Qualla: Ballysadare

Ballysadare: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zxcode, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 575 AD, Saint Columba travelled from his monastery on Iona to a place in Sligo then known as Easdara. Word had gone out that he was coming, and the prelates of the surrounding regions assembled to meet him - bishops, abbots, holy men and women, distinguished saints of the race of Cumne. The chronicler who recorded the gathering wrote that the multitude was almost beyond counting. Columba was about to return to Britain. Before he sailed, he wanted to consult with the leaders of the Irish church one final time. The crossroads town they chose was Easdara - what is now Ballysadare. Five centuries before the Normans, four centuries before the Vikings, this small market town beside a river crossing was already a regional capital of the spirit.

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Image: Zxcode | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ballysadare: Nagnata?

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zxcode, CC BY-SA 3.0. In the second century AD, the Alexandrian Greek geographer Claudius Ptolemy compiled the first known map of Ireland based on the reports of merchants and traders. Among the towns he marked was a place called Nagnata, somewhere in the west. Modern scholars have proposed several lo...

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Image: Zxcode | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ballysadare: Saint Feichin

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. Saint Feichin was born in the townland of Billa - bile in Irish meaning a sacred tree or grove - and grew up in the parish of Ballysadare. He studied under Saint Nath I of Achonry, to the south. After his ordination he founded a church in Kilboglashy townland, where the ruin stil...

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

Ballysadare: The Bridge of 1360

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sparkimarke - Mark Spence, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Annals of the Four Masters - the great Irish chronicle compiled in the 1630s from earlier sources - mention Ballysadare fifteen times between 1158 and 1602. In the entry for 1360, the annalists record something specific: a bridge of lime and stone was built by Cathal O'Conor ...

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Image: Sparkimarke - Mark Spence | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ballysadare: Pollexfen's Mill

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zxcode, CC BY-SA 3.0. In the nineteenth century, the Pollexfen family operated a substantial flour mill on the river at Ballysadare. The Pollexfens were merchants and shipowners based in Sligo. The poet William Butler Yeats was their grandson - his mother Susan Pollexfen had grown up in Sligo, and the...

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Image: Zxcode | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ballysadare: Tiger and Ghost

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zxcode, CC BY-SA 3.0. Between 1996 and 2022, the population of Ballysadare nearly tripled - from 612 to 1,747. This was the Celtic Tiger boom, when commuter housing spread out from every major Irish town. New estates went up on the edges of the village. Some were finished and occupied. Others were hal...

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Image: Zxcode | CC BY-SA 3.0