Qualla: Kiltimagh

Kiltimagh: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kay Atherton, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Oxford English Dictionary, somewhat to the surprise of the locals, traces the Irish word culchie back to Kiltimagh. The term is mildly derogatory in Irish English - a slang label for country people, particularly those not from Dublin - and the Oxford speculates that it is "an alteration of Kiltimagh, Irish Coillte Mach (older Maghach), the name of a country town in Co. Mayo." The alternative theory is that culchie derives more directly from coillte, the plural of coill, the Irish for woodland or forest. Either way, the etymology runs through this small town of 1,232 people in the barony of Gallen, two hundred and sixty-two metres above sea level on the slopes of Slieve Carn, where the disused railway station has been converted into a sculpture park and the locals now pedal carts down the old line for fun.

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Image: Kay Atherton | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kiltimagh: The Ormsby Town

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CeltBrowne, CC BY-SA 4.0. The lands around Kiltimagh were granted by patent to the Ormsby family in April and July of 1677. The Ormsbys had originally come from Louth in Lincolnshire and had been living in the area for some time before they formalised their claim, having bought their first holdings from p...

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Image: CeltBrowne | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kiltimagh: William Henry Byrne's Streetscape

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AlexLippert, CC0. From the late nineteenth century onward, Kiltimagh built itself up as a market town, and an unusual share of the resulting commercial and civic architecture came from a single firm. The Hibernian Bank, built in 1904, Kiltimagh Hospital, built in 1919, and parts of the St Louis Co...

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Image: AlexLippert | CC0

Kiltimagh: Slieve Carn and Bill Berry Cliff

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AlexLippert, CC0. Just outside the town rises Slieve Carn - Sliabh Cairn, the mountain of the cairn - at 262 metres. The 1802 Statistical Survey of Mayo recorded coal in the hill, with evidence of iron deposits in places. Neither resource proved commercially worthwhile, and the hill has reverted t...

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Image: AlexLippert | CC0

Kiltimagh: Velorail on the Old Track

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AlexLippert, CC0. Kiltimagh Railway Station opened on 1 October 1895 and closed for passenger traffic on 17 June 1963 - a fate shared by many of the Irish branch lines killed off in the great Beeching-era closures. Proposals to reopen the line as part of the Western Railway Corridor have circulate...

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Image: AlexLippert | CC0

Kiltimagh: Tunneys, Walshes, Raftery

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AlexLippert, CC0. Antoine O Raifteiri - Anthony Raftery - the blind Irish-language poet whose work survives in the great oral tradition of the west of Ireland, was associated with the area. Gene Tunney, the champion Irish-American boxer, had parents who came from Kiltimagh - his father John Tunney...

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Image: AlexLippert | CC0