Mount Bellow Bridge

Galway

Moylough

Mount Bellew bridge, a market town in the parish of Moylough, barony of Killian, county of Galway, and province of Connaught, 5 miles (N.W.) from Castle Blakeney, on the road from Tuam to Ballinasloe; containing in 1836, about 600 inhabitants. This place has increased very much in the last few years, under the auspices of M. Dillon Bellew, Esq.;it is remarkably clean and neat and most of the houses have shops. An excellent market is held onTuesday for all sorts of agricultural produce, live stock and some manufactured goods. Mr. Steel has large stores here and buys extensively in the market for Liverpool.

Fairs are held on May 7th, June 9th, July 25th and Sept 29th. A senechal's court monthly and petty sessions fortnightly, are held here; and it is a constabulary police station. There is also a dispensary. Mount Bellew, the seat of M.D.Bellew Esq., is considered to present some of the greatest improvements, and is the most prettily laid out, of any in the country. The last Mr. Bellew gave 10 acres of land towards the support of a monastery of the order of St. Francis, the inmates of, which superintend a national school, to which the Board of Education grants £10 per annum; it is a neat edifice, built by subscription towards which Mr. Bellew was the chief contributor; the chapel built at his cost, is a very pretty structure, with a tower 72 feet high. Should the plan of making the river Suck navigable to its junction with the Shiven take place, it is also proposed to make the latter navigable for boats to this place, which would confer on its great advantages, as agricultural produce could then be conveyed to the Shannon from this part of the country.