The present cathedral was entirely rebuilt in the seventeenth century, and has no architectural importance. Close by, on a knoll, about which the village is built, is a round tower, eighty-four feet high and fifty-one feet in circumference.
"At Kilcummin, on the west side of Killala Bay, a body of French troops, under General Humbert, landed, August 22, 1798, with the object of supporting the United Irishmen. They at once took Killala and Ballina, and at Castlebar the government levies were in such haste to retire without fighting as to give rise to the nickname, 'Castlebar Races.'"
Ballina, at the head of Killala Bay, is the "tourist resort" of the region. It is pleasant and delightful in all of its aspects, and in its neighbourhood are some very interesting architectural remains. There are, as is often the case, a Roman Catholic and a Protestant cathedral in the town, and an Augustinian monastery, a ruin of a fifteenth-century structure, also many attractive vistas and spots most worthy of the brush and pencil of the artist.
These attractions pall in the mind of the local spreader of publicity, who extols only the size and varieties of fish which may be taken in the river Moy and other near-by waters.
From Ballina one reaches Sligo in five and a half hours by means of that still prevalent institution, the genuine Irish "low-backed car."
Somewhere in the county of Sligo is the "Valley of the Black Pig," which is possessed of a legend which recounts how, for generations, the Irish peasantry have comforted themselves in adversity by the memory of a great battle fought here in this valley.
W. B. Yeats tells how, a few years ago, in the barony of Lisadell in Sligo, a peasant would fall to the ground in a trance as it were, and rave out a description of the bloody battle which once took place.
This shows, at least, that tradition and legend alike die hard in the minds of the people, and when Mr. Yeats tells us that men have told him that they have seen the girths instantaneously rot and fall from horses; and that few, if any, who enter the Black Valley ever come out alive, we realize fully how close we are, even in these times, to the age of superstition in Ireland.
Mr. Yeats furthermore eulogized the incident in verse.