placenamesCaltra
An Chealtrach
Caltra’s recorded landmarks range from the Joyce family’s former house to a nineteenth-century church reshaped in the 1930s; its footballers brought an All-Ireland title home in 2004.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- An Chealtrach · Irish · main form · validated name
- Caltra · English · main form
Place & story
Caltra Lodge and the Joyce family
Caltra Lodge was occupied by P. J. Joyce in the late 1830s and by Mary Joyce during the 1850s. The family held the property from the Bellews of Mount Bellew. University of Galway’s Landed Estates database identifies the same house as Caltra Park on the large-scale Ordnance Survey map of the 1890s. Its ruined remains survived until the end of the twentieth century, preserving a trace of the relationship between the local Joyce household and the larger Bellew estate. [2]
The church and its later aisles
The architectural inventory records Saint Solan’s Catholic Church as dating from about 1840, with a major reconstruction in 1938–39. W. H. Byrne & Sons designed the later work, undertaken by Ballinasloe builder Owen Larkin, which added side aisles. Inside, pointed arches stand on octagonal columns, with a timber-panelled choir balcony reached by a cast-iron spiral stair. Stained glass and mosaic flooring enrich the interior. Outside, the stepped bell tower marks the prominent roadside site beside the graveyard. [3]
The 2004 club final
Caltra defeated An Ghaeltacht of Kerry by thirteen points to twelve at Croke Park on 17 March 2004, winning its first All-Ireland senior club football title. Michael Meehan scored six points, five from frees, while captain Noel Meehan contributed five. Declan Meehan and Shane Hogan supplied the remaining scores. The contemporary match report recorded an attendance of 38,500. The narrow victory followed a final in which An Ghaeltacht led at half-time and Caltra’s late three-point advantage was reduced to a single point. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Galway
- Barony
- Tiaquin
- Civil parish
- Killosolan
- Within
- Caltra
- Coordinates
- 53.43630, -8.43641 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413459 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Caltra. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Caltra Lodge, property 845 · Landed Estates database, University of Galway
- Saint Solan’s Catholic Church, inventory 30406004 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Caltra edge out An Ghaeltacht in final, 17 March 2004 · Irish Examiner
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2012-01-11. How this page was prepared.