Qualla: Castlebellingham https://qualla.com/castlebellingham 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/e/6/castlebellingham-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Castlebellingham https://qualla.com/castlebellingham Castlebellingham: Introduction https://qualla.com/castlebellingham/ Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. Walk past the village houses with your head tilted up and you will see them: short biblical quotations cut directly into the stone window sills, panels of religious imagery set into upper facades, a roadside Calvary near the castle gates. They are the legacy of one man's faith. Sir Alan Henry Bellingham, who lived here in the late 19th century, was a devout Catholic convert in a country still working out what the wars of religion had meant, and he stamped Castlebellingham with that conviction in stone. The carvings are unique in Ireland - nowhere else has a village quite like this one.

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/6/castlebellingham-wp/gce6-castlebellingham-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Castlebellingham: Before the Bellinghams https://qualla.com/castlebellingham/ Photo credit Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874 - 1951), Public domain. The land beneath Castlebellingham has been worked for a very long time. Around the village and the neighbouring townlands of Greenmount and Kilsaran, archaeologists have found fulachta fiadh - the cooking pits of Bronze Age Ireland - along with ring ditches and a motte and bailey...

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Image: Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874 - 1951) | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/6/castlebellingham-wp/gce6-castlebellingham-before-the-bellinghams.mp3 0:06 2 full Castlebellingham: A Soldier's Reward https://qualla.com/castlebellingham/ Photo credit John Evelyn Wrench, Public domain. Henry Bellingham came to Ireland during the English Civil War as a cavalry officer. He was good at his work, and when Cromwell finished reorganising Ireland in the 1650s, Henry was given the lands of Gernonstown - native Irish estates redistributed to English soldiers in lieu of ...

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Image: John Evelyn Wrench | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/6/castlebellingham-wp/gce6-castlebellingham-a-soldiers-reward.mp3 0:06 3 full Castlebellingham: Sir Henry's Devout Village https://qualla.com/castlebellingham/ Photo credit Sitomon, CC BY-SA 2.0. Sir Alan Henry Bellingham, the 4th Baronet, lived from 1846 to 1921 and shaped the village more than any of his predecessors. After his first wife Lady Constance died young, he raised the roadside Calvary near the castle in her memory - a Catholic devotional shrine standing in a ...

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Image: Sitomon | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/6/castlebellingham-wp/gce6-castlebellingham-sir-henrys-devout-village.mp3 0:06 4 full Castlebellingham: Quieter Days https://qualla.com/castlebellingham/ Photo credit The Carlisle Kid, CC BY-SA 2.0. Castlebellingham railway station opened on 1 April 1851 and closed for good on 6 September 1976. The village had been a coaching stop on the Dublin-Belfast road for centuries, and the rumble of through-traffic was part of its character into the late 20th century. That changed in ...

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Image: The Carlisle Kid | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/6/castlebellingham-wp/gce6-castlebellingham-quieter-days.mp3 0:06 5 full