Bekan, County Mayo
Bekan
Béacán | |
|---|---|
Village | |
 Southern entrance to Bekan village | |
  Bekan Location in Ireland | |
| Coordinates: 53°45′42″N 8°51′04″W / 53.7616°N 8.8510°W | |
| Country | Ireland |
| Province | Connacht |
| County | County Mayo |
| Government | |
| • Electoral division | Bekan |
| • Dáil constituency | Mayo constituency |
| • EU Parliament | Midlands–North-West |
| Elevation | 84 m (276 ft) |
| Time zone | UTC+0 (WET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-1 (IST (WEST)) |
| Irish Grid Reference | M4393279426 |
Bekan (Irish: Béacán)[1] is a village in County Mayo, Ireland. Because of the almost entirely rural population, it is traditionally a farming community. The village is between Ballyhaunis and Knock on the L1501 local road which connects the N60 and R323 roads.
Education
St. Joseph's National School, or Bekan National School, is a co-educational primary school which had 164 pupils in 2025.[2]
Transport
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Bekan railway station opened on 1 January 1909 and closed on 17 June 1963.[3]
Religion
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There is a 173-square-metre Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall with a seating capacity of 120 on the south side of Bekan, built by 200 volunteers during a weekend in 2004.[4]
St. Margaret Mary's Church is a local Catholic church in the centre of the village.[5]
Sport
Eastern Gaels is the local Gaelic Football club, which represents both Bekan and Brickens. The Connacht Gaelic Athletic Association Centre of Excellence, built just outside the village in December 2012, is the main sporting facility in the area. The centre has a 3G pitch, five floodlit Gaelic games pitches, and a gymnasium.[6]
Notable people
Joseph Finnegan (1898–1962) of the Massachusetts State Senate was born in Bekan. He emigrated to Boston in 1916, where he became a lawyer and state representative for Dorchester, Boston before being elected to the upper chamber. Senator Joseph Finnegan Park in Dorchester is named in his honour.[7] He became the father-in-law of future Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins when his eldest child, Patricia, married Collins in 1957.[8]
Further reading
- Béacán/Bekan: Portrait of an East Mayo Parish, edited by Fr. Michael Comer and Dr. Nollaig Ó Muraíle, published in 1986.
See also
References
- ^ "Bekan". Placenames Database of Ireland. Retrieved 6 August 2025.
- ^
- "Schools". Bekan Parish. Retrieved 6 July 2025.
- "Principal's Welcome". St. Joseph's National School, Bekan. Retrieved 6 July 2025.
- ^ "Bekan station" (PDF). Railscot-Irish Railways. Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 September 2007. Retrieved 12 September 2007.
- ^ Shiel, Tom (24 August 2004). "Jehovah's Witnesses speed build". Irish Independent.
- ^ "Mass Times". Bekan Parish. Retrieved 6 July 2025.
- ^ "Connacht GAA Centre - Connacht GAA". Archived from the original on 18 November 2015. Retrieved 17 November 2015.
- ^ Smith, Jennifer (10 May 2017). "Finnegan Park— Decades of faith in Port Norfolk are finally realized". Dorchester Reporter.
- ^
- Marquard, Bryan (4 May 2014). "Patricia Collins; wrote of being astronaut's wife, at 83". Boston Globe.
- Collins, Michael (2019). Carrying the Fire: an astronaut's journeys. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. xv. ISBN 978-0-374-53776-0.
