Qualla: Mountbellew https://qualla.com/mountbellew 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/9/b/mountbellew-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Mountbellew https://qualla.com/mountbellew Mountbellew: Introduction https://qualla.com/mountbellew/ Photo credit Sarah777, Public domain. Walk through the triangular square in Mountbellew on a Tuesday and you walk through one of Ireland's longest-running market days, organised in the early nineteenth century by the local landlord Christopher Dillon Bellew. Stand at one corner of that square and you can see a monument to a horse. The horse is Bobbyjo - a Mayo-bred steeplechaser who won both the Irish Grand National in 1998 and the Aintree Grand National in 1999, becoming the first Irish-trained winner of the English race in twenty-four years. The man who trained him is from the area. Hence the statue. That is Mountbellew in miniature: a planned market town with deep agricultural roots, modest in scale at 774 people, but with a knack for producing things that matter beyond its own square.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/b/mountbellew-wp/gc9b-mountbellew-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Mountbellew: The Bellews and the Square https://qualla.com/mountbellew/ Photo credit DeeEmm, CC BY-SA 2.0. Mountbellew, officially Mountbellew Bridge, sits on the N63 between Roscommon and Galway, mostly within the townland of Treanrevagh - Trian Riabhach, the grey-striped third. The Bellew family, after whom the town is named, were Galway parliamentarians through the eighteenth and n...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/b/mountbellew-wp/gc9b-mountbellew-the-bellews-and-the-square.mp3 0:06 2 full Mountbellew: Ireland's First Agricultural College https://qualla.com/mountbellew/ Photo credit Sarah777, Public domain. In 1818, the Franciscan Brothers arrived from Milltown in Dublin at the invitation of the Bellew family, who gave them land and a house. The brothers ran a free primary school in the town until 1884. In 1875 they opened a secondary boarding school. Then in 1904, they did somethin...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/b/mountbellew-wp/gc9b-mountbellew-irelands-first-agricultural-college.mp3 0:06 3 full Mountbellew: The Drapery That Never Closed https://qualla.com/mountbellew/ Photo credit Sarah777, Public domain. On the main street of Mountbellew is Briggs Drapers, the kind of shop that bigger Irish towns have mostly lost. Peter Briggs has worked behind the counter since 1952 - over seventy years. He opens at seven in the morning. He cooks breakfasts for whoever needs one, including the s...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/b/mountbellew-wp/gc9b-mountbellew-the-drapery-that-never-closed.mp3 0:06 4 full Mountbellew: Bobbyjo and the Grand National https://qualla.com/mountbellew/ Photo credit Sarah777, Public domain. The monument to Bobbyjo is one of the more unusual statues in Galway. The horse was an Irish steeplechaser who won both the Irish Grand National and the Aintree Grand National - the great English steeplechase over Becher's Brook and the Canal Turn. The Mountbellew connection runs...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/b/mountbellew-wp/gc9b-mountbellew-bobbyjo-and-the-grand-national.mp3 0:06 5 full Mountbellew: Sons of the Town https://qualla.com/mountbellew/ Photo credit EricaVeil, CC BY-SA 4.0. Thomas J. Kelly, born in Mountbellew in 1833, became leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the secret society that organised the Fenian rising of 1867. James Lawlor Kiernan, born here in 1837, fought as a Brigadier General in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Ni...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/b/mountbellew-wp/gc9b-mountbellew-sons-of-the-town.mp3 0:06 6 full