Qualla: Castlebar https://qualla.com/castlebar 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: Castlebar https://qualla.com/castlebar Castlebar: Introduction https://qualla.com/castlebar/ On 27 August 1798, a small French expeditionary force under General Jean Humbert, joined by a few thousand poorly armed Irish rebels, marched into Castlebar from the north. The British garrison defending the town outnumbered them and had artillery. Within an hour, the British soldiers were running, and they did not stop running for thirty miles. The rout was so total, so embarrassing, that for the next two centuries people in Mayo called it not a battle but a race. The 'Races of Castlebar' is still the only major military victory ever won by a French-Irish force on Irish soil. A short-lived Republic was declared. It collapsed within weeks when British reinforcements arrived. But for one extraordinary day, a Mayo town that had grown up around a thirteenth-century Norman castle became the centre of the French Revolutionary war in Ireland.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/6/castlebar-wp/gc96-castlebar-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Castlebar: The Castle of the Barrys https://qualla.com/castlebar/ Around 1235, a Norman family called de Barra, anglicised to Barry, arrived in this part of Connacht and built a castle on the banks of a small river. The Irish called the castle Caisleán an Bharraigh, the Castle of Barry, and the town that grew up around it took the same name, Ca...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/6/castlebar-wp/gc96-castlebar-the-castle-of-the-barrys.mp3 0:06 2 full Castlebar: The Exterminator https://qualla.com/castlebar/ George Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan, inherited his estates just before the Great Famine. The famine reduced the population of Castlebar from 5,404 in 1821 to 3,022 by 1861, mostly through emigration and starvation. Lucan made the catastrophe worse. He carried out mass evictions of ...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/6/castlebar-wp/gc96-castlebar-the-exterminator.mp3 0:06 3 full Castlebar: Davitt and the Land League https://qualla.com/castlebar/ On 21 October 1879, in the Imperial Hotel on Castlebar's main street, Michael Davitt founded the Irish National Land League. Davitt was a Mayo man from nearby Straide. He had lost an arm in a Lancashire textile mill at the age of eleven, served seven years in English prisons for ...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/6/castlebar-wp/gc96-castlebar-davitt-and-the-land-league.mp3 0:06 4 full Castlebar: The Irish Schindler https://qualla.com/castlebar/ In 1939, with war breaking out in Europe, a small group of Jews fleeing Central Europe ended up in Castlebar. They established the Western Hat Factory, which opened officially on 1 May 1940. One of the founders, Marcus Witztum, used his Irish business and travel papers to help ot...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/6/castlebar-wp/gc96-castlebar-the-irish-schindler.mp3 0:06 5 full Castlebar: Taoisigh and Novelists https://qualla.com/castlebar/ Castlebar has produced two Taoisigh, the Irish heads of government: Charles Haughey, born here in 1925, who served three separate terms in the role between 1979 and 1992, and Enda Kenny, born here in 1951, who served from 2011 to 2017. The town's other famous exports are unusuall...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/6/castlebar-wp/gc96-castlebar-taoisigh-and-novelists.mp3 0:06 6 full