Qualla: Bellacorick https://qualla.com/bellacorick 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/9/5/bellacorick-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Bellacorick https://qualla.com/bellacorick Bellacorick: Introduction https://qualla.com/bellacorick/ Photo credit CeltBrowne, CC BY-SA 4.0. There is a bridge at Bellacorick that plays music. A 17th-century prophet named Brian Rua U'Cearbhain said it would never be finished, and somehow he was right. You can play it two ways. Roll a stone along the top of the parapet on either side, and as it drops from coping slab to coping slab, it produces a rapid succession of musical notes. Or hold a stone in your hand, strike each slab in turn while pulling your hand back sharply, and each slab gives its own note, producing a scale. The civil engineer William Bald designed the bridge around 1820 while building roads through the wild Erris bogs. He could not get the foundation to hold properly in the soft ground, even with timber piles, and one corner has been waiting to be finished for two hundred years. The prophet was right. The bridge plays music, and it remains incomplete.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/5/bellacorick-wp/gc95-bellacorick-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Bellacorick: The Prophet of Erris https://qualla.com/bellacorick/ Photo credit CeltBrowne, CC BY-SA 4.0. Brian Rua U'Cearbhain was a real seventeenth-century figure who lived in Erris and made a series of prophecies that have shaped local folklore ever since. He predicted that carriages would run on iron wheels through the bog without horses, which turned out to be the railway. He p...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/5/bellacorick-wp/gc95-bellacorick-the-prophet-of-erris.mp3 0:06 2 full Bellacorick: The Power Station https://qualla.com/bellacorick/ Photo credit CeltBrowne, CC BY-SA 4.0. Peat has been Ireland's domestic fuel for thousands of years and still produces about twelve percent of the country's energy. In June 1949, the local TD James Kilroy stood up in the Dáil and asked the government to build a turf-fired power station in Erris. The argument was pract...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/5/bellacorick-wp/gc95-bellacorick-the-power-station.mp3 0:06 3 full Bellacorick: The Chimney Comes Down https://qualla.com/bellacorick/ Photo credit CeltBrowne, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2007 the chimney at Bellacorick was demolished. Officially it was a safety decision. The station had ceased generating, the structure was deteriorating, and there was no economic case for restoration. The demolition was less popular than the engineering arguments would suggest...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/5/bellacorick-wp/gc95-bellacorick-the-chimney-comes-down.mp3 0:06 4 full Bellacorick: Ireland's First Wind Farm https://qualla.com/bellacorick/ Photo credit CeltBrowne, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1992, Ireland's first commercial wind farm began turning on the same exposed plain where the chimney still stood. Bellacorick had been identified for years as perhaps the best wind site in the country: a mean annual wind speed of 7.28 metres per second at thirty metres up, pre...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/5/bellacorick-wp/gc95-bellacorick-irelands-first-wind-farm.mp3 0:06 5 full Bellacorick: Police Station, 1920 https://qualla.com/bellacorick/ Photo credit CeltBrowne, CC BY-SA 4.0. Bellacorick has been quiet for most of its history, but it had a brief and violent moment in 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. The local Royal Irish Constabulary police station was captured and burned by a group of IRA volunteers from Crossmolina, eight kilometres east....

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/5/bellacorick-wp/gc95-bellacorick-police-station-1920.mp3 0:06 6 full