Headford
Samuel Lewis, in 1837, found a neat and clean town of 217 houses, much improved by its landlord R. J. Mansergh St George, with a Tuesday market, fairs in May and October, bobbin lace, coarse linen and flannel made, and fine views of Lough Corrib and the mountains of Joyce Country. Headford is still the town for the east side of the lake, a commuter town to Galway now, with the Black River beside it marking the county line and one of the best-preserved friaries in Ireland two kilometres up the road.
Checked against the source on 2026-09-19.
The original uploader was Dppowell at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons
Headford Castle, Ross Errilly Friary, Presentation College Headford, Headford National School on the 3D model; tap a pin for its page and directions.
Cairns, castles and Ross Errilly
The country around holds prehistoric burial cairns, Iron Age stone enclosures, Norman and later castles and several monastic sites. Ross Errilly Friary, of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, lies about 2 km north-west; Killursa, a ruined medieval church of St Fursey, is 2.6 km west in Ower. Headford Castle was the St George residence in Lewis's day. The parish's two churches, at Claran in 1859 and in the town in 1865 on land given by St George, were built by Fr Peter Conway and dedicated to St Mary.
The town now
Greenfields, 6.5 km west, is the boating harbour, and the Black River is known for trout as well as being the boundary. Presentation College had about 780 pupils in late 2019; the town has a girls' and a boys' national school and three more in the countryside, and a small library with two book clubs. Corrib RFC, Moyne Villa FC, Headford GAA, St Fursey's ladies and a badminton and a karate club play here. Headford is twinned with Le Faouët in Brittany and Morgan Hill in California, votes in Galway East and the Tuam electoral area, and the model on this page pins the castle, the friary and the schools.
Questions people ask
How far is Headford from Galway?
Where is Ross Errilly Friary?
Where do boats go out on Lough Corrib from Headford?
Written from Wikipedia, "Headford" (CC BY-SA 4.0), read on 2026-09-19, and from the OpenStreetMap places on the model. Nothing has been added from memory; follow the source for its footnotes.