Bellacorick facts for kids

Bellacorick, also spelled Bellacoric, is a small area in County Mayo, Ireland. Its name comes from an Irish phrase, Béal Átha Chomhraic, which means "ford mouth of the confluence." This describes a place where rivers meet. It's a townland, which is like a small district, and covers about 2.79 square kilometers. Bellacorick is known for its interesting history and for how it has produced energy over the years.

History of Bellacorick

Moorland near Bellacorick

The Musical Bridge

Around 1820, a clever engineer named William Bald was mapping the area and building roads. He designed the Bellacorick Bridge, which became famous as the "Musical Bridge." You can actually "play" music on it in two cool ways!

• One way is to roll a stone along the top edge of the bridge, called the parapet. As the stone moves, it makes musical notes very quickly.
• The second way is to hold a stone and gently tap it on the flat stones that form the top of the parapet. Each stone makes its own special note, creating a musical scale.

Building this bridge was tricky. The ground was very soft, so the foundation had to be made strong with timber. The bridge has four rounded arches, each about 9 meters apart. Its side walls are nearly 122 meters long. An old Irish prophet from the 17th century, Brian Rua U'Cearbhain, spoke about this bridge before it was even built. He said it would never be truly finished, and some say it still isn't!

Local Events in 1920

In the spring of 1920, a group of Irish volunteers from Crossmolina took over and burned the local police station. This event was part of a larger period of change in Ireland.

How Bellacorick Makes Energy

Peat-Fired Power Station

For hundreds of years, peat (which is like very old, partly decayed plant material found in bogs) has been an important fuel in Ireland. It still provides some of the country's energy. In 1949, a local representative named James Kilroy asked the government to build a power station in Erris that would burn peat to make electricity. He also thought it would be good to improve the bogland and plant new forests.

The ESB (Ireland's electricity supply board) bought land near the bridge for the power station. At the same time, Bord na Mona, a company that manages bogs, bought a huge area of bogland. They harvested the peat to feed the power station. The peat was crushed and dried in the summer. It was then stored in big piles covered with plastic on the bog. Diesel trains carried the peat to the power station.

Power Station Closure

In 2007, the very tall chimney at Bellacorick was taken down for safety reasons. Even people who didn't like the power station because it burned fossil fuels were sad to see the chimney go. It had become a well-known landmark for people coming home to Erris.

Sadly, even though the chimney is gone, some old, ugly buildings from the 1960s are still standing. They are covered with green netting and look out of place. Because of these buildings, it's hard to get a good view of the white windmills at the nearby wind farm.

Wind Farm

Since 1992, Ireland's first commercial wind farm has been working at Bellacorick. This wind farm has 21 wind turbines. Together, they can produce 6.45 megawatts of electricity. That's enough power to supply about 4,500 homes!

The North Mayo area was chosen because it's one of the best places in Ireland for a wind farm. Bellacorick has all the right conditions. The average wind speed there is strong and steady. The wind blows from the southwest about half the time. The ground is flat and open, so the wind flows smoothly without being blocked. Also, the old power station nearby was already connected to the national electricity grid. This made it easy to connect the new wind farm.

The Bellacorick wind farm is owned and run by Renewable Energy Ireland. Its main owner is Bord na Mona. This wind farm helps the environment a lot. By using wind power, it avoids producing harmful gases that come from burning fossil fuels like coal, peat, oil, and gas. Each year, the Bellacorick wind farm prevents 120 tonnes of sulphur dioxide, 85 tonnes of nitrous oxides, and 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from going into the air.

In 2011, a big project called the 400 kV Grid West Electricity Transmission Scheme was approved. This project aims to connect even more wind power from Bellacorick to the national grid. As of 2016, the project was still being planned.

Transport in Bellacorick

Bus Éireann route 446 connects Bellacorick with nearby towns like Crossmolina and Ballina. If you go the other way, the bus links to Bangor Erris, Belmullet, and places on the Mullet Peninsula. There is one bus service each day in both directions, even on Sundays. On Friday evenings, there's an extra bus from Ballina. From Ballina, you can connect to other train and bus services.