Barefield, An Gort Réidh, Co. Clare

An Gort Réidh · Co. Clare

Five kilometres north of Ennis, a parish that lives for hurling.

Barefield is the kind of place you used to stop at on the way to Galway, before the motorway took the through-traffic away. The N18 still runs past the door of the church, but the road that mattered now bypasses the village a field to the east. What that left behind is a parish, not a thoroughfare - a primary school, a community hall, St Brigid's Church and a GAA pitch that punches well above the parish's weight.

The full name on the parish letterhead is Doora-Barefield, and the hyphen does some work. Doora is the older end, the medieval ringfort and the ruined church above the lake; Barefield is the newer settlement that grew up along the road in the 19th century. Two halves of the same parish, one club, one church roll. The Irish - An Gort Réidh, the level field - is the kind of plain practical name you get when nobody felt the need to dress the place up.

Don't make a destination of it. Make a half-hour of it. Stop in for the church, drive five minutes east to the Doora ringfort, and then carry on to wherever you were going. Or come on a Sunday in summer and see what a parish hurling match looks like when the parish has already won a senior county and remembers it.

Population

~200

Walk score

Five minutes end to end, including the church car park

Coords

52.8939° N, 8.9594° W

01 / 05

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 parish

St Brigid's and the road that used to matter.

The church sits on the old N18, the school and the hall a hundred yards behind it. Since the Ennis-Galway motorway opened, the village is a parish again rather than a passing place. Quieter. More itself.

Stories & lore → 02 Doora-Barefield GAA

1998 Clare senior hurling champions.

Won the Canon Hamilton Cup in 1998, beating Kilmaley in the county final, and went on to a Munster club final. Two halves of the parish, one club, a small ground that has seen more than its share of big nights.

Stories & lore → 03 Doora ringfort

The medieval end of the parish.

A kilometre east, on the rise above Ballyalla Lough, the old church and graveyard at Doora mark where the parish actually began. Pre-Norman foundation, mossed-over stones, no signpost worth speaking of.

Stories & lore →

02 / 05

Stories & lore.

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

Doora-Barefield, senior hurling champions

The 1998 county

For most of the 20th century Doora-Barefield was a junior and intermediate club. Then in 1998 they won the Clare senior hurling championship - the Canon Hamilton Cup - beating Kilmaley in the county final. They went on to a Munster club final the following spring. The Tuohy and McMahon names were on team-sheets either side of that win. The pitch is a small one and the dressing rooms are smaller, but the parish has not forgotten what it did, and would tell you so given half a chance.

The older half of the parish

Doora

A kilometre east of Barefield, on a low rise above Ballyalla Lough, the ruined medieval church and graveyard at Doora mark a foundation older than the village. Local tradition gives it to a 7th-century saint; the surviving fabric is later, probably 13th or 14th century. The graveyard is still in use. There is no visitor centre, no signage, and no car park beyond a wide bit of verge - which, depending on who you ask, is either the problem or the point.

When the road stopped coming through

The bypass

The N18 used to run straight through Barefield on its way from Ennis to Gort and Galway. In the 2010s the M18 motorway opened a field to the east, and the through-traffic vanished overnight. The village lost a petrol station, a couple of small businesses and most of its noise. What it kept was the church, the school, the hall and the pitch - which, the older parishioners will tell you, was the whole village to begin with.

03 / 05

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Quiet. The hurling championship is a way off; the parish is going about its weekday business. Use it as a five-minute stop on the way north.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Club hurling season. If you can land here on a Sunday with a Doora-Barefield home fixture, you will see the parish at full voice for ninety minutes.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

County championship knock-out weekends. Even if the club is not playing, every conversation in the parish is about who is.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Not much reason to stop on a wet weekday. The church is open for mass; the rest of the village is at work in Ennis.

◐ Mind yourself

04 / 05

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

Making Barefield a day-trip destination

It is a parish village five minutes off the motorway. Use it as a half-hour stop on the drive between Limerick and Galway, not a reason to exit the M18.

Expecting to eat in Barefield

There is a pub in Doora if you ask locally, but no restaurant. Ennis is five minutes south with every chain and half the county's trad pubs.

Visiting St Brigid's on a weekday afternoon

The church is locked outside Mass times. Sunday morning or a Saturday evening gets you in. Check the parish timetable first.

Getting there.

By car

Five kilometres north of Ennis on the old N18 (now the R458). From Galway, it is 55 minutes down the M18 - take the Crusheen exit and rejoin the old road south.

By bus

Bus Éireann Galway-Ennis services on the 51 route stop at Barefield by request. A handful daily; check the timetable.

By train

Nearest station is Ennis (5 km). Galway and Limerick are both on the same line.

By air

Shannon (SNN) is 30 minutes by car. Ireland West (Knock) is 1h 30m.