Qualla: Mount Temple, County Westmeath

Mount Temple, County Westmeath: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Deadstar, CC BY-SA 3.0. Elizabeth Temple rode her horse up the Norman motte one day in the early 1700s, and the village changed names. Before her, the place had been Ballyloughloe - lake of Luatha, a Gaelic queen said to have bled to death at the lakeside. Before the lake, there was the Garbh Esker, the rough ridge of glacial gravel that runs east toward Athlone, where the Normans had piled their motte-and-bailey in 1180. Before the Normans, the Magawleys had ruled here for a thousand years. Elizabeth's horse and her surname stuck. The lake, the queen, the esker, and the clans are still there, just under the layers.

Image: User:Deadstar | CC BY-SA 3.0

Mount Temple, County Westmeath: The Clan That Would Not Leave

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sarah777 at English Wikipedia, Public domain. When Niall of the Nine Hostages conquered south Westmeath around AD 400, he gave a slice of it to his son Maine. Maine's descendants - the MacAmhalgaidhe, anglicized to Magawley - held it for the next twelve hundred years. They were the Lords of Carlee, inaugurated at a coronatio...

Image: Sarah777 at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Mount Temple, County Westmeath: Saint Patrick's Curse

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mullingar, CC BY 2.5. Local tradition says Patrick himself walked through here in the fifth century and was given a hostile reception. He fled to Annagh, then Ballykeeran, and reportedly placed a curse on the people of Caulry before he went. Saint Ciaran did better. He founded a church called Iseal Ch...

Image: Mullingar | CC BY 2.5

Mount Temple, County Westmeath: A Spanish Church in a Westmeath Field

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sarah777, Public domain. Corpus Christi Church, finished in 1932, sits in the village center looking like nothing else in the Irish midlands. The architects, T.F. McNamara and Sons of Dublin, modelled it on the Romanesque style of Saint Teresa's Church in Avila, Spain - half a continent away from a place...

Image: Sarah777 | Public domain

Mount Temple, County Westmeath: Living in Layers

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sarah777 at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Today Mount Temple is a quiet village, six and a half kilometers northwest of Moate, on roads that wind past stone walls and grazing fields. Caulry GAA, founded by Father Francis Skelly in 1928, still carries the ancient territorial name of the Magawleys into Gaelic football matc...

Image: Sarah777 at English Wikipedia | Public domain