The history of Oughterard
The O'Flahertys and de Burghs, the barracks, the churches, the mines, the Clifden line, Joyce and John Ford. 10 moments, in order.
- Early times
Forts, wells and stones
Ringforts, holy wells and standing stones lie in the townlands of Ardvarna, Clare, Cregg and Fough West. A castle or tower house once stood in Fough East and may have been pulled down when the military barracks was built nearby in the mid-eighteenth century.
- 1256
De Burgh takes O'Flaherty country
The O'Flahertys held most of the land around until Walter de Burgh, first Earl of Ulster, took it over in 1256. Aughnanure, three kilometres out, is their well-preserved medieval tower house, and Ross Castle nearby has a fifteenth-century O'Flaherty castle in the foundations of the Martins' seventeenth-century house.
- 1808 and 1829
Two churches
The Church of Ireland church in Fough West was built in 1808 and extended in 1852; the Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception, finished in 1829, has a stained-glass window attributed to Harry Clarke. The courthouse of the same years is now the library.
- 1865
The mines close
The lead and silver mines at Glengowla were abandoned in 1865; they are a show mine now, with the story of mining in the area.
- 1895 to 1935
The Clifden line
The Midland Great Western Railway opened the station on 1 January 1895 on its Galway to Clifden line; the Great Southern closed station and line on 29 April 1935.
- 1914
Michael Furey's grave
James Joyce's story The Dead names Oughterard twice as the burial place of Michael Furey, the boy Gretta Conroy remembers, and Gabriel's last thoughts return to the grave.
- 1951
The Quiet Man
The bridge eight kilometres west on the N59, now called the Quiet Man Bridge, was a location for John Ford's film with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara.
- 1969
The golf club
Oughterard Golf Club was incorporated in 1969 and its eighteen-hole championship course laid out in the early 1970s.
- 2020
All-Ireland football
Oughterard GAA won the All-Ireland intermediate club football championship in 2020.
- 2022
Fastest growing
The census counted 1,846 people, up 40 per cent on 2016, one of the fastest-growing towns in Ireland, north-west of Galway on the N59.
Where this comes from
Every paragraph above summarises a statement in Wikipedia, "Oughterard", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, as it read on 2026-09-19. Follow it for the footnotes. Nothing has been added from memory.