Loughrea

Loughrea, a market town of Co. Galway, Ireland, pleasantly situated on the N. shore of Lough Rea, 116 m. W. from Dublin by a branch from Attymon Junction on the Midland Great Western railway. Pop. (1901), 2815. There are slight remains of an Early English Carmelite friary dating c. 1300, which escaped the Dissolution. Loughrea is the seat of the Roman Catholic bishop of Clonfert, and has a cathedral built in 1900-1905. A part of the castle of Richard de Burgh, the founder of the friary, still survives, and there are traces of the town fortifications. In the neighbourhood are a cromlech and two ruined towers, and crannogs, or ancient stockaded islands, have been discovered in the lough. Apart from the surroundings of the lough, the neighbouring country is peculiarly desolate.