Qualla: Toombeola https://qualla.com/toombeola en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:11 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/2/z/toombeola-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Toombeola https://qualla.com/toombeola Toombeola: Introduction https://qualla.com/toombeola/ Photo credit Newbert12, CC BY-SA 4.0. Fr. John Tully was one of the last Dominican brothers serving at Toombeola Abbey when English soldiers came in 1558 or 1559 to drive the order out. He ran. He reached the Owenmore River and swam, the cold water pulling at his robes, the far bank promising escape - and from that bank, soldiers shot him. Locals buried him close to where he fell, but no trace of the grave survives. Today no one knows precisely where Fr. Tully rests. The abbey he served is in ruins. The cemetery around it is still in use, four and a half centuries later, by the descendants of the people who buried him. Eighteen people live in Toombeola townland as of the last census.

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Image: Newbert12 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/2/z/toombeola-wp/gc2z-toombeola-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Toombeola: Tomb of Beola https://qualla.com/toombeola/ Photo credit Newbert12, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name Toombeola is the anglicisation of Tuaim Beola, meaning 'tomb of Beola' or 'Beola's tumulus'. Beola was an ancient chieftain in the Connemara area, ancient enough that no clear date attaches to him. A tumulus is a burial mound, the kind of structure that pre-Christian Ire...

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Image: Newbert12 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/2/z/toombeola-wp/gc2z-toombeola-tomb-of-beola.mp3 0:06 2 full Toombeola: The Bridge and the Abbey https://qualla.com/toombeola/ Photo credit Newbert12, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Owenmore River, draining from Ballynahinch Lake to the sea, enters the Atlantic at Toombeola Bridge. The bridge was completed between 1828 and 1831 as part of Alexander Nimmo's massive programme of Connemara road improvements - the same Scottish engineer who laid out the vill...

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Image: Newbert12 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/2/z/toombeola-wp/gc2z-toombeola-the-bridge-and-the-abbey.mp3 0:06 3 full Toombeola: The O'Flahertys, Dispersed Stones https://qualla.com/toombeola/ Photo credit Newbert12, CC BY-SA 4.0. The abbey at Toombeola was built with the help of a local O'Flaherty chieftain - the same fierce western clan that ruled most of Connemara until the time of King James II of England. The Dominicans occupied it until the late 1550s, when English soldiers attacked and the friars we...

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Image: Newbert12 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/2/z/toombeola-wp/gc2z-toombeola-the-oflahertys-dispersed-stones.mp3 0:06 4 full Toombeola: What Eighteen People Hold https://qualla.com/toombeola/ Photo credit Newbert12, CC BY-SA 4.0. A townland of eighteen people is not a community in the usual sense. It is more like a custodianship - a thin scattering of households keeping watch over the abbey ruins, the cemetery, the bridge, the riverbank where a friar drowned in his own blood at the close of one Ireland an...

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Image: Newbert12 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/2/z/toombeola-wp/gc2z-toombeola-what-eighteen-people-hold.mp3 0:06 5 full