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CASTLEBLAKENEY

CO. GALWAY · IE

Castleblakeney
Gallach Uí Cheallaigh, Co. Galway

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 06 / 06

Gallach Uí Cheallaigh · Co. Galway

A crossroads village in east Galway that was called Gallagh first, and gave the National Museum its best-kept bog body.

Castleblakeney is a small village in the farmland of east Galway, sat on the crossroads where the R359 crosses the R339, about five kilometres south of Mountbellew. It is a working rural place - a shop, a couple of pubs, a GAA pitch, schools, and houses scattered along the roads. Around 770 people in the 2022 census. The kind of village that does not announce itself and never did.

The thing worth knowing is the name, because there are two of them. The Irish is Gallach Uí Cheallaigh, the Gallagh of the O'Kellys, and Gallagh was the name of the place for a very long time before the Blakeney family - planter landowners - put their own name on it as Castleblakeney. Both names survive. The 1837 topographical dictionary lists it three ways: Castle-Blakeney, Gallagh, or Killasolan, a post-town and parish on the road from Ballinasloe to Tuam, with fairs and oatmeal mills and limestone in the ground.

And it was the bog at Gallagh, just outside the village, that gave Ireland one of its finest Iron Age finds. In 1821 turf-cutters working for the O'Kelly family dug up a body - a young man, six foot, hair and teeth still on him, a twisted willow rope round his throat where someone had strangled him two thousand years before. Gallagh Man. He is in the National Museum in Dublin now. The village kept the older name; the bog kept him.

Population

~774 (2022)

Founded

Older as Gallagh; renamed for the Blakeney family, 17th-18th century

Coords

53.4333° N, 8.4833° W

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At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The bog body

Gallagh Man came out of the bog here in 1821 - an Iron Age corpse, hair and teeth intact.

Turf-cutters working for the O'Kelly family found him in the townland of Gallagh just outside the village. He dates to roughly 400 BC, was strangled with a willow rope, and is now in the National Museum in Dublin. The village he came from kept the older name.

Stories & lore → 02 The name

Two names for one place: Gallagh, then Castleblakeney.

The Irish is Gallach Uí Cheallaigh, the Gallagh of the O'Kellys, and that was the name for centuries. Castleblakeney is the planter's name, layered on when the Blakeney family took the land. Both names still get used. The older one is on the maps that matter.

Stories & lore → 03 The crossroads

Where the R359 meets the R339, five kilometres south of Mountbellew.

A shop, pubs, a GAA pitch, national and secondary schools, and the old St Paul's Church of Ireland turned heritage centre. Farming country between Ballinasloe and Tuam. You stop because you were passing, not because a sign told you to.

Getting there →

02 / 06

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

Found in the bog, 1821

Gallagh Man

In 1821 labourers cutting turf for the O'Kelly family in the townland of Gallagh, just outside the village, dug into a ten-foot grave and pulled out a body. A young man, about twenty-five, six foot tall, dark and reddish hair still on his head and his teeth intact, wrapped in a long leather mantle and pinned down by two wooden stakes. Around his neck was a withy hoop - a rope of twisted willow - which had been used to strangle him. He dates to somewhere around 400 BC, an Iron Age ritual killing or execution. For years the family dug him back up to show paying visitors before reburying him. The Royal Irish Academy bought him in 1829, and he passed to the National Museum of Ireland, where he is one of the country's best-preserved bog bodies. He came out of the ground a few fields from the crossroads.

Gallach Uí Cheallaigh

Gallagh and the O'Kellys

The older name tells the older story. Gallach Uí Cheallaigh is the Gallagh of the O'Kellys - the Uí Maine ruling family of this part of east Galway, whose lands ran across the region for centuries before the plantation settlers arrived. It was an O'Kelly turf bog that gave up the Iron Age man. The Blakeney name came later, the new landlords stamping the map with Castleblakeney, but the parish carried all the names at once into the 19th century. When you hear the place called Gallagh, that is not a mistake. That is the first name.

Landlords, a church, fairs

The Blakeneys and the parish

The Blakeney family were the local landowning gentry who gave the village its English name. By 1837 the parish - listed as Castle-Blakeney, Gallagh or Killasolan - held more than four thousand people across roughly three thousand acres of arable and pasture and a thousand of bog and waste, on the Ballinasloe-to-Tuam road. There were two oatmeal mills, abundant limestone, a constabulary station, and fairs five times a year. The Blakeneys and other gentry helped fund the local schools. A Church of Ireland church was raised in 1812; St Paul's later became the village heritage centre. Then came the Famine years, the population collapsed as it did across the west, and what remained settled into the quiet farming village that stands at the crossroads today.

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Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

The crossroads and St Paul's There is no waymarked trail here - this is a working village, not a trailhead. But a slow walk around the crossroads takes in the old St Paul's Church of Ireland, now the village heritage centre, and the scatter of the village along the R359 and R339. Quiet country roads run out in every direction through limestone farmland. Boots and an eye for traffic; these are roads, not paths.

1-2 kmdistance

30-45 minutestime

04 / 06

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The east Galway farmland greens up and the back roads are at their best. Quiet, mild, nothing touristed about it.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings and the GAA pitch in use. The village is on the doorstep of Mountbellew and Ballinasloe if you want more than a crossroads can offer.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Harvest and the early end of the GAA season. Good light over the farmland and very few cars on the regional roads.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days, wet bog, little open. There is no reason to make a special trip in January. The pubs keep going for the locals; that is about it.

◐ Mind yourself

05 / 06

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Coming to see Gallagh Man

He is not here. He came out of the bog at Gallagh in 1821 but he has been in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin since the 1800s. The village has the story and the place name, not the body. If you want to stand over the find spot, that is a field, not an exhibit.

Expecting a tourist village

Castleblakeney is a working farming crossroads of a few hundred people - a shop, pubs, schools, a GAA pitch and an old church. There is no visitor centre with opening hours you can rely on, no car park full of coaches. Treat it as a place you pass through and notice, not a destination with a ticket desk.

Hunting for the Blakeney castle

The 'castle' in the name is the planter family's mark on the map, not a standing tower you can tour. Do not drive here expecting battlements. The interest is the name itself - Gallagh underneath Castleblakeney - and the bog that made the place famous.

Getting there.

By car

At the crossroads of the R359 and R339, about 5 km south of Mountbellew and roughly 15 km northwest of Ballinasloe. From the M6 (Dublin-Galway), come off near Ballinasloe and head north on the regional roads. Quiet farmland roads the whole way.

By bus

No frequent scheduled service through the village itself. Bus Éireann and Local Link cover the nearby towns of Mountbellew and Ballinasloe; from there it is a local taxi or lift. Rural east Galway - plan to drive.

By train

Nearest station is Ballinasloe on the Dublin-Galway line (roughly 15 km southeast), then taxi or car. Athenry, further west on the same line, is the other option.