Killawalla or Killavally ()
is a village located in
County Mayo
County Mayo (; ga, Contae Mhaigh Eo, meaning "Plain of the Taxus baccata, yew trees") is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. In the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Conn ...
,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, seven miles (10 km) from
Westport on the R330 road to
Ballinrobe.
Saint Patrick
Saint Patrick ( la, Patricius; ga, Pádraig ; cy, Padrig) was a fifth-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Known as the "Apostle of Ireland", he is the primary patron saint of Ireland, the other patron saints be ...
is alleged to have passed this way en route to
Croagh Patrick
Croagh Patrick (), nicknamed 'the Reek', is a mountain with a height of and an important site of pilgrimage in County Mayo, Ireland. The mountain has a pyramid-shaped peak and overlooks Clew Bay, rising above the village of Murrisk, several mil ...
, and accordingly the local Catholic church is named after him. The village also contains a primary school and MacEvilly's pub established in 1968. The village post office closed in 2017. Killawalla is part of the parish of
Carnacon and
Ballintubber. Research carried out by NUI Maynooth showed Killawalla to have sustained the biggest population loss of any village in Ireland during the
Great Famine. Between 1841 and 1851, the village lost two thirds of its population.
Mayo News 9 Aug 2011 "Killawalla had famine's biggest population drop" The 1916 rising participant and sport administrator Seán O'Duffy who was heavily involved in the development of camogie
Camogie ( ; ga, camógaíocht ) is an Irish stick-and-ball team sport played by women. Camogie is played by 100,000 women in Ireland and worldwide, largely among Irish communities.
A variant of the game of hurling (which is played by men onl ...
in Ireland for 40 years, was born in the old barracks in Killawalla in 1886 according to a plaque erected on the wall of the school. This RIC barracks located in Kinury was one of those closed in the wake of the Tourmakeady ambush during the Irish War of Independence in May of 1921.
Killawalla is also home to Pollatoomary
Pollatoomary is the deepest explored underwater cave in Ireland. It has been explored to an underwater depth of .
The explored limit of Pollatoomary is also deeper underwater than that of the terminal sump in Wookey Hole Caves in Somerset, Engla ...
cave, the deepest explored underwater cave in Britain and Ireland. The cave has been explored to a depth of 113 m in June 2018 by Michal Marek.
References
{{County Mayo
Towns and villages in County Mayo