Recess and Maam Cross
Every road through Connemara passes Maam Cross. The N59 from Galway to Clifden meets the R336 up the Maam Valley to Leenaun at a crossroads called an Teach Dóite, the burned house, in the townland of Shindilla, where there is a hotel, a service station, a gift shop and, once a week, a mart selling sheep, cattle and Connemara ponies. Ten kilometres west, at Recess, the road runs beside Glendollagh Lough under Lissoughter, where the green marble comes out of the hill.
Checked against the source on 2026-09-19.
The original uploader was Miguev at English Wikipedia., CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Aughnanure Castle on the 3D model; tap a pin for its page and directions.
Stations on the Clifden line
The Midland Great Western Railway opened Recess station with the line on 1 July 1895 and Maam Cross station on 1 January 1896; both closed on 29 April 1935. The railway owned a hotel at Recess, and on 13 October 1922 Republicans burned it with Glendalough House so that the National Army could not billet troops there. At Maam Cross the station buildings and a short stretch of track have been restored in a project launched in 2017 and still under way in 2022.
Recess
Recess is in the Connemara Gaeltacht, officially Sraith Salach, the river meadow of the willows. Seán Lester, the last Secretary General of the League of Nations, retired here and died in the village in 1959, and the diplomat Pádraig MacKernan had a house at Lough Athry. The Connemara marble guide covers the quarry at Lissoughter, and the Lough Inagh guide the valley road that turns off here. Oughterard, pinned on the model, is the nearest town east on the N59.
Questions people ask
What is at Maam Cross?
When did the Recess railway station close?
Who lived in Recess?
Written from Wikipedia, "Maam Cross" (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.