A blessing for Mayo as Roman trip spells bright future for MacHale Park

A chance trip to the Basilica of St Paul in Rome has led to a changed spelling of Mayo’s county grounds.

For more than 80 years, Castlebar’s MacHale Park has been wrongly spelt McHale Park but on Sunday the family of Archbishop of Tuam John MacHale were the county board’s guests of honour at the Connacht finals, where it was confirmed the spelling would be corrected.

Former Mayo state solicitor Liam MacHale led the appeal to restore his great, great granduncle’s name, which had been accidentally altered.