Westport (, historically anglicised as Cahernamart) is a town in County Mayo in Ireland. It is at the south-east corner of Clew Bay, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean on the west coast of Ireland. Westport is a tourist destination and scores highly for quality of life. It won the Irish Tidy Towns Competition three times in 2001, 2006 and 2008. In 2012 it won the Best Place to Live in Ireland competition run by The Irish Times.
Westport is designated as a heritage town, and is one of only a few planned towns in Ireland. The town centre was laid-out in the Georgian architectural style, and incorporates the Carrow Beg river into the design composition. This provides for tree lined promenades (known as The Mall) and several stone bridges.
The pilgrimage mountain of Croagh Patrick, known locally as "the Reek", lies some 10 km west of the town near the villages of Murrisk and Lecanvey. The mountain forms the backdrop to the town.
History
Name
Westport originates and gets its name in the Irish language from a 16th-century castle - Cathair na Mart (meaning "the stone fort of the beeves"- and surrounding settlement, belonging to the powerful local seafaring Ó Máille clan, who controlled the Clew Bay area, then known as Umaill.
Development
The original village of Cathair na Mart existed somewhere around what is now the front (east) lawn of Westport House. It had a high street, alleys down to the river and a population of around 700. A small port also existed at the mouth of the Carrowbeg river. Roads lead from the village to the west (West Road), the south (Sandy Hill Road) and the east (Old Paddock Road). The intention of John Browne, later the First Earl of Altamont to move the existing Cahernamart settlement to facilitate the landscaping of parklands around Westport House was outlined to Richard Pococke when he visited Browne in 1752.
The first clear evidence for the development of the new town is in an advertisement in Faulkner's Dublin Journal on March 17, 1767, stating 'a New Town is immediately to be built near the old town of Westport...according to Plans and Elevations already prepared'. The focal point was to be a 'large and elegant market house' situated in an octagonal market area enclosed by 12 'large well-finished slated Houses. There were to be 'three avenues for streets of thirty slated Houses' and 'several very large streets for great numbers of thatched Houses and cabbins, to be built separately' at a cost of 20-40 guineas each. Workmen were to contact Peter Brown-Kelly, son of the Earl or the architect William Leeson Westport is designated as a heritage town and is unusual in Ireland in that it is one of only a few planned towns in the country. Unfortunately, the original plans for the town are not available.
Its layout follows the medieval principles of urban design introduced by the Normans in the 13th century. A particular feature is the incorporation of the river into the composition, contained for two blocks by low stone walls producing, on each side of the river, tree-lined promenades (The Mall) with several stone bridges over the river Carrow Beg. The Malls were built by the First Marquess of Sligo after 1800. William Bald's map of Mayo which Was surveyed between 1809 and 1817, as well as Henry Browne's map from the same period, shows that the basic framework of Westport's streets including the Malls was present.
In 1778 Peter Browne, 2nd Earl of Altamont engaged James Wyatt (1746-1813) to redesign parts of Westport House, including its dining room. This led to a lasting belief that the well-known Wyatt designed the town, but work was already well advanced on the town when he started work. If he did have any design input into the town project it could only have been to later stages such as the Malls. Westport House was originally built by Richard Cassels (also known as Richard Castle), the German architect, in the 1730s, near the site of the original Ó Máille Castle.
Revolutionary period
After the Easter Rising, in Westport over 30 Irish Volunteers and Sinn Fein supporters were arrested by the RIC under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 on the orders of Resident magistrate John Charles Milling and the local District Inspector, Shore. Those arrested included Joe Ring, Tom Derrig and PJ Doris, editor of the Mayo News. They were sent to Frongoch internment camp in Wales. Joe Ring and others were released at Christmas 1916. On 29 March 1919, Milling, resident magistrate to County Mayo since 1915, was killed by the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) at his home on Newport Road, Westport.