It is bounded on the north and west by theAtlantic Ocean; on the south byCounty Galway; on the east byCounty Roscommon; and on the northeast byCounty Sligo. Mayo is the third-largest of Ireland's 32 counties in area and 18th largest in terms of population.[5] It is the second-largest ofConnacht's five counties in both size and population. Mayo has 1,168 km (726 mi) of coastline, or approximately 21% of the total coastline of the State.[6][7] It is one of three counties which claims to have thelongest coastline in Ireland, alongsideCork andDonegal. There is a distinct geological difference between the west and the east of the county. The west consists largely of poorsubsoils and is covered with large areas of extensive Atlanticblanket bog, whereas the east is largely alimestone landscape. Agricultural land is therefore more productive in the east than in the west.Clew Bay lies on the west coast of the county.
The highest point in Mayo (and Connacht) isMweelrea, at 814 m (2,671 ft)
The northwest areas of County Mayo have some of the best renewable energy resources in Europe, if not the world, in terms of wind resources, ocean wave, tidal and hydroelectric resources[10][11][12]
A survey of the terrestrial and freshwater algae of Clare Island was made between 1990 and 2005 and published in 2007. A record ofGunnera tinctoria is also noted.[14]
There is evidence of human occupation of what is now County Mayo going far back into prehistory.[16] AtBelderrig on the north Mayo coast, there is evidence forMesolithic (Middle Stone Age) communities around 4500 BC.[17][18] while throughout the county there is a wealth of archaeological remains from theNeolithic (New Stone Age) period (ca. 4,000 BC to 2,500 BC), particularly in terms of megalithic tombs and ritual stone circles.
The first people who came to Ireland – mainly to coastal areas as the interior was heavily forested – arrived during the Middle Stone Age, as far back as eleven thousand years ago.[16] Artefacts ofhunter/gatherers are sometimes found inmiddens, rubbish pits aroundhearths where people would have rested and cooked over large open fires. Once cliffs erode, midden remains become exposed as blackened areas containing charred stones, bones, and shells. They are usually found a metre below the surface. Mesolithic people did not have major rituals associated with burial, unlike those of the Neolithic (New Stone Age) period.[19]The Neolithic period followed the Mesolithic around 6,000 years ago. People began to farm the land, domesticate animals for food and milk, and settle in one place for longer periods. These people had skills such as making pottery, building houses from wood, weaving, and knapping (stone tool working). The first farmers cleared forestry to graze livestock and grow crops. In North Mayo, where the ground cover was fragile, thin soils washed away andblanket bog covered the land farmed by the Neolithic people.
Extensive pre-bog field systems have been discovered under the blanket bog, particularly along the North Mayo coastline inErris and northTyrawley at sites such as theCéide Fields, centred on the northeast coast.
The Neolithic people developed rituals associated with burying their dead; this is why they built huge, elaborate, galleried stone tombs for their dead leaders, known nowadays as megalithic tombs. There are over 160 recorded megaliths in County Mayo, such asFaulagh.
Megalithic tomb building continued into theBronze Age when metal began to be used for tools alongside the stone tools. The Bronze Age lasted approximately from 4,500 years ago to 2,500 years ago (2,500 BC to 500 BC). Archaeological remains from this period includestone alignments,stone circles andfulachta fiadh (early cooking sites). They continued to bury their chieftains in megalithic tombs which changed design during this period, more being of thewedge tomb type andcist burials.
Around 2,500 years ago theIron Age took over from the Bronze Age as more and more metalworking took place. This is thought to have coincided with the arrival ofCeltic speaking peoples and the introduction of the ancestor of theIrish language. Towards the end of this period, the Roman Empire was at its height in Britain but it is not thought that the Roman Empire extended into Ireland. Remains from this period, which lasted until theEarly Christian period began about AD 325 (with the arrival ofSaint Patrick into Ireland, as a slave) includecrannógs (Lake dwellings),promontory forts,ringforts andsouterrains of which there are numerous examples across the county. TheIron Age was a time of tribal warfare and kingships, each fighting neighbouring kings, vying for control of territories and taking slaves. Territories were marked by tall stone markers,Ogham stones, using the first written down words using theOgham alphabet. The Iron Age is the time period in which the mythological tales of theUlster Cycle and sagas took place, as well as that of theTáin Bó Flidhais, whose narrative is set in mainly inErris.
Christianity came to Ireland around the start of the 5th century. It brought many changes including the introduction of theLatin alphabet. The tribal 'tuatha' and new Christian religious settlements existed side by side. Sometimes it suited the chieftains to become part of the early Churches, other times they remained as separate entities. St. Patrick (4th century) may have spent time in County Mayo and it is believed that he spent forty days and forty nights onCroagh Patrick praying for the people of Ireland. From the middle of the 6th-century hundreds of small monastic settlements were established around the county.[21] Some examples of well-known early monastic sites in Mayo includeMayo Abbey,Aughagower,Ballintubber,Errew Abbey,Cong Abbey,Killala, Turlough on the outskirts of Castlebar, and island settlements off theMullet Peninsula like theInishkea Islands,Inishglora andDuvillaun.
In 795 the first of theViking raids took place. The Vikings came fromScandinavia to raid the monasteries as they were places of wealth with precious metal working taking place in them. Some of the larger ecclesiastical settlements erectedround towers to prevent their precious items from being plundered and also to show their status and strength against these pagan raiders from the north. There are round towers atAughagower,Balla,Killala, Turlough and Meelick. The Vikings established settlements that later developed into towns (Dublin, Cork, Wexford, Waterford etc.) but none were in County Mayo. Between the reigns ofKings of ConnachtCathal mac Conchobar mac Taidg (973–1010) andTairrdelbach Ua Conchobair (1106–1156), various tribal territories were incorporated into the kingdom of Connacht and ruled by the Siol Muirdaig dynasty, based initially atRathcroghan inCounty Roscommon, and fromc. 1050 atTuam. The families ofO'Malley andO'Dowd of Mayo served asadmirals of thefleet ofConnacht, while families such as O'Lachtnan,Mac Fhirbhisigh, and O'Cleary were ecclesiastical and bardic clans.
In AD 1169 when one of the warring kings in the east of Ireland,Dermot MacMurrough, appealed to the King of England for help in his fight with a neighbouring king, the response resulted in the Anglo-Norman colonisation of Ireland.County Mayo came under Norman control in AD 1235. Norman control meant the eclipse of many Gaelic lords and chieftains, chiefly the O'Connors of Connacht.[21] During the 1230s, theAnglo-Normans andWelsh underRichard Mór de Burgh (c. 1194 – 1242) invaded and settled in the county, introducing new families such asBurke,Gibbons,Staunton,Prendergast,Morris,Joyce,Walsh,Barrett,Lynott,Costello,Padden andPrice, Norman names are still common in County Mayo. Following the collapse of the lordship in the 1330s, all these families became estranged from theAnglo-Irish administration based inDublin and assimilated with the Gaelic-Irish, adopting their language, religion, dress, laws, customs and culture and marrying into Irish families. They became "more Irish than the Irish themselves".
The most powerful clan to emerge during this era were the Mac William Burkes, also known as theMac William Iochtar (seeBurke Civil War 1333–1338), descended from SirWilliam Liath de Burgh, who defeated the Gaelic-Irish at theSecond Battle of Athenry in August 1316. They were frequently at war with their cousins,Clanricarde ofGalway, and in alliance with or against various factions of the O'Conor's of Siol Muiredaig andO'Kelly's ofUí Maine. TheO'Donnell's ofTyrconnell regularly invaded in an attempt to secure their right to rule.
The Anglo-Normans encouraged and established many religious orders from continental Europe to settle in Ireland. Mendicant orders—Augustinians,Carmelites,Dominicans andFranciscans began new settlements across Ireland and built large churches, many under the patronage of prominentGaelic families. Some of these sites includeCong,Strade,Ballintubber,Errew Abbey,Burrishoole Abbey andMayo Abbey.[22] During the 15th and 16th centuries, despite regular conflicts between them as England chopped and changed between religious beliefs, the Irish usually regarded the King of England as their King. WhenElizabeth I came to the throne in the mid-16th century, the English people, as was customary at that time, followed the religious practices of the reigning monarch and became Protestant. Many Irish people such asGrace O'Malley, the famous pirate queen, had close relationships with the English monarchy, and the English kings and queens were welcome visitors to Irish shores. The Irish however, generally held onto their Catholic religious practices and beliefs. The early plantations of settlers in Ireland began during the reign of Queen Mary in the mid-16th century and continued throughout the long reign ofQueen Elizabeth I until 1603. By then the termCounty Mayo had come into use. In the summer of 1588, the galleons of theSpanish Armada were wrecked by storms along the west coast of Ireland. Some of the hapless Spaniards came ashore in Mayo, only to be robbed and imprisoned, and in many cases slaughtered.
Almost all the religious foundations set up by the Anglo-Normans were suppressed in the wake of theReformation in the 16th century.[23]
Protestant settlers fromScotland,England, and elsewhere in Ireland, settled in the County in the early 17th century. Many would be killed or forced to flee because of the1641 Rebellion, during which a number of massacres were committed by theCatholicGaelic Irish, most notably atShrule in 1642. A third of the overall population was reported to have perished due to warfare, famine and plague between 1641 and 1653, with several areas remaining disturbed and frequented byReparees into the 1670s.
Pirate QueenGrace O'Malley is probably the best-known person from County Mayo between the mid-16th century and the turn of the 17th century.[24] In the 1640s, when Oliver Cromwell overthrew the English monarchy and set up a parliamentarian government, Ireland suffered severely. With a stern regime in absolute control needing to pay its armies and allies, the need to pay them with grants of land in Ireland led to the 'to hell or to Connaught' policies.[25] Displaced native Irish families from other (eastern and southern mostly) parts of the country were either forced to leave the country or were awarded grants of land 'west of the Shannon' and put off their own lands in the east. The land in the west was divided and sub-divided between more and more people as huge estates were granted on the best land in the east to those who best pleased the English.[26] Mayo does not seem to have been affected much during theWilliamite War in Ireland, though many natives were outlawed and exiled.
For the vast majority of people in County Mayo the 18th century was a period of unrelieved misery. Because of thepenal laws, Catholics had no hope of social advancement while they remained in their native land. Some, likeWilliam Brown (1777–1857), left Foxford with his family at the age of nine and thirty years later was an admiral in the fledgeling Argentine Navy. Today he is a national hero in that country.[27]
The general unrest in Ireland was felt just as keenly across Mayo, and as the 19th century approached and news reached Ireland about theAmerican War of Independence and theFrench Revolution, the downtrodden Irish, constantly suppressed by Government policies and decisions from Dublin and London, began to rally themselves for their own stand against British rule in their country. 1798 saw Mayo become a central part of theUnited Irishmen Rebellion whenGeneral Humbert from France landed inKillala with over 1,000 soldiers playing to support the main uprising. They marched across the county towards the administrative centre of Castlebar, leading to theBattle of Castlebar. Taking the garrison by surprise Humbert's army was victorious. He established a' Republic of Connacht' withJohn Moore of the Moore family fromMoore Hall near Partry as its head. Humbert's army marched on towards Sligo, Leitrim and Longford where they were suddenly faced with a massive British army and were forced to surrender in less than half an hour. The French soldiers were treated honourably, but for the Irish the surrender meant slaughter. Many died on the scaffold in towns like Castlebar and Claremorris, where the high sheriff for County Mayo, the HonourableDenis Browne, M.P., brother of Lord Altamont, wreaked a terrible vengeance – thus earning for himself the nickname which has survived in folk memory to the present day, 'Donnchadh an Rópa' (Denis of the Rope).
In the 18th century and early 19th century, sectarian tensions arose as evangelical Protestant missionaries sought to 'redeem the Irish poor from the errors of Popery'. One of the best known was theRev. Edward Nangle's mission at Dugort inAchill.[28] These too were the years of the campaign forCatholic Emancipation and, later, for the abolition of the tithes, which a predominately Catholic population was forced to pay for the upkeep of the clergy of the Established (Protestant) Church.
During the early years of the 19th century, famine was a common occurrence, particularly where population pressure was a problem. The population of Ireland grew to over eight million people prior to theIrish Famine (or Great Famine) of 1845–47. The Irish people depended on the potato crop for their sustenance. Disaster struck in August 1845, when a killer fungus (later diagnosed as Phytophthora infestans) started to destroy the potato crop. When widespread famine struck, about a million people died and a further million left the country. People died in the fields of starvation and disease. The catastrophe was particularly bad in County Mayo, where nearly ninety per cent of the population depended on the potato as their staple food. By 1848, Mayo was a county of total misery and despair, with any attempts at alleviating measures in complete disarray.[29]
There are numerous reminders of the Great Famine to be seen on the Mayo landscape: workhouse sites, famine graves, sites of soup kitchens, deserted homes and villages and even traces of undug 'lazy-beds' in fields on the sides of hills. Many roads and lanes were built as famine relief measures. There were nine workhouses in the county: Ballina, Ballinrobe, Belmullet, Castlebar, Claremorris, Killala, Newport, Swinford and Westport.[30]
A small poverty-stricken place calledKnock, County Mayo, made headlines when it was announced that an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and St. John had taken place there on 21 August 1879, witnessed by fifteen local people.[31]
A national movement was initiated in County Mayo during 1879 byMichael Davitt,James Daly, and others, which brought about a major social change in Ireland. Michael Davitt, a labourer whose family had moved to England joined forces withCharles Stewart Parnell to win back the land for the people from the landlords and stop evictions for non-payment of rents.[32] The organisation became known as theIrish National Land League, and its struggle to win rights for poor farmers in Ireland was known as theLand War.
It was in this era of agrarian unrest that a new verb was introduced to the English language by Mayo - "toboycott".Charles Boycott was an English landlord deeply unpopular with his tenants. When Charles Steward Parnell made a speech inEnnis,County Clare, urgingnonviolent resistance against landlords, his tactics were enthusiastically taken in Mayo against Boycott. The entire Catholic community aroundLough Mask in South Mayo where Boycott had his estate became a campaign of total social ostracisation against Boycott, a tactic that would one day come to bear his name. The campaign against Boycott became acause célèbre in the British press after he wrote a letter toThe Times. The British elite rallied to his cause and FiftyOrangemen fromCounty Cavan andCounty Monaghan travelled to his estate to harvest the crops, while a regiment of the19th Royal Hussars and more than 1,000 men of theRoyal Irish Constabulary were deployed to protect the harvesters. However, the cost of doing this was completely uneconomic: It cost the British government somewhere in the region of £10,000 to simply harvest £500 worth of crops. Boycott sold off the estate and the British government's resolve to try to break boycotts in this completely dissolved, resulting in victory for the tenants.[33]
Mayo figures such asMary Robinson andEnda Kenny were influential both nationally and internationally in the modern era.
The "Land Question" was gradually resolved by a scheme of state-aided land purchase schemes.[34] The tenants became the owners of their lands under the newly set-upLand Commission.
A Mayo nun, MotherAgnes Morrogh-Bernard, set up the Foxford Woollen Mill in 1892. She made Foxford synonymous throughout the world with high-quality tweeds, rugs and blankets.[35][36]
Mayo, as all parts of what became theIrish Free State, was affected by the events of theIrish revolutionary period, including theIrish War of Independence and the subsequentIrish Civil War. MajorJohn MacBride of Westport was amongst those who took part in the 1916Easter Rising and was subsequently executed by the British for his participation. His death served as a rallying call for Republicans in Mayo and led to Mayo men such asP. J. Ruttledge,Ernie O'Malley,Michael Kilroy andThomas Derrig to rise up during the War of Independence. In the ensuing Civil War, many of these leading figures chose theAnti-treaty side and fought in bitter battles such as those in Ballina, which changed hands between pro and anti-treaty forces a number of times.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, there was a consolidation of many of those with anti-treaty feelings into the new political partyFianna Fáil. PJ Ruttledge and Thomas Derrig would become founding members of the party and served inÉamon de Valera's first-ever Fianna Fáil government as ministers. Mayo politicians would continue to contribute to the national political scene over the decades. In 1990Mary Robinson, from County Mayo, became the first-ever femalePresident of Ireland, and is widely credited with revitalising the position with importance and focus it had never possessed before. During her tenure she unveiled Ireland'sNational Famine Memorial which is situated in the village ofMurrisk, County Mayo.
In 2011Enda Kenny became the first politician from a Mayo constituency and the second Mayo native to serve asTaoiseach, the head of government of Ireland. Kenny went on to become the longest-serving Fine Gael Taoiseach in Irish history.[37]
In the early historic period, what is now County Mayo consisted of a number of large kingdoms, minor lordships andtribes of obscure origins. They included:
Since 2016, Mayo has been represented on a national political level by fourTDs who represent the constituency of Mayo inDáil Éireann. Previous to 2016 the constituency had five TDs but this was reduced based on the county's current population in line withproportional representation.[39] Theelectoral divisions of Cong, Dalgan, Houndswood, Kilmaine, Neale, Shrule, in the former Rural District of Ballinrobe, are inGalway West.
Historically, Mayo has tended to voteFianna Fáil, as Fianna Fáil managed to position themselves in the 20th century as the party best fit to represent farmers with small holdings, who were plentiful in Mayo. With so many of Mayo's electorate being small farmers, the county became a base for the emergence ofClann na Talmhan, an agrarian party in the 1940s and 1950s. Clann an Talmhan's second leader,Joseph Blowick came from South Mayo and that is where his seat was. The party was not able to last in the long run though as it was unable to hold together its voting bloc of both small farmers in the west of Ireland and large farmers in the east.
Towards the start of the 21st century, the balance of power in Mayo began to shift towards Fine Gael, thanks in part to the emergence ofEnda Kenny andMichael Ring. Kenny, who becameTaoiseach in 2011, led Fine Gael to a historic victory in the2011 Irish general election which included securing four out of five available seats for his party in Mayo.
In 2020, Rose Conway-Walsh came within 200 votes of topping the poll and became the first Sinn Féin TD for Mayo since 1927, riding a nationwide surge for Sinn Féin that year.[40]
Despite being historically the third-largest party in Ireland,Labour has struggled to ever make inroads into Mayo. The party has only ever had one TD for Mayo, former party leaderThomas J. O'Connell, who represented South Mayo between 1927 and 1932. While Labour has not proven itself electorally successful in Mayo, Mayo has provided important members to the Labour Party. Mary Robinson from Ballina became the first-ever female President of Ireland as a Labour candidate whilePat Rabbitte, originally from Claremorris, served asleader of the Labour Party from 2002 to 2007. Serving alongside Rabbitte wasEmmet Stagg, one of the longest-standing Labour TDs of the modern era, himself fromHollymount not far from Claremorris.
Irish history has been defined by waves of emigration due to push and pull factors. Mayo was one of the counties most depopulated by emigration in the ninetieth and twentieth century. Initially triggered by starvation during theGreat Famine, the population fell from 388,887 to 274,830 between 1841 and 1851.[48] Then in search of work in the newly industrialising United Kingdom and the United States, the population plummeted from 388,887 in 1841 to 199,166 in 1901. It reached a low of 109,525 in 1971. Emigration slowed dramatically as the Irish economy began to expand in the 1990s and early 2000s, and the population of Mayo increased from 110,713 in 1991 to 130,638 in 2011.[citation needed]
In the 2006 National Census, the religious demographic breakdown for County Mayo was 114,215 Roman Catholics, 2,476 Church of Ireland, 733 Muslims, 409 other Christians, 280 Presbyterians, 250 Orthodox Christians, 204 Methodists, 853 other stated religions, 3,267 no religion and 1,152 no stated religion.
The distribution of theIrish language in 1871. Mayo's relative remoteness meant that Irish was still widely spoken decades after the Great Famine and is still spoken today in the north-west of the county
9% of the population of County Mayo live in theGaeltacht. The Gaeltacht Irish-speaking region in County Mayo is the third-largest in Ireland with 10,886 inhabitants. These Irish-speaking areas of Mayo contain 5,956 Irish speakers.[49]Tourmakeady is the largest village in this area. All schools in the area use Irish as the language of instruction. Mayo has four gaelscoileanna in its four major towns,[which?] providing primary education to students through Irish.[50][failed verification]
Ireland West Airport is an international airport located in the county. The name is derived from the nearby village ofKnock. Recent years have seen the airport's passenger numbers grow to over 650,000 yearly with a number of UK and European destinations. August 2014 saw the airport have its busiest month on record with 102,774 passengers using the airport.
Mayo Now is a monthly entertainment and culture magazine for the towns of Ballina, Foxford, Killala, Crossmolina and surrounding areas – this is out on the first Friday of each month.
Mayo has its own online TV channelMayo TV which was launched in 2011. It covers news and events from around the county and regularly broadcasts live to a worldwide audience. Local radio stations include Erris FM, Community Radio Castlebar, Westport Community Radio, BCR FM (Ballina Community Radio) and M.W.R. (Mid West Radio).
The documentaryPipe Down, which won best feature documentary at the 2009 Waterford Film Festival, was made in Mayo.[53]
There is local resistance toShell's decision to process rawgas from theCorrib gas field at an onshore terminal. In 2005, five local men were jailed forcontempt of court after refusing to follow an Irish court order. Subsequent protests against the project led to theShell to Sea and related campaigns.
The Mayo Energy Audit 2009–2020 is an investigation into the implications ofpeak oil and subsequentfossil fuel depletion for arural county in west of Ireland. The study draws together many different strands to examine currentenergy supply and demand within the area of study, and assesses these demands inthe face of the challenges posed by the declining production offossil fuels and expected disruptions to supply chains, and by long-term economicrecession.[54][55][56]
TheMayo GAA senior team last won theSam Maguire Cup in 1951, when the team was captained bySeán Flanagan. The team's third title followed victories in 1936 and the previous year, 1950. Since 1951, the team have made numerousAll-Ireland Final appearances (in 1989, twice in 1996, 1997, 2004, 2006, 2012, 2013, twice again in 2016 against Dublin, 2017, 2020, with their latest appearance being against Tyrone in the 2021 final), though the team have failed on all occasions to achieve victory over their opponents.
The team's unofficial supporters club are Mayo Club '51, named after the last team who won the Sam Maguire. The county colours of Mayo GAA are traditionally green and red.[57]
AlthoughGaelic football andassociation football are the most popular sport in the county, other sports are popular in the county as well such as rugby, basketball, hurling, swimming, tennis, badminton, athletics, handball and racquetball.
^Guiry, M. D., John, D. M., Rindi, F. and McCarthy, T. K., eds. (2007)New Survey of Clare Island. Volume 6: The Freshwater and Terrestrial Algae. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.ISBN978-1-904890-31-7
^Warren, Graeme (2009). "Belderrig: a 'New' Later Mesolithic and Neolithic Landscape in Northwest Ireland". In Finlay, Nyree; Sinéad, McCartan; Milner, Nicky; Wickham-Jones, Caroline (eds.).From Bann Flakes to Bushmills. Oxford: Oxbow.ISBN978-1-84217-355-8.
^"Kenny becomes Fine Gael's longest-serving Taoiseach". RTE. 20 April 2017.Archived from the original on 21 April 2017. Retrieved21 April 2017.Enda Kenny has become Fine Gael's longest-serving Taoiseach, having equalled the record of John A Costello yesterday. Today is Mr Kenny's 2,234th day in office.
^Lee, J. J. (1981). "On the accuracy of thePre-famine Irish censuses". In Goldstrom, J. M.; Clarkson, L. A. (eds.).Irish Population, Economy, and Society: Essays in Honour of the Late K. H. Connell. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
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