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.
Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.
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 schoolBallinkillin 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 clubBallinkillin 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 →The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.
Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.
There is no bad time. There are different times.
The Barrow valley greens up earlier than most of Ireland. Lambs in the fields above the village. Long evenings by April.
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.
The Blackstairs go gold. The river is full. The fields are quiet. The best month for the towpath.
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.
If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.
There is no pub currently trading in the village itself. Bagenalstown is six miles north and Borris four miles south - both have options.
The Barrow is the next valley east. The towpath access point is in Bagenalstown, not Ballinkillin. Drive there, park at the bridge, walk south.
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.
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.
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.
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.