A Georgian tower in the middle of a farming village
Ballinadee Church, 1759
The Church of Ireland church has stood on this spot since 1759, though it has a complicated building history and was largely rebuilt around 1839 to 1840. What you see is a three-bay nave with a north transept, a three-stage western bell tower topped by a crenellated parapet, rubble-stone walls with tooled limestone dressings, and pointed windows with stained glass. The graveyard wraps around it and the former glebe house sits to the south-west, so the three together read as one Church of Ireland group. The buildings record lists it as of regional importance. It is freely set in the centre of the village and it is, plainly, the reason to stop in Ballinadee at all.
A McCarthy tower and a field of coins
Kilgoban castle and the 1824 hoard
On the lands of Kilgoban, by the river, stands the ruined tower of an old castle that belonged to the McCarthys. The detail that has followed it down the years comes from the antiquarian accounts: in 1824, beneath the castle by the riverside, a great quantity of gold and silver coins along with numerous gold rings was dug up. Treat it as folklore-shaded local history rather than a managed heritage site - there is no visitor setup, no car park, no plaque. The ruin and the story are simply part of the ground here.
Two War of Independence names from the parish
Courceys, Deasy and Hales
Ballinadee sits in the parish of Courceys, and the parish gave the revolutionary period two figures of note. Liam Deasy (1896 to 1974) was a senior IRA officer in the War of Independence and the Civil War, later a writer about both. Tom Hales (1892 to 1966) was an IRA volunteer and afterwards a politician. The local GAA club, Courcey Rovers, and the soccer club, De Courcey Albion, carry the same Norman family name - the de Courcys, who held this stretch of coast after the conquest. The history here is quieter than the famous West Cork ambushes, but it runs through the same fields.