Bartragh / Bertra Island, in the middle of Killala Bay, between Killala in County Mayo and Enniscrone in County Sligo, is a major wintering ground for rare Brent Geese. British golf star Nick Faldo paid €2.5 million for the long 365-acre island in 2003 with a view to developing an international championship course, but the purchase soon become mired in legal challenges. (Photo by ingridli) 

The Battle of Kilroe

 

The Battle of Kilroe was fought c.1281 between Hiberno-Welsh Normans led by William Mór Barrett,  the new Lord of Tirawley, and the vengeful Tahilly O’Dowd at the head of  a joint force of dispossessed Gaelic clansmen and disaffected newcomers (Moores, Browns, Cusacks etc., whose nearby Meelick Castle had been confiscated and given to Barrett’s kinsman Mac Wattin). 

 

The opposing forces were drawn up at Moyne, where local lore still identifies the pillar stones which marked their respective positions. In the battle, Tahilly O’Dowd and his friend Tahilly O’Boyle were foremost in bravery and daring, while Cusack and his Irish auxiliaries carried the day. William Mór Barrett and one of his henchmen, Adam Fleming, were among the fallen and their supporters fled in despair. Many of them sought sanctuary in the nearby church of Kilroe, but they were pursued by the vengeful victors, surrounded and butchered unmercifully.

 

The following year, O’Dowd was murdered by Cusack, who himself died five years later leaving Tirawley in the possession of the Barretts. They were eventually forced to acknowledge the overlordship of the De Burgos – one of whom was Thomas Óg of Moyne, holder of the supreme title of the Mac William or chief of the clan.

Kilroe church, now in a very ruinous state, stancs on one of the earliest known Christian locations in the area; this  may have been the site of the “church of Kilroe Mór in the country of Amalgadia” mentioned in the Life of Saint Patrick. There is a Standing Stone nearby.

Moyne Abbey 

 

Moyne Abbey, said to occupy the site of an earlier foundation of Saint Mucna / Muicin, was founded by Tomás Óg de Burgo for the Observantine Order of St Francis, and consecrated in 1462. 

 

It was burnt in 1590 by Crown troops  under Queen Elizabeth I‘s regional governor , the President of Connaught,  Sir Richard Bingham. The property was granted to Edmund Barrett in 1595 and passed successively to Sir William Tentor, Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork and the Lindsay family.

 

One of the most impressive ecclesiastical complexes in Mayo, the friary was built in the late Irish Gothic style and has extensive ruins, consisting of a church and domestic buildings situated around a central cloister. Its east window displays fine switchline tracery. Its west doorway is a C17th insertion.

The River Moy estuary is famed amongst anglers, not only for its salmon, trout (licence required) but also for its course fishing. This writer recalls a childhood trawling catch of plaice here – needless to say, the most delicious fish evee cooked on a camp fire!

 Rosserk Abbey

 

Rosserk Abbey, scenically located on the west bank of the River Moy Estuary, was a compact friary of the Third Order Franciscans, who ran a school for boys staffed by both laymen and clergy, probably founded before 1440 by a member of the Joyce family.  

 

Suppressed during King Henry VIII‘s 1540 Dissolution of the  Monasteries, the friary was burnt in 1590 by Crown troops under Sir Richard Bingham. 

 

The ruined single-aisle church features a finely carved west doorway and an unusual double piscina with interesting animal figures.

 

Tobar Mhuire is a Holy Well housed in a small shrine built over it in 1798 by local landlord John Lynott.

 

Thought to derive its name from a miracle-working female saint called Searc, Rosserk was also the location of a church mentioned in 1198 and still extant some 460 years later.  

Rappa Castle, west of Ballina, was a Bourke family stronghold which became the main seat of the regionally powerful Knox family from c.1680 until they left in the 1920s. It was bought by William Gillespie, who built a new home for his 13 children in front of the castle, where the last lived until 2001. (Photo by Ray Martin)