/ballygilgan Ballygilgan: Introduction https://qualla.com/ballygilgan/ Photo credit Racheldavis23, CC BY-SA 4.0. Every October, the sky above the Maugherow Peninsula in north Sligo fills with the harsh barking calls of barnacle geese arriving from Greenland. Around three thousand of them - Ireland's biggest mainland flock - descend on a 73-acre nature reserve near the Lissadell estate called Ballygilgan, or more affectionately, the Goose Field. They will spend the winter here, grazing the pasture and resting on the seasonal freshwater pond, until April carries them back across the Atlantic to breed on Greenland's cliffs. Without this small patch of protected land, this flock might no longer exist in Ireland at all.

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Image: Racheldavis23 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/v/ballygilgan-wp/gc9v-ballygilgan-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Ballygilgan: Saving the Flock https://qualla.com/ballygilgan/ Photo credit Racheldavis23, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Irish government legally protected Ballygilgan as a national nature reserve in 1986, specifically to preserve the overwintering barnacle geese whose numbers had been falling alarmingly through the 1970s. The cause was familiar - habitat loss, disturbance, hunting on the migra...

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Image: Racheldavis23 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/v/ballygilgan-wp/gc9v-ballygilgan-saving-the-flock.mp3 0:06 2 full Ballygilgan: Black-and-White Travellers https://qualla.com/ballygilgan/ Photo credit Racheldavis23, CC BY-SA 4.0. Barnacle geese are unmistakable up close - a sharp black-and-white plumage, white face, black neck and breast, grey wings. They are mid-sized geese, smaller than the more familiar greylag. The Irish population breeds in the high Arctic, on the cliffs and steep coasts of east Gree...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/v/ballygilgan-wp/gc9v-ballygilgan-black-and-white-travellers.mp3 0:06 3 full Ballygilgan: Not Just the Geese https://qualla.com/ballygilgan/ Photo credit Racheldavis23, CC BY-SA 4.0. The geese are the main attraction but they are very far from the only birds at Ballygilgan. Through the winter the wet pastures and the seasonal pond host teal and wigeon ducks, pintails, shovelers, redshanks, greenshanks, bar-tailed godwits, golden plovers, lapwings, and dunlins...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/v/ballygilgan-wp/gc9v-ballygilgan-not-just-the-geese.mp3 0:06 4 full Ballygilgan: Beside Lissadell https://qualla.com/ballygilgan/ Photo credit Racheldavis23, CC BY-SA 4.0. The reserve sits beside the Lissadell estate, which carries its own freight of Irish history - it was the childhood home of the revolutionary Constance Markievicz and her sister, the poet and suffragist Eva Gore-Booth, both of whom W. B. Yeats memorialised in his poem "In Memory ...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/v/ballygilgan-wp/gc9v-ballygilgan-beside-lissadell.mp3 0:06 5 full