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BALLINKILLIN

CO. CARLOW · IE

Ballinkillin
Baile an Chillín

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 06 / 06

Baile an Chillín · Co. Carlow

Twenty houses between Bagenalstown and Borris, and a hurling team older than most of them.

Ballinkillin is twenty houses on a back road in south Carlow, dropped between Bagenalstown six miles north and Borris four miles south, with the river Barrow running its slow business in the valley to the east and Mount Leinster looming over the parish to the south-west. Drive through it and you'll miss it. Walk through it and there's a school, a church, a community centre, a hurling pitch, and a Lourdes grotto built out of local granite. That's the village.

What it has, it has properly. St. Lazerian's Church was built in 1793 by Fr. Michael Brophy and is one of the oldest in the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin — five stained-glass windows, a chapel yard consecrated by Bishop Doyle in September 1821, and a Calvary added in 1935 when granite was the answer to most things. The school next door has been teaching since 1810. The cardinal Patrick Francis Moran, who ended his career as Archbishop of Sydney, was raised in this parish and put up a high cross in the churchyard for his parents before he sailed.

The hurling is the heartbeat. Ballinkillin GAA was founded in 1890, when most of rural Ireland was still working out what the game even was, and McDonnell Park went through a major rebuild in 1992 that the parish paid for itself, eighty thousand pounds at the time. The senior county titles in 1973 and 2001 are the dates people give you in the post office. There's a 1798 heroine, Theresa Malone, buried locally, with a plaque the parish put up for the bicentenary in 1998. Every village this size has its dates. Ballinkillin keeps better track than most.

Population

~74

Walk score

A crossroads, a church, a hurling pitch

Founded

School in continuous use since 1810

Coords

52.6481° N, 6.9286° W

01 / 06

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The valley

Barrow country, under Mount Leinster.

South Carlow farmland between Bagenalstown and Borris, with the river to the east and the Blackstairs rising behind. The fields here are flatter than the postcards suggest, and the land good.

Stories & lore → 02 The school

Open since 1810.

Ballinkillin National School was built by subscription in 1810, on ground leased in perpetuity by David La Touche. It has taught the children of this parish without a break since — one of the oldest continuously running schools in the country.

Stories & lore → 03 The club

Hurling on McDonnell Park.

Ballinkillin GAA was founded in 1890 and has been a hurling club, mostly, since the 1957 reorganisation. The senior hurlers won the Carlow Senior Championship in 1973 and again in 2001. Ten teams now run from under-5 up.

Stories & lore →

02 / 06

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

Mortally wounded, 1835

Fr. John of the cross

A limestone Celtic cross with a wrought-iron railing stands at the church, marking Fr. John — a parish priest mortally wounded in 1835. The detail of what happened to him has thinned out over the years; the cross has not. Local memory is sometimes a stone before it's a story.

A 1798 heroine, buried in the parish

Theresa Malone

Theresa Malone was a local woman who took some part in the rebellion of 1798 — the kind of role that didn't make the histories at the time and gets remembered slowly. She is buried in Ballinkillin. The parish put a plaque up for her in 1998, two hundred years on. The detail of what she did is local knowledge; the fact that they remembered is the point.

Turned up by a plough, 1984

The cist grave

In 1984 a plough on a Ballinkillin field caught on a flat stone and pulled up the lid of a cist — a small Bronze Age burial chamber, two foot by one and a half, capped in stone, with two earthenware urns and human bone inside. It had been there three or four thousand years and nobody knew. Most of the south-Carlow drumlins are like that. The land is older than the parish records by a long way.

From Ballinkillin to Sydney

Cardinal Moran

Patrick Francis Moran was born in Leighlinbridge in 1830 and was raised in this parish. He became Bishop of Ossory, then Archbishop of Sydney, then a cardinal — the first ever resident in Australia. Before he left, he put up a replica high cross in the churchyard at Ballinkillin in memory of his parents. It is still there, weathered, smaller than you expect.

03 / 06

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

The Barrow Way (Bagenalstown to Borris) The towpath runs along the river the next valley over. Drive five minutes east to Bagenalstown, pick it up at the bridge, and walk south to Borris with the water on your left the whole way. Flat, green, slow. The locks are the punctuation. Get a lift back or do the half to Goresbridge and turn around.

15 km point-to-pointdistance

4 hourstime

Mount Leinster shoulder The mast on top of Mount Leinster is the line you've been seeing on the horizon all week. Drive up the Nine Stones road from Borris and walk the last stretch to the summit on a clear day. Don't bother in cloud — the road delivers you most of the way and the cloud takes the rest.

8 km returndistance

3 hourstime

Ballyloughan and Ballymoon castles loop Two roofless 13th-century castles within a few miles of the village — Ballyloughan a tower keep with twin gate towers, Ballymoon a square enclosure that was never finished and nobody quite knows why. Park, climb in, look at the sky through the windows, leave. No turnstile, no ticket, no signs.

A drive, not a walkdistance

1 hourtime

04 / 06

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar–May

The Barrow valley greens up earlier than most of Ireland. Lambs in the fields above the village. Long evenings by April.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun–Aug

The Barrow Way is at its best. Hurling championship matches in McDonnell Park or up the road. Borris and Bagenalstown are ten minutes away for a feed.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep–Oct

The Blackstairs go gold. The river is full. The fields are quiet. The best month for the towpath.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov–Feb

Nothing in the village is open in the way a visitor wants things open. Drive in for the church or the school history; eat in Bagenalstown or Borris.

◐ Mind yourself

05 / 06

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Coming without checking the pub situation

There is no pub currently trading in the village itself. Bagenalstown is six miles north and Borris four miles south — both have options.

Driving to walk the Barrow Way from here

The Barrow is the next valley east. The towpath access point is in Bagenalstown, not Ballinkillin. Drive there, park at the bridge, walk south.

The castle loop by foot

Ballyloughan and Ballymoon castles are a drive, not a walk from the village. Both are worth a stop but treat them as car detours, not a circular route.

Getting there.

By car

Carlow town to Ballinkillin is 25 minutes south on the R705 via Bagenalstown. From Kilkenny, 30 minutes east via Goresbridge. From Dublin, 1h 45m down the M9 and across.

By bus

No direct bus to the village. Bus Éireann 132 runs Dublin–Carlow–Bagenalstown–Borris and stops in both neighbouring towns; from there it is a taxi or a lift.

By train

Bagenalstown station (Muine Bheag) is on the Dublin–Waterford line, six miles north of the village. Two-and-a-bit hours from Dublin Heuston. Then a taxi.