iPhone app Lawrencetown Heritage Trail

Welcome to the village of Lawrencetown located in East Galway between the towns of Ballinasloe and Portumna.
We hope you enjoy reading about and listening to the interesting history and heritage of our village.

A Brief History

The village of Lawrencetown was first established by Walter Lawrence circa 1700 as an organised settlement on their estate about the townland of Ochilmore, the name Ochilmore coming from the ruins of the castle of OHill.
It was enlarged by his son Rear Admiral Peter Lawrence in 1750 and rebuilt by his grandson Col.
Walter Lawrence in 1765, to promote the linen industry in the west of Ireland.
In the 1800s it was a thriving village with a penny post, a chief constabulary police station, a Catholic Church and a Wesleyan Methodist chapel and a school.
It also had a market house, octagonal in shape, supported by arches, through which carts of produce could pass to be weighed.
The principle seats in the vicinity were Bellevue, or Lisreaghan, (Walter Lawrence), Gortnamona, (P.
Blake), Somerset House, (Simeon Seymour), Somerset Glebe, (Rev.
J.
Hannigan) and Ballymore Castle (Thomas Seymour Esq.).
In the 1850s a man named Allan Pollok, a progressive landowner and engineer, arrived in Ireland and between July 1853 and June 1858 paid

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