04/01/2026
A great find Paul. Thanks for sharing it with us. We would like to wish you a very happy new year. Thank you for all your help throughout 2025.
Followers of this page will know that I absolutely love old maps. They can tell us so much about our area and what places were important at a particular time in history. A good understanding of mapping is one of the few things that I can bring from my career as a Civil Engineer into my interest in history. The first edition of this map was produced in 1792, by Daniel Beaufort, a Church of Ireland clergyman and scientist and it was at that time the most geometrically accurate map of Ireland ever produced. The purpose of the map was to show ecclesiastical districts but he also included an enormous amount of additional information that gives us a wonderful insight to our own area in the late 18th century. His work provided the best graphic depiction of Ireland’s shape and geography until the 1st edition Ordnance Survey Maps of the 1830's. Many of the names on this map are very familiar to us, albeit the spelling sometimes is a bit different. When 'V' is shown after a name that refers to a Vicarage, an 'R' refers to a Rectory. Names in italics are places that are not ecclesiastical, including Mount Talbot, which is shown as a large settlement that is located both sides of the river Suck. Of all the items of interest that this map contains it is the road from Mt Talbot to Ballinamore Bridge that really gets my juices flowing. You will notice that the road from Mt Talbot to Ballygar did not exist, of course Ballygar itself was still 30 years from its founding when the map was produced. Anyone travelling on the road from Mt Talbot to Ballygar today will notice how straight it is, that is because it is a designed road and unlike most of our roads it did not develop along old tracks or natural features. I had found out previously (from another map) that the road from Ballygar to the turn off for Ballinamore Bridge (along the present Galway road) was also a designed road, it was called up as the 'new road' in that map. This road is also very straight today and was obviously designed and built on a greenfield route. Also driving over the bridge of Mt Talbot today one has to take a very sharp 90 degree turn to the right to get to Ballygar, this never looked natural to me and now we know that it wasn't. This map shows the road did not take a 90 degree bend at that time, it went straight on through PJ Turleys field and into Tully, from there it went to Killeroran Cross and through Ruane, past Drinane House, on to Shanballymore and into Ballinamore Bridge. If you look at the first edition OS map from 40 years later a lot of this route is still visible, but much of it has gone back to agricultural use (see map in the comment section below where I have shown this route superimposed on the 1st edition map). But why was this the main road at that time? It is very simple really, prior to bridges being widely available people relied on 'fords' to cross rivers. Mount Talbot had a ford that was one of the only crossing points of the river Suck during the high winter floods. One of the old names for Mt Talbot was 'Beal an Atha Ui Cheallaigh' or 'The mouth of the O'Kelly ford'. Ballinamore Bridge had the only crossable point of the river Shevin during high winter floods (then known as Ballinamore, the Bridge came later!). So for people, cattle, or armies to travel from Roscommon or Athleague to Tuam, Monivea or Galway City, they had to pass through Mount Talbot and Ballinamore, making these two places enormously important throughout the Medievel Period, and the primary sources attest to that. My friends at Ballinamore Bridge Heritage are finding out plenty of information about the importance of their area and the work they are doing is invaluable. This map is courtesy of the Boston Public Library and a high resolution copy may be found here: https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:ww72bp98x
