Discover Ballina

A river town with more history than it lets on

Ballina grew up at the lowest fording point on the River Moy, which is what its Irish name, Béal an Átha, the mouth of the ford, records. The town proper dates from the late eighteenth century, laid out around the bridges and the salmon, and it made its name first as a market and milling centre for North Mayo and then, in 1798, as one of the towns caught up in the Year of the French: General Humbert's small French army landed at nearby Killala, took Ballina, and marched inland before the rising collapsed at Ballinamuck. The Humbert monument in the town still marks it.

Two things have carried Ballina's name well beyond Mayo. The first is the Moy itself, one of the most prolific salmon rivers in Europe, with the Ridge Pool running through the centre of town below the weir; the second is the people the town produced, from Mary Robinson, born here in 1944 and later the first female President of Ireland, to Jackie Clarke, the fishmonger and salmon smoker whose private collection of Irish historical material, more than a hundred thousand items, is now a free public museum on Pearse Street. Add Belleek Woods and Belleek Castle on the edge of town and a cathedral on the riverbank, and Ballina is a town that rewards stopping rather than passing through.