Bellacorick
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Bellacorick or Bellacoric (Irish: Béal Átha Chomhraic, meaning 'ford mouth of the confluence') is a townland in County Mayo in Ireland. It is in the Electoral Division of Glenco, in Civil Parish of Kilcommon, in the Barony of Erris, in the County of Mayo. Bellacorick has an area of: 2,789,440 m2 / 278.94 hectares / 2.7894 km2. Bellacorick borders the following other townlands: Killsallagh to the west; Moneynierin to the east; Muingaghel to the south; Srahnakilly to the north.[1]
During the second half of the twentieth century, it had a large turf-fired power station.
In about 1820, the civil engineer, William Bald, who was mapping the area and building roads through Erris, designed the Bellacorick Bridge, known as the Musical Bridge, it can be 'played' in two different ways:
- The first way is by rolling a stone along the parapet on either side. As the stone drops along musical notes are produced in rapid succession.
- The second method is to hold the stone in your hand and to strike it on the slabs which form the coping of the parapet hitting each slab as you go along and drawing back the hand immediately after striking. Each slab gives forth its own peculiar note and a musical scale is produced.
The bridge was difficult to erect. Because of the remarkable soundness of the earth the foundation had to be secured by timber. It has four elliptical arches each thirty feet apart, with battlements nearly 400 feet (120 m) long. The Erris prophet Brian Rua U'Cearbhain referred to the then unbuilt bridge at Bellacorick in the 17th century. He said that it would never be finished and it never has been.[2][3]
The spring of 1920, the RIC police station was captured and burned by a group of IRA volunteers from Crossmolina.[4]
