Ballyhaunis
Encyclopedia : B : BA : BAL : Ballyhaunis
Ballyhaunis (Béal Átha hAmhnais in Irish) is a town in County Mayo, Ireland. The town grew up around St Mary's Augustinian Friary, founded in 1348. The population today is around 1,500.
Ballyhaunis is a busy town set in the East Mayo landscape of grassy fields, lakes, and wild bog. It is thought that the town grew around St. Mary's Augustinian Friary (established 1348). The town and the surrounding hinterland is steeped in history and contains one of the highest concentrations of megalithic monuments in the West of Ireland.
Ballyhaunis has a population of approximately 1,500. It is a mixed community where farming, private business and industry are the main sources of employment. The main employer in the town is Avonmore (Irish Country Meats) who employ approximately 280 staff in their meat processing plant.
Ballyhaunis over the years has become a cosmopolitan area. Even prior to Ireland's recent period of economic growth, there were children of at least seven nationalities attending schools in the town. These included Pakistani, Syrian, Russian, English, Polish and Lithuanian.In recent times even more nationalities have been attracted to Ballyhaunis, with immigrants from several countries in Africa and Eastern Europe now settled in the area. This is illustrated by the fact that, as well as two Catholic churches, the town is also home to Ireland's only purpose built mosque outside Dublin and actually it is the most westerly mosque in Europe.
Ballyhaunis is situated at the crossroads of national routes N60 and N83 and on the railway line connecting Dublin to Westport and Ballina.
Genealogical records (Church of Ireland, Roman Catholic, Civil, Gravestone Inscriptions, etc) for this area are held at the South Mayo Family Research Centre in Ballinrobe.
- See also: List of towns in the Republic of Ireland
[Ballyhaunis page on East Mayo website]
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.