Irishtown
Baile Iorrais

STOP 03 / 03

Baile Iorrais · Co. Mayo

A village that made history on one April morning in 1879.

Irishtown is a small village in south Mayo, twenty kilometres east of Westport, not remarkable by looks. One street, a few houses, a church, the land rising gently behind it. Nothing marks it as the place where the Irish land agitation movement began, but it is.

On the 20th of April 1879, James Daly — a local newspaper editor and land agitator — called a meeting here in response to a bad harvest the year before. He gathered farmers, small tenants, and labourers to talk about the rents they could not pay and the landlords who would not listen. The meeting was reported in the press. Daly wrote about it. The idea spread — that tenants could organise, could demand, could collectively refuse.

That meeting preceded, by a matter of months, the National Land League founding in October of the same year. Michael Davitt was the figure history remembers — Davitt and his connection to Straide, a village south of Castlebar. But Irishtown came first. Daly called the first public meeting. The idea started here. Then it spread.

Visit for the story, not for the buildings. The village itself will not be busy. The historical weight is invisible and exact.

Population

c. 200

Coords

53.7833° N, 9.1667° W

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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.

How Irish land agitation began

The 1879 meeting

On the 20th of April 1879, James Daly held a public meeting in Irishtown to address the rent crisis following the poor harvest of 1878. Farmers and labourers were facing eviction and destitution. Daly, editor of the Connaught Telegraph, had come to believe that tenants — ordinary farmers, not landlords or politicians — held the power to change their own condition. The meeting was attended by hundreds. Daly was reported in the press. The idea of organised tenant resistance took hold. Within six months, Davitt, Parnell and others had founded the National Land League. Irishtown"s April meeting was the spark.

A local editor who started a movement

James Daly and the Connaught Telegraph

James Daly was born in Carrowdore, County Down, and came to Castlebar as a newspaper editor. He launched the Connaught Telegraph in 1881, but before that — in 1879 — he was already thinking about tenants, landlords, and the structure of rural poverty. He saw the meeting in Irishtown as the moment to crystallize the idea into action. After the Land League formed, Daly remained active in the movement. He died in 1897. The Telegraph, which he founded, still publishes today.

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When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar–May

April is the month to come — the anniversary of the 1879 meeting falls here, and the land is in growth. Cold but clearing.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun–Aug

Long light, open roads, and if you are tracking history you will have time to sit and think about what the land looked like in 1879.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep–Oct

The harvest season, the light high and clear, the reason the 1878 harvest mattered so much.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov–Feb

Quiet, cold, and a long way from services. The village in winter is the village that empties.

◐ Mind yourself

Getting there.

By car

Castlebar to Irishtown is 25 km south-east via Ballindine on the R320. Westport to Irishtown is 30 km east via Castlebar. Galway to Irishtown is 60 km north-west via the N84.

By bus

Bus Éireann 419 (Galway–Ballina via Ballinrobe and Castlebar) does not stop in Irishtown. Nearest stops are Castlebar and Ballindine.