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CRUSHEEN

CO. CLARE · IE

Crusheen
Croisín

STOP 06 / 06

Croisín · Co. Clare

A crossroads village on the Galway road that punches well above its weight in hurling.

Crusheen is a small village on the east Clare plain, ten kilometres northeast of Ennis. The name comes from Croisín — little cross — and there was probably a crossroads here before there was much else. The church is dedicated to St Cronan. The parish was long called Inchicronan, after the lake nearby where an abbey once stood and a castle fell to Cromwell's men in 1651.

What gives the place its character today is the GAA. Crusheen hurling is a source of real local pride — not the manufactured kind on tourist boards, but the kind that comes from 123 years of not winning a county title and then winning two on the trot. Cian Dillon, who was part of those 2010 and 2011 club successes, went on to win an All-Ireland with Clare in 2013. He's from here. So is Kieren Fallon, six-time British champion jockey, who left for the Curragh stables in 1983 and did not go unnoticed.

The village itself is one street: the church, the Garda station, two pubs, a post office, a supermarket, a petrol station. The railway closed in 1976 and people have been trying to reopen it ever since. The case for a new station on the Limerick-to-Galway line is argued every few years at county council level, and every few years the Department of Transport does not disagree but doesn't fund it either.

Population

~650

Pubs

2and counting

Coords

52°56'23"N, 8°53'50"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 GAA

Back-to-back senior champions. On the first try.

Crusheen won their first-ever Clare Senior Hurling Championship in 2010 — after 123 years without one — then retained the title in 2011. The club is almost exclusively concerned with hurling. This is not unusual in east Clare. The ambition is.

Stories & lore → 02 The road

The N18 shaped this place.

The motorway passes west of the village. The old road still runs through the main street. Crusheen is a place people drive through on the way between Ennis and Gort — and a reason to stop.

Getting here → 03 The storyteller

Ireland's best-known seanchaí lives up the road.

Eddie Lenihan — author, broadcaster, keeper of the largest private folklore collection in Ireland — lives in Crusheen. In 1999 he made international headlines by moving a motorway to save a fairy thorn tree. The tree won.

Stories & lore →

02 / 06

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

Fogarty's

Local, unhurried, two open fires

Traditional thatched pub

A thatched cottage pub on Main Street — two open fires, wooden beams, the kind of place that looks like it was always there because it was. Food served. Live music on occasion. Arrive early on weekends for a seat that isn't the door.

03 / 06

Stories & lore.

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

Crusheen GAA and the wait that ended

123 years

Crusheen GAA was founded in 1887. They reached Clare Senior Hurling Championship finals before. They did not win one. In October 2010, in their first-ever senior county final appearance, they beat Cratloe by 2–13 to 1–11. The club had waited 123 years. The following year they retained the title, beating Sixmilebridge at a waterlogged Cusack Park. They then reached the Munster Senior Club final in 2011, where they lost a replay to Na Piarsaigh of Limerick. The club's colours are red and white. The wait is over.

Eddie Lenihan and the tree that moved a motorway

The fairy thorn

Eddie Lenihan lives in Crusheen. He is a seanchaí — a traditional Irish storyteller — and holds the largest private collection of Irish folklore in the country. In 1999, when the M18 motorway was being planned through east Clare, Lenihan campaigned to save a specific whitethorn tree at Latoon, a short distance away. The tree, he said, was the meeting point for the fairies of Munster whenever they prepared to ride north against the fairies of Connacht. He was not joking. Neither was the county council — the road was realigned. The tree stands. In 2002 someone attacked it with a chainsaw. Eight months later it put out new leaves.

Kieren Fallon, six-time British champion

The jockey from Croisín

Kieren Fallon was born in Crusheen in 1965 and left for the Curragh racing stables in February 1983, just before his eighteenth birthday. He went on to become British Champion Jockey six times between 1997 and 2003, ride the Derby winner Oath in 1999, and accumulate 2,578 domestic winners in Britain. He retired in 2016 and published his autobiography, Form, in 2017. He grew up in a small village on the Galway road in east Clare, which is the kind of thing the village does not let you forget.

The castle, the abbey, and the Cromwellian siege

Inchicronan

The parish is old. Inchicronan — island of Cronan — was the earlier name, after an early Christian monastery on an island in the lake south of the village. The ruins of Inchicronan Castle stand nearby. In 1651 the Cromwellian general Ludlow besieged it and defeated a Royalist force. During the siege, a Franciscan friar named Donogh Neylon, captured in Ennis, was hanged at the castle. A priest named Teige Carrigge was hanged with him. The castle is a ruin. The lake is still there.

Crusheen on the Limerick-to-Athenry line

The station that closed

Crusheen had a railway station on the Limerick-to-Athenry mainline, built in the 1860s and closed to passengers in 1976, freight in the 1990s. The village has been arguing for its reopening ever since. The M18 motorway passes west of the village and puts Crusheen within commuting distance of Ennis, Galway, Limerick and Shannon Airport. The population grew 20 per cent between 2006 and 2011. Irish Rail received planning permission for a new station in 2011. As of 2025, it has not been built.

04 / 06

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar–May

Quiet roads, the Clare countryside coming green. A good base for the Burren if you want to sleep somewhere cheaper than Doolin.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun–Aug

Crusheen doesn't do tourist crowds. The pubs are the same in August as in January. Hurling championship starts — check fixtures.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep–Oct

County hurling finals in October. If Crusheen are in it, the village will be emptied toward Cusack Park in Ennis.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov–Feb

Not much open beyond the pub. The village is small and quieter in winter than its population might suggest.

◐ 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.

Driving through without stopping

Most people treat Crusheen as a motorway-adjacent blur on the Ennis-to-Galway run. That's their loss. The pub has two open fires.

Coming for scenery

This is flat east Clare agricultural land. The drama is in the stories and the GAA, not the landscape. Go to the Burren or the Cliffs for that.

Getting there.

By car

Ennis to Crusheen is 15 minutes on the N18/M18. Gort in Galway is 20 minutes north. The village sits just off the motorway — exit clearly signed.

By bus

Bus Éireann route 51 (Galway–Ennis–Limerick) stops in Crusheen, roughly hourly. The bus takes about 20 minutes from Ennis.

By train

No active station. Nearest stations are Ennis (15 min by car) and Gort in Galway (20 min). There is a decommissioned station platform in the village and a long-running campaign to reopen it.

By air

Shannon Airport (SNN) is about 40 minutes by car via the M18. Ireland West (Knock) is 1h 20m north.