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Main Street today, looking down the same hill, with a stone building at the corner.
An Caisleán Riabhach

Castlerea

2,348 people at the 2022 census. A market town on the Suck, an hour from the Atlantic and three from Dublin, that most people pass through on the way to somewhere else.

Darren J. Prior · 2018 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

The names these places carried on the 19th-century Ordnance Survey sheets, spelled as the surveyor spelled them.

130 recorded monuments ring this town. Not one of them has a line written for a visitor.

Archaeological Survey of Ireland, National Monuments Service.
Read 2026-08-02 · CC BY 4.0 · 8 in State guardianship.

Testimony, 1938 · not a record

In former years there was a very extensive distillery in the town. The distillery had an output of 25,000 gallons of whiskey annually. Besides this there were two corn mills and tobacco was also manufactured in the town.

Written down by Michael Cassidy, Hanly Memorial, Castlerea, for the Irish Folklore Commission.
The Schools' Collection, Volume 0247, Page 001 © National Folklore Collection, UCD · CC BY-NC 4.0

Testimony, 1938 · not a record

In Patrick St Castlerea in the present house of Mr Newman there is an anvil. In the yard of this house there were two monks who one time carried on horse shoeing and the making of nails. An old resident Mr D Corcoran who says he is 91 years told me that in his youth his parents always spoke of the monks — priests — they had done this work for a living.

Written down by Seán Naughton, Hanly Memorial, Castlerea, for the Irish Folklore Commission.
The Schools' Collection, Volume 0247, Page 031 © National Folklore Collection, UCD · CC BY-NC 4.0

130recorded monuments inside 6 km

Archaeological Survey of Ireland · SMR open data · read 2026-08-02

8National Monumentsin State guardianship
12places written upeach with its sources
—light left todaysunrise-sunset.org · sunset for 53.7665 N, 8.4872 W
53.7665° N, 8.4872° W
Drag or use the arrow keys to move, plus and minus to zoom.

Drawn from OpenStreetMap, ODbL · monument positions from the SMR · no basemap is loaded, so this map costs one request · Two fingers move the map; one finger scrolls the page.

24 of 141

A cut-stone church with a square tower and spire, lancet windows, and a white statue on a pedestal inside the railings.
PlacesSaint Patrick's Catholic Church
80 m SSW

National Inventory of Architectural Heritage · NIAH survey · © Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Reproduced for educational use with credit.

A two-storey cut limestone building on a corner, round-headed windows, the words Bank of Ireland cut into the frieze.
PlacesBank of Ireland, Market Square
100 m NE

National Inventory of Architectural Heritage · NIAH survey · © Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Reproduced for educational use with credit.

A long white rendered building with small square windows, standing beside a filling station forecourt.
PlacesThe Old Bridewell
120 m NNE

National Inventory of Architectural Heritage · NIAH survey · © Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Reproduced for educational use with credit.

A two-storey white rendered building with cut stone quoins and tall round-headed windows, benches and flower baskets along its street front.
PlacesCastlerea Courthouse
120 m ENE

National Inventory of Architectural Heritage · NIAH survey · © Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Reproduced for educational use with credit.

GraveyardGrave YardDemesne
250 m ERO026-035002

No photograph of this exists. The land from above, at its own coordinates.

ChurchChurchDemesne
250 m ERO026-035001

No photograph of this exists. The land from above, at its own coordinates.

BridgeBridgeDemesne
300 m NNWRO026-029

No photograph of this exists. The land from above, at its own coordinates.

A rendered church with a battlemented three-stage tower, round-headed windows, and iron railings on stone gate piers along the road.
PlacesTrinity Church (Kilkeevin)
340 m ESE

National Inventory of Architectural Heritage · NIAH survey · © Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Reproduced for educational use with credit.

RingfortRingfort - rathDemesne
340 m NNWRO026-027

No photograph of this exists. The land from above, at its own coordinates.

CastleCastlereagh HouseDemesne
340 m NRO026-028

No photograph of this exists. The land from above, at its own coordinates.

EnclosureEnclosureDemesne
780 m NNWRO026-067

No photograph of this exists. The land from above, at its own coordinates.

RingfortRingfort - rathDemesne
880 m WNWRO026-026

No photograph of this exists. The land from above, at its own coordinates.

CrossCrossHarristown
920 m SRO026-042

No photograph of this exists. The land from above, at its own coordinates.

RingfortRingfort - rathDemesne
930 m NRO026-030

No photograph of this exists. The land from above, at its own coordinates.

QuarryQuarryDemesne
970 m ERO026-036

No photograph of this exists. The land from above, at its own coordinates.

ChurchKilkeevin ChurchArm
1.2 km SWRO026-040001

No photograph of this exists. The land from above, at its own coordinates.

EnclosureEnclosureTermon More
1.2 km NERO026-031

No photograph of this exists. The land from above, at its own coordinates.

GraveyardBurying GroundArm
1.2 km SWRO026-040002

No photograph of this exists. The land from above, at its own coordinates.

FordFordArm,Harristown
1.2 km SWRO026-041

No photograph of this exists. The land from above, at its own coordinates.

117moreOpen the record

Sorted by the distance between a thing and what it caused

Archaeological Survey of Ireland

Thirty-eight ringforts. Nine church sites. Six high crosses. Five children’s burial grounds.

The survey has been public for years. Nobody has ever turned it into something a person standing at a gate could read.

Open the record

Each entry carries the surveyor's own field description, its measurements, the name it held on the 19th-century Ordnance Survey sheets, and the reference behind it.