Cill Ghallagáin (anglicised as Kilgalligan)[1] is a small Gaeltacht coastal townland and village in the northwest corner of Kilcommon Parish, County Mayo, Republic of Ireland, an area of 345 hectares (852 acres) in size.

In the 1830s a survey reported that "the cairn was caused by accumulated burials until a sort of pyramid has been formed that, at a distance, has a curious effect with the headstones and small crosses covering all sides of its conical surface.

(Samuel Lewis, Topographical Dictionary) There was a promontory fort known as Doonkeeghan (Dún Chaocháin) which probably dated from the Bronze Age.

The family appears to have lived in the area for a long period of time as in 1905 a Dr. De Exeter-Jordan was Medical Officer of Knocknalower dispensary on the Dún Chiortáin peninsula of the same parish – Kilcommon, Erris.

In 1618 the fort at Doonaniron became the property of Michael Cormuck who resided in Inver Castle on the Dún Chiortáin peninsula further west.

In November 1850, Robert Savage who was the postmaster at Bangor Erris wrote to Dublin Castle reporting that eighteen sheep on his farm at Cill Ghallagáin had been destroyed and several others badly injured.

[2] They reflect the centrality of the bog, settlements, fields, caves, cliffs, coves, rocks and the history and views of the people more than a century ago.

But an unknown world of fields (and rocks, hills and other hidden spaces), labelled with homely and sometimes inexplicable names, slowly emerges from the landscape and the memories of local people.