Qualla: Gort https://qualla.com/gort en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:11 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Gort https://qualla.com/gort Gort: Introduction https://qualla.com/gort/ Walk into a pub in Gort on a Saturday afternoon and you might hear three languages running at once: English, Irish, and Brazilian Portuguese. The Portuguese is the unexpected one. In the early 2000s, Brazilian workers came here to work in the Duffy Meats plant - pay was much higher than for similar work in Brazil, and word spread quickly. By the 2006 census, roughly 40 percent of Gort's residents were non-Irish, mostly Brazilians. The meatpacking jobs collapsed during the post-2008 recession - Duffy Meats closed, and Gort lost 400 jobs and 14 percent of its population between 2006 and 2011. But many Brazilians stayed. By 2016 the town was still 26.6 percent non-Irish, and Brazilians remained the largest immigrant group at 417 people, ahead of UK nationals at 81.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/3/t/gort-wp/gc3t-gort-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Gort: The Royal Residence https://qualla.com/gort/ Long before there were meatpacking plants, this was Gort Inse Guaire - "Gort" meaning a tilled field, the second part referring to King Guaire of Connacht, the 7th-century ruler whose royal residence stood here. Guaire Aidne mac Colmáin, who died in 663, was the king the medieval...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/3/t/gort-wp/gc3t-gort-the-royal-residence.mp3 0:06 2 full Gort: The Georgian Square https://qualla.com/gort/ Gort is a well-preserved Georgian-period planned market town. The central square holds the mid-19th-century Weigh House, where farmers' market produce was weighed for sale, and a 1933 marble sculpture of Christ the King by the Irish sculptor Albert Power - a moment of Catholic-Ir...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/3/t/gort-wp/gc3t-gort-the-georgian-square.mp3 0:06 3 full Gort: Coole Park and the Autograph Tree https://qualla.com/gort/ Two and a half kilometres north of Gort sits Coole Park, the country house and estate of Lady Augusta Gregory from 1880 until her death in 1932. Lady Gregory turned Coole into the social centre of the Irish Literary Revival. W.B. Yeats stayed here repeatedly. So did George Bernar...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/3/t/gort-wp/gc3t-gort-coole-park-and-the-autograph-tree.mp3 0:06 4 full Gort: Thoor Ballylee https://qualla.com/gort/ Six kilometres northeast of Gort stands Thoor Ballylee, the 15th-century Hiberno-Norman tower house that W.B. Yeats bought in 1917 for £35 and rented for years afterward as his summer home. Yeats made it his "symbol" - a four-storey stone tower beside a stream, where he wrote som...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/3/t/gort-wp/gc3t-gort-thoor-ballylee.mp3 0:06 5 full Gort: The Recession and After https://qualla.com/gort/ Gort had a hard recession. Beyond the meatpacking layoffs, the construction industry imploded between 2006 and 2011, and the town's population fell with it. Tourism is the sector locals see as the path forward. Fáilte Ireland and the Burren Lowlands destination marketing group st...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/3/t/gort-wp/gc3t-gort-the-recession-and-after.mp3 0:06 6 full Gort: A Victoria Cross and a Gold Medal https://qualla.com/gort/ Thomas Laughnan, born in Gort in 1824, received the Victoria Cross for actions during the Indian Rebellion - one of a handful of Galway men to win Britain's highest military honour. Paddy McMahon Glynn, also Gort-born (1855), emigrated to Australia and served variously as Attorne...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/3/t/gort-wp/gc3t-gort-a-victoria-cross-and-a-gold-medal.mp3 0:06 7 full