Qualla: Crossmolina

Crossmolina: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jmchugh1962, CC BY-SA 4.0. In June 1843, the body of a young woman was found drowned in the river at Crossmolina. An apron was tied around her feet. Her knees were bound together with a shirt. A piece of ribbon was tied around one of her arms in a way that suggested both arms had been bound, and that she had managed to free one before she died. The deceased, the local press reported, 'appeared to have been a young woman of considerable beauty'. She was never identified, and no one was ever charged. The mystery of the drowned woman of Crossmolina is one of dozens of stories this small Mayo town has carried for centuries without ever quite resolving. Crossmolina has a way of generating remarkable people and unsolved questions in roughly equal measure.

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Image: Jmchugh1962 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Crossmolina: St. Tiernan's Bog

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Kinsella, CC BY-SA 4.0. Crossmolina takes its name from Crois Mhaoilíona, the Cross of Maoilíona, an early Christian figure whose marker once stood near the town. The settlement itself is much older. Errew Abbey, on a small peninsula jutting into Lough Conn just south of the town, was founded by Saint T...

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Image: Mike Kinsella | CC BY-SA 4.0

Crossmolina: The Priest at Enniscoe Gate

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Vigar, CC BY-SA 2.0. In February 1839, the parish priest of Crossmolina, Father John Barrett, was murdered at Enniscoe Gate, about a mile and a half from the town. He had been walking home late at night from Crossmolina to his residence. Local belief at the time was that he had been killed because he...

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Image: John Vigar | CC BY-SA 2.0

Crossmolina: Hunger by Name

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Störfix, CC BY-SA 3.0. By 1846, the Great Famine had reached its full devastation in Crossmolina. The local coroner, Mr. Atkinson, and the local doctor, Dr. McNair, did something that most rural Irish authorities did not do during the famine: they recorded the names of the people who died of starvation...

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Image: Störfix | CC BY-SA 3.0

Crossmolina: Patrick Nally

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Webb, CC BY-SA 2.0. In May 1883, six local men were arrested in the so-called Crossmolina Conspiracy: Thomas Daly, Thomas Macaulay, James King, Richard Halloran, Patrick Nunelly, and Patrick Nally. The charge was conspiracy to murder local landlords and their agents. A search of their houses turned ...

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Image: Richard Webb | CC BY-SA 2.0

Crossmolina: Two Crashes in the Bog

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Kinsella, CC BY-SA 4.0. Ireland was officially neutral during the Second World War, but the bogs of North Mayo saw their share of the war anyway. On 13 March 1942, a Bristol Blenheim bomber crashed in Killeen, just outside Crossmolina, during a training flight from the Isle of Man. The crew had lost the...

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Image: Mike Kinsella | CC BY-SA 4.0