Qualla: Killeshandra https://qualla.com/killeshandra 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/d/e/killeshandra-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Killeshandra https://qualla.com/killeshandra Killeshandra: Introduction https://qualla.com/killeshandra/ Photo credit Christopher Kirk, CC BY-SA 2.0. Pigot's Directory of 1824 called Killeshandra "the greatest linen market in the county." The whole town was at the loom or the flax pit — almost everyone within five miles of the place was involved in some way in the linen trade. Forty years later it was finished. The local landlords would not invest in the machinery that the bigger Ulster towns were buying; the cottage weavers could not compete; the market collapsed; the population emptied out. What Killeshandra has today instead is dairy. The same town that lost the linen race in the 1860s built the dairy co-operative in the 1890s that is now Lakeland Dairies — Ireland's second-largest dairy co-operative, with annual revenue exceeding €1.9 billion, headquartered in Killeshandra still.

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Image: Christopher Kirk | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/e/killeshandra-wp/gcde-killeshandra-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Killeshandra: The Church of the Old Rath https://qualla.com/killeshandra/ Photo credit Dylan Moore, CC BY-SA 2.0. The town's name in Irish is *Cill na Seanrátha*, "the church of the old ringfort," and that is exactly what was here when Christianity arrived — a pre-Christian ringfort with a church built on top of it. The medieval church belonged to the Augustinian priory at Drumlane. In July ...

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Image: Dylan Moore | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/e/killeshandra-wp/gcde-killeshandra-the-church-of-the-old-rath.mp3 0:06 2 full Killeshandra: The Best Restoration Building in Ulster https://qualla.com/killeshandra/ Photo credit Oliver Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0. What survives today of that effort, in ruins, is a remarkable church. The Pevsner Guide to South Ulster calls it "arguably the finest Restoration building in Ulster — a handsome evocation of the improving architectural eloquence of the age." It is T-shaped, with a south-facing tr...

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Image: Oliver Dixon | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/e/killeshandra-wp/gcde-killeshandra-the-best-restoration-building-in-ulster.mp3 0:06 3 full Killeshandra: Flax, Linen, and the Killeshandra Nuns https://qualla.com/killeshandra/ Photo credit Peter Gerken, CC BY-SA 2.0. The town's prosperity peaked around 1790, the year a wealthy widow named Nicola Ann Jackson — heiress of the Hamilton estate, married into a County Armagh family — built a Market House for the town. It served as the commercial heart of the linen trade and later as a courthouse. K...

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Image: Peter Gerken | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/e/killeshandra-wp/gcde-killeshandra-flax-linen-and-the-killeshandra-nuns.mp3 0:06 4 full Killeshandra: The Cows That Saved the Town https://qualla.com/killeshandra/ Photo credit Stephen Burton, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 23 September 1896 a small group of local farmers formed the Drummully Co-operative Society. Within eighteen months they had committed milk from 987 cows to a new creamery in Killeshandra, and in March 1898 the operation took the name Killeshandra Co-operative Agricultural Soci...

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Image: Stephen Burton | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/e/killeshandra-wp/gcde-killeshandra-the-cows-that-saved-the-town.mp3 0:06 5 full Killeshandra: Twelve Long Miles Around the Lake https://qualla.com/killeshandra/ Photo credit Stephen Burton, CC BY-SA 2.0. Killeshandra has a side life in Irish folk music. The folk song "Cavan Girl" — written by William Greenway, an American poet — has the narrator walking "the road from Killeshandra, twelve long miles around the lake to get to Cavan town." The lake is Lough Oughter, the long convol...

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Image: Stephen Burton | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/e/killeshandra-wp/gcde-killeshandra-twelve-long-miles-around-the-lake.mp3 0:06 6 full