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BALLYDESMOND

CO. CORK · IE

Ballydesmond
Baile Deasmhumhan, Co. Cork

The North Cork / Sliabh Luachra
STOP 07 / 07

Baile Deasmhumhan · Co. Cork

A planned village the Crown built in the 1830s, renamed after independence, sitting almost in Kerry where the Blackwater starts.

Ballydesmond is what you get when you drive north and west out of the Cork lowlands into the Derrynasaggart and Mullaghareirk uplands and keep going until the road runs out of county. The next parish west is Castleisland in Kerry, just over the hill. This is high, open, rushy country - Sliabh Luachra, the rushy mountain - and the Munster Blackwater, the river that drains half of Munster before it reaches the sea at Youghal, starts its whole life just above the village.

The name is the first thing to understand. The village did not grow up by itself; it was planned. Around 1832 the Crown laid out a model village here on its estate of Pobble O'Leary, with new roads and a bridge, as a resting place for travellers between Cork and Kerry, and called it Kingwilliamstown after William IV. The townland under it was Tooreenkeogh. After independence the king's name became awkward, and in 1951 the place was formally renamed Ballydesmond, Baile Deasmhumhan, said to recall the Earl of Desmond who is supposed to have sheltered in these hills.

It is small. The 2022 census counted 216 people. There is a pub, a community centre, a church, a national school, and a GAA field with a river walk beside it. That is most of it. What the village does have, beyond its size, is good company in two things: traditional music, because this is Sliabh Luachra and the polkas and slides are local as the rain, and a long memory, because a place this size remembers everything - the ambush, the Titanic men, the bog, the people who left.

Population

216 (2022 census)

Founded

Planned village laid out as Kingwilliamstown c. 1832-1833; renamed Ballydesmond in 1951

Coords

52.1831° N, 9.2311° W

01 / 07

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 name

Built as Kingwilliamstown, renamed Ballydesmond in 1951.

Laid out around 1832 on the Crown estate of Pobble O'Leary and named for King William IV. The older townland name was Tooreenkeogh. The Free State and then the Republic took the king's name off the signs and put up Baile Deasmhumhan instead. The renaming was made official in 1951.

Stories & lore → 02 The border

On the Cork-Kerry line where the Blackwater rises.

At the junction of the R577 and R578, about 17 km west of Newmarket and 20 km east of Castleisland. The Munster Blackwater rises just above the village near Menganine. This is Sliabh Luachra: polka and slide country, shared with the Kerry parishes over the hill.

Walks & outings → 03 The ambush

Tureengarriffe, January 1921 - a War of Independence flashpoint.

Two miles west on the Castleisland road, Sean Moylan's North Cork flying column ambushed an RIC convoy on 28 January 1921. A divisional commissioner, General Philip Armstrong Holmes, was mortally wounded. It is one of the better-known engagements of the war in this border country.

Stories & lore →

02 / 07

The pubs.

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

The Sliabh Luachra Bar (John D's)

The pub, and effectively the only one

Village pub

The pub in Ballydesmond. In a village of around 216 people there is one bar that matters, and this is it. As the name says, you are in Sliabh Luachra music country here, so if there is going to be a tune anywhere it will be in a place like this. Don't arrive expecting a programmed session; arrive expecting a quiet rural local where the music, when it happens, happens because the people in the room play.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

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

A Crown model village, c. 1832

Kingwilliamstown, the planned village

Most Irish villages accreted. Ballydesmond was designed. Around 1832 the Crown estate of Pobble O'Leary laid the place out deliberately - straight roads, a bridge over the young Blackwater, a planned street - as an improving model village and a staging point for traffic between Cork city and Kerry. They named it Kingwilliamstown for William IV. The scheme sat on the townland of Tooreenkeogh. The English name lasted through the Famine, through the War of Independence, and into the new state, until it was formally changed to Ballydesmond in 1951. You can still find Kingwilliamstown in old records, on the cemetery, and in the memory of the oldest people in the parish.

28 January 1921

The Tureengarriffe Ambush

Two miles west of the village, on the road to Castleisland at a spot called Tureengarriffe, Sean Moylan's flying column of the Cork No. 2 (North) Brigade lay in wait on 28 January 1921. Moylan had pieced together intelligence that a senior officer would pass that way. When the Crossley tenders ran into the position the volley was concentrated and the reply was almost nothing. General Philip Armstrong Holmes, the RIC Divisional Commissioner for Cork and Kerry, was badly wounded and died the next day; the column took the captured weapons away. Moylan was caught in May 1921 and charged over the commissioner's death, and was probably saved from execution by the testimony of two of the constables who had survived his own ambush.

Three survivors from one small parish

Daniel Buckley and the Titanic

Daniel Buckley, a young man whose family had moved to Kingwilliamstown where his father was the baker, was a third-class passenger on the Titanic in April 1912 and one of the survivors - he lived, the story goes, because a woman in a lifeboat threw a shawl over him to hide him as officers ordered men out. He went to New York, joined the US Army in the First World War, and was killed by a sniper on the Meuse-Argonne front in 1918. His remains were brought home and he lies in the old Kingwilliamstown cemetery. Two other survivors of the disaster, Hannah Riordan and Bridget Delia Bradley, also came from this parish. That is three Titanic survivors from one tiny village on the Cork-Kerry border.

A local woman who changed Irish finance

Nora Herlihy and the credit union

Nora Herlihy, born in Ballydesmond, became a teacher in Dublin and in the late 1950s was one of the founders of the Irish credit union movement - a co-operative answer to the moneylending and hardship she had seen growing up. The Irish League of Credit Unions traces back to that work. It is a long reach for a village of a couple of hundred people: a financial institution used the length and breadth of the country, started in part by a woman from this corner of north Cork.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

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

GAA field river walk The simplest one. A walk laid out beside the GAA field along the young Blackwater. Flat, family-friendly, the version of a stroll you can do in ordinary shoes. The river here is only just born and still small.

Short loopdistance

20-30 minutestime

Duhallow Way (local stages) The long-distance Duhallow Way passes through this upland country, running through forestry and over rough hill. You can pick up a stage from the village and walk a section. These are real uplands, not a manicured trail - boots, a map, and respect for the weather.

Various, several kmdistance

2-4 hourstime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Lambs on the slopes and the hill country greening up fast. The ground is still wet underfoot. Boots matter.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The long evenings are the best of it. The roads are at their easiest and the chance of a tune in the bar is highest.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The light on these uplands in autumn is the reason to come. Storms roll in off the Atlantic and sit on the hills.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days, real weather, and the higher roads can be grim. The village keeps going but it gets very quiet.

◐ Mind yourself

06 / 07

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

Coming for a town

This is a planned hamlet of a couple of hundred people, not a destination town. There is a pub, a church, a shop, a school and a GAA field. If you need shops, restaurants and a hotel, Newmarket (17 km east) or Castleisland (20 km west) are where you go.

Expecting a tourist trad session

Sliabh Luachra is genuine music country, but Ballydesmond is not Doolin. There is no nightly billed session for visitors. The music here is occasional, local and unannounced. Treat any tune you catch as luck, not as a fixture.

Hunting for the old name on the map

The road signs say Ballydesmond and have done officially since 1951. Kingwilliamstown survives in old records and on the cemetery, not on the modern signage. Don't expect the British-era name to guide you in.

Getting there.

By car

Ballydesmond sits at the junction of the R577 and R578 on the Cork-Kerry border. From Cork city head north towards Mallow and Newmarket, then west - it is roughly 17 km west of Newmarket. From the Kerry side it is about 20 km east of Castleisland. The roads narrow as you climb into the hills.

By bus

Public transport is minimal in this upland country. Local Link covers parts of the Duhallow and east Kerry area on limited rural schedules; check current timetables. For anything frequent you are looking at Newmarket or Castleisland.

By train

There is no railway near the village. Mallow, well to the east on the main Cork-Dublin line, is the nearest station, and that leaves a long drive over to the border.