Aghamore
Achadh Mór

The East Mayo
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Achadh Mór · Co. Mayo

A parish village in east Mayo where the GAA pitch does most of the talking.

Aghamore is a parish village on the R325 in east Mayo, about seven kilometres south-west of Ballyhaunis and a short hop from the airport at Knock. Around 270 people live in the village itself, with the wider parish stretching out across the lowland fields the place is named for — Achadh Mór, the great field. There is a church, a school, a GAA pitch, a graveyard, a crossroads and a parish hall. Drive through and you have already seen most of it. The rest is in the parish, not the village, which is how east Mayo has always worked.

What Aghamore has, that a place this size shouldn't really have, is a senior county football title. Aghamore GFC was founded in 1970 — first under the Shamrocks name, in amalgamation with Kilmovee — and won the Mayo Senior Football Championship in 1977. The McHale Cup came home to a parish of farmers and emigrants. The club is still the centre of weekly life: underage on weekday evenings, the senior team on Sundays, the talk of the match for the rest of the week. The pitch is on the edge of the village. The clubhouse stands in for a community hall most nights.

The other thing worth knowing is that Tooreen — the small townland five minutes east of the village — is the most successful hurling club in Mayo, and one of the most unlikely in Ireland. Tooreen Hurling Club was founded in 1957 in country that everyone agreed was football country. They won the first of their county senior hurling titles in 1966, and they have won more than thirty since. In 2017 they took the Connacht Intermediate Club Hurling Championship — the first Mayo club ever to do it. The catchment runs across Aghamore, Kilmovee, Ballyhaunis and Knock. A hurling parish in football country, by sheer stubbornness.

Don't come here for a day out. Come because you are passing — to or from the airport, in for a wedding at the church, out to a match at the pitch, on the long road around to Knock. Stop, ask where the well is, walk the road to Carrownedan and find Tobar Phadraig under the hedge. That is the Aghamore visit. It is small and it is real, and the parish would rather you got that right than dressed it up as something it isn't.

Population

~270

Walk score

A church, a pitch, a crossroads — five minutes end to end

Founded

Parish since the medieval Diocese of Tuam

Coords

53.7333° N, 8.8167° 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 parish

St. Joseph's and the cemetery on the hill.

The parish church anchors the village and the old graveyard up the road still takes new headstones from families who have been here for generations. The parish is the unit of life in east Mayo. Aghamore is one of them.

Stories & lore → 02 The R325

Seven kilometres south-west of Ballyhaunis.

The road from Ballyhaunis to Kilkelly runs through the village. Knock Shrine is fifteen minutes away. Ireland West Airport Knock is ten. Drive in from any direction and you arrive without warning.

Getting there → 03 Aghamore GFC

1977 Mayo Senior champions — and they remember.

Aghamore GAA was founded in 1970, won the McHale Cup seven years later, and has been the Sunday-afternoon religion of the parish ever since. Floodlit pitch on the edge of the village. Underage all week.

Stories & lore →

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Stories & lore.

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

Shamrocks bring home the McHale Cup

The 1977 county final

Aghamore GAA Club was constituted in 1970, in amalgamation with neighbouring Kilmovee, and ran out under the Shamrocks name through the early years. Seven years later, in 1977, the unified parish team won the Mayo Senior Football Championship — the McHale Cup, the one every club in the county wants. For a parish of a few hundred people to win a senior county title once is a lifetime story. The 1977 panel still get a round bought for them in any pub between Ballyhaunis and Kilkelly. The club has been chasing the second one ever since.

A hurling parish in football country

Tooreen hurlers

Five minutes east of the village, in the townland of Tooreen, sits a club that should not, by the logic of Mayo sport, exist. Tooreen Hurling Club was founded in 1957 and won its first Mayo Senior Hurling Championship in 1966. By 2024 the count was past thirty senior county titles — more than any other Mayo club in any code. In 2017 they became the first Mayo club to win the Connacht Intermediate Club Hurling Championship, beating Galway opposition in Galway. The catchment pulls from Aghamore, Kilmovee, Ballyhaunis and Knock, four parishes that decided, against the local grain, that hurling was their game. Sunday matches at Tooreen are worth the diversion if the championship is on.

Saint Patrick's well at Carrownedan

Tobar Phadraig

There is a holy well at Carrownedan, in the parish, marked on the older Ordnance Survey sheets as Tobar Phadraig — Saint Patrick's well. The tradition holds that Patrick blessed it on his way through east Mayo in the fifth century, and that his disciple Loarn founded a small monastery in the parish soon after. The monastic site is gone, the cemetery on the hill is what is left of it, and the well is a low stone basin in the hedge that the older people in the parish still know how to find. The legend is older than any document. The basin is older than the legend.

Getting there.

By car

Ballyhaunis to Aghamore is about ten minutes south-west on the R325 — roughly 7km. Knock village is fifteen minutes north-west. Castlebar is forty-five minutes by the N60. From Dublin take the M4/N5 to Castlebar or the M6/N17 via Tuam — either way is about three hours.

By bus

Bus Éireann services run through Ballyhaunis on the Dublin–Westport route, with Local Link providing the village connections. Plan around the timetable rather than expecting it to wait for you.

By train

Ballyhaunis station is on the Dublin–Westport line and a ten-minute drive from the village. The most useful arrival point if you are coming without a car.

By air

Ireland West Airport Knock (NOC) is ten minutes away by road. The closest village in Ireland to a working international airport, and you would not know it from the quiet of a Tuesday evening.