Ballina ( ; ) is a town in north County Mayo, Ireland. It lies at the mouth of the River Moy near Killala Bay, in the Moy valley and Parish of Kilmoremoy, with the Ox Mountains to the east and the Nephin Beg mountains to the west. The town occupies two baronies; Tirawley on the west bank of the Moy River, and Tireragh, a barony within County Sligo, on its east banks. At the 2022 census, the population of Ballina was 10,556.
History
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the first signs of settlement on the site of the town date from around 1375 when an Augustinian friary was founded. Belleek, now part of the town, pre-dates the town's formation, and can be dated back to the 16th century. Ballina was founded as a garrison town in 1723 by O'Hara, Lord Tyrawley. Belleek Castle was built some time later, between 1825 and 1831.
Pre-history
The Dolmen of the Four Maols is located on 'Primrose Hill' behind Ballina's Railway Station. This Bronze Age cist is sometimes dated to c2,000 B.C. and is locally known as the 'Table of the Giants'. Legend suggests that the dolmen is the burial place of the four Maols (from the Irish word maol meaning "bald") – four brothers who murdered Ceallach, a 7th-century Bishop of Kilmoremoy. Quartered at Ardnaree, the "hill of executions", tradition says that their bodies were buried under the dolmen.
Belleek
The Belleek demesne once stretched for over three kilometres along the left bank of the Moy estuary, from the gate lodge on Castle Road as far as Knockatinnole Wood in the north. From here the demesne extended westward to the Killala Road where there was a secondary entrance at a place known as "The Black Woods". During the Irish Rebellion of 1798, a small column of French soldiers advanced through the estate, as part of a reconnaissance group. This gave title to the avenue known as "The Old French Road". The manor house on the estate is Belleek Manor (Belleek Castle Hotel) which was constructed from 1831 for Sir Francis Knox-Gore, a former Lord Lieutenant of Sligo, to designs attributed to the Irish architect John Benjamin Keane. Belleek remained within the ownership of the Knox-Gore family until 1942, when it was sold by William Arthur Cecil Saunders-Knox-Gore (1888-1975) due to mounting costs and rates.
Ardnaree
The River Moy forms the traditional county border between Mayo and Sligo. However, the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 made the right (east) bank of the Moy, including Ardnaree and Crockets Town (the Quay), part of the administrative county of Mayo. This is a suburb of Ballina. The Battle of Ardnaree was fought there in 1586. Ardnaree Sarsfields GFC is based there.
1798 rebellion
A centenary memorial (known as the Humbert Monument) was dedicated on 11 May 1898 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the French landing at Killala in support of the 1798 rebellion. The monument was originally sculptured by a Dublin craftsman but subsequently restored locally. The figure on the monument is not Humbert but Mother Ireland. Maud Gonne unveiled the monument, and at the unveiling event famously poured water over another speaker's (an IRB member) head. The monument was moved to its current location on Humbert Street in 1987, where it was re-dedicated by Maud Gonne's son, Seán MacBride.
Great famine
In the first half of the 19th century, the rural areas around Ballina were heavily dependent on the potato as a primary source of food. When a potato blight struck in 1846, widespread starvation occurred. The Ballina workhouse served the entire northwestern coast of Mayo. As the famine took hold in the rural areas, huge numbers of starving peasants requested admission to the overcrowded facility. In February 1847 people were dying of fever at the rate of almost ninety persons a week. There were attempts at mitigating the crisis by some local citizens. Francis Kinkead, the Church of Ireland curate in Ballina, who came to Ballina in 1837 and died on 27 January 1847, played a role in organising funds to help relieve the suffering of both the Catholic and Protestant populations. A marble memorial tablet on the wall of the Church of Ireland in Ballina is dedicated to Kinkead.