Qualla: Urris https://qualla.com/urris en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/d/urris-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Urris https://qualla.com/urris Urris: Introduction https://qualla.com/urris/ Photo credit Tyler Campbell, CC BY-SA 4.0. There are only two ways into Urris. From the south, the road climbs over the Mamore Gap, a narrow pass through the Urris Hills where a holy well sits seven hundred feet above the sea and pilgrims once circled seven heaps of stones throwing pebbles as they prayed. From the east, the road threads through Crossconnell. That is it. No other entrance. For three years in the early 1810s, the locals closed both. They posted scouts. They threw rocks down on the revenue police climbing Mamore. They barricaded Crossconnell. The valley they were defending was producing some of Ireland's most prized illegal whiskey, and they had no intention of giving it up to His Majesty's collectors.

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Image: Tyler Campbell | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/d/urris-wp/gcfd-urris-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Urris: The Poitin Republic https://qualla.com/urris/ Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Urris Hills were ideal for distillation. Surrounded by mountains, sparsely populated, but only sixteen miles from Derry, they offered cover and a market. In 1812 the producers organised. Scouts gave warning. Roads were barricaded. The authorities, frustrated, began levying to...

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/d/urris-wp/gcfd-urris-the-poitin-republic.mp3 0:06 2 full Urris: Colonel McNeill and the Yowmen https://qualla.com/urris/ Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the early eighteenth century the valley lived in fear of a man called Daniel McNeill. He was a Scottish Planter who had fought at the Battle of the Boyne and in the defence of Derry, and he commanded a band of herdsmen the locals called the Yowmen. The records, gathered from l...

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/d/urris-wp/gcfd-urris-colonel-mcneill-and-the-yowmen.mp3 0:06 3 full Urris: Wolfe Tone, Off Dunaff https://qualla.com/urris/ Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. In November 1798, Theobald Wolfe Tone, leader of the United Irishmen rebellion that had been crushed earlier that year at Vinegar Hill and elsewhere, was captured by the Royal Navy off Dunaff Head at the mouth of Lough Swilly. He had returned from France with a small French exped...

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/d/urris-wp/gcfd-urris-wolfe-tone-off-dunaff.mp3 0:06 4 full Urris: Casement Learns Gaelic https://qualla.com/urris/ Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1904, the Irish nationalist Sir Roger Casement spent six months in Urris learning Gaelic. He lodged in a house in Tiernasligo. The valley had been the last bastion of Irish-speaking life on the Inishowen peninsula; in 1835 the surveyor John O'Donovan reported that the men, who...

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/d/urris-wp/gcfd-urris-casement-learns-gaelic.mp3 0:06 5 full Urris: Six Men, Six Crashes, One Hill https://qualla.com/urris/ Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. At about three in the afternoon on 11 April 1941, a Vickers Wellington bomber of RAF 221 Squadron returning from a convoy escort patrol crashed into the Urris Hills at 770 feet. The pilot, Flying Officer Alfred Cattley, had become disoriented in thick fog and mistaken Lough Swill...

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/d/urris-wp/gcfd-urris-six-men-six-crashes-one-hill.mp3 0:06 6 full