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LISGOOLD

CO. CORK · IE

Lisgoold
Lios Cúil, Co. Cork

The East Cork
STOP 08 / 08

Lios Cúil · Co. Cork

A working farming village between Midleton and Fermoy, with one good family pub, a hurling club, and more famous sons and daughters than its size lets on.

Lisgoold sits in the rolling farmland of East Cork, on the old road from Midleton up to Fermoy, about six and three-quarter miles south-south-east of Rathcormac. The name is Lios Cúil - the ring-fort of the corner or nook - and that is roughly what it still is: an enclosure of good land in a quiet corner, in the barony of Barrymore and the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne. Midleton is the town you go to for anything practical, ten kilometres or so to the south.

This is not a destination village and it does not pretend to be. There is a church, a hurling pitch that the parish lives around, one pub, and minor roads in all directions. What it has instead of attractions is people. For a place this small it has put a startling number of names into the wider world - a T.S. Eliot-shortlisted poet, a viral country-music family, and one of the best jump jockeys in Ireland all came out of these few townlands.

Come for a pint and a sense of a real working East Cork parish, not for a tour. If the hurlers are out, the village fills; the rest of the time it is fields and the church on the hill and the regulars at the bar. That honesty is the whole point of the place.

Population

Small rural village (parish of roughly 900 in the 1830s; a few hundred in the village today)

Pubs

1and counting

Founded

Ring-fort placename; parish in the barony of Barrymore, Diocese of Cloyne

Coords

51.9734° N, 8.2167° W

01 / 08

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 pub

J. Woods - one pub, run by the same family since the 1890s.

The Woods family came from Kerry by donkey and cart and set up around 1896. Bar, lounge, snug, pool table and a beer garden out the back. When the hurlers win, they barbecue for them. The single social heart of the village.

Pubs → 02 The parish

A hurling village with a club founded in 1887.

Lisgoold GAA fields Premier Intermediate hurlers and Junior A footballers, plus ladies football, off a pitch and gym in the village. The club is older than most of the buildings around it and is what the parish organises its weekends around.

Stories & lore → 03 The people

A poet, a viral country band, and a champion jockey.

Maurice Riordan the poet, the country-and-Irish family Crystal Swing, and six-time Irish champion jump jockey Paul Townend all trace back to Lisgoold. Not bad for a village you can drive through in twenty seconds.

Stories & lore →

02 / 08

The pubs.

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

J. Woods

The one pub, and the heart of the place

Family pub, main village street

On the left as you come in from Midleton, a two-storey premises with an off-white front and a sandstone porch. The Woods family have been here since around 1896, when Michael Woods's great-grandfather arrived from Kerry by donkey and cart. His grandfather Tom expanded it with a shop, post office and a threshing business; his father John took the licence in the mid-1960s and gave it the name it still carries. Inside there is a bar, a lounge, a snug, a pool table and a beer garden added in the last decade. Older locals and GAA members make up the crowd, and when the hurling team are out the place fills - they do barbecues for them after matches. This is the only pub in the village, and it has earned its place.

03 / 08

Stories & lore.

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

Diocese of Cloyne, a famine-era graveyard

St John the Baptist's on the hill

The parish church is St John the Baptist's, on Church Hill Road, in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cloyne. The old cemetery at the church holds graves going back to the famine years of the 1840s, which is about as plain a record of a rural parish as you will find anywhere - the same families, the same land, the bad years written into the headstones. Lisgoold has been a recorded parish in the barony of Barrymore for at least two centuries; the 1837 topographical survey put it on the Midleton-to-Fermoy road with a parish population near nine hundred.

The parish keeps time by the hurling

Lisgoold GAA, since 1887

Lisgoold GAA Club was founded in 1887, four years after the Association itself, and it is the institution the village runs on. The club fields Premier Intermediate hurlers and Junior A footballers along with ladies football, off a pitch and gymnasium in the village. There is a genuine rivalry with the neighbouring East Cork clubs, and a match day is the one time a quiet village turns loud. If you want to understand the place, come on a championship Sunday.

A poet, a viral band, a champion jockey

More famous than its size

For a village of a few hundred, Lisgoold has reach. Maurice Riordan, born here in 1953, became a poet and editor whose collection A Word from the Loki was a Poetry Book Society Choice and shortlist for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Crystal Swing - the country-and-Irish family act of Mary Murray-Burke and her children Dervla and Derek - are from Lisgoold, and went viral worldwide in 2010 with He Drinks Tequila. And Paul Townend, who went to primary school in the village, has been crowned Irish champion jump jockey six times riding for Willie Mullins. Three very different roads out of one small parish.

04 / 08

Things to do outside.

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

Village and church loop There is no waymarked trail here - this is farmland, not a heritage park. But a quiet stroll up to St John the Baptist's on Church Hill Road and back through the village, taking in the old famine-era graveyard, is a genuine half-hour in a real working parish. Quiet lanes, hedgerows, and traffic light enough to walk on. Boots after rain.

2 kmdistance

30-40 minutestime

05 / 08

Tours, if you want one.

The ones below are bookable through our partners - pick one that suits, or skip the lot and just turn up.

via Viator

Cork: Private Whiskey Tour to Jameson Midleton Distillery

day trips

Private full-day trip from Dublin to Midleton Distillery with your own Irish driver-guide. Photo stop at Rock of Cashel, free time in Cobh. From €449.

12 hours From €449

See tour → via Viator

Dublin To Jameson Irish Whiskey Midleton County Cork Day Trip

cultural

A private chauffeur day trip from Dublin to the Jameson Distillery in Midleton, County Cork, for a premium whiskey tour, cask tasting and a visit to the world's largest pot still.

8-9 hours From €950

See tour → via Viator

Dublin to Midleton County Cork Private Car Transfer

day trips

Door-to-door transfer from Dublin to Midleton, Cork in a Mercedes E220. Up to 3 passengers, all tolls and parking included, meet and greet, free Wi-Fi.

From €730

See tour →

We earn a small commission when you book through our tour pages. It costs you nothing extra and keeps the village hubs free. All Co. Cork tours →

06 / 08

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The East Cork farmland greens up and the lanes are at their best. Quiet and easy to drive.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings, the beer garden at Woods in use, and the GAA season in full swing. The liveliest time in an otherwise quiet village.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Hurling championship time, which is when Lisgoold is most itself. A match Sunday and a pint after is the right way to see it.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days and not much open beyond the pub. Fine if you are passing and want a quiet fire, less so as a trip in its own right.

◐ Mind yourself

07 / 08

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

Expecting attractions

Lisgoold has one pub, a church, a GAA pitch and good land. There is no castle to tour, no visitor centre, no main-street of shops. If you arrive looking for things to do you will be disappointed in five minutes. Arrive looking for a real East Cork farming village and it delivers exactly that.

Using it as a base

There is no hotel or B&B in the village to speak of. Base yourself in Midleton ten kilometres south, which has the Jameson distillery, hotels, restaurants and the train to Cork, and treat Lisgoold as a short detour for the pub or a match.

Getting there.

By car

Off the R628 on the old Midleton-to-Fermoy road. Midleton is about 10 km south, Fermoy roughly 20 km north, Rathcormac to the north-west. Signposted from the main road. Cork city is about 35 minutes by car.

By bus

No frequent public route serves the village directly. Local Link covers parts of rural East Cork; check current timetables. Midleton is the nearest bus hub.

By train

No station in the village. The nearest railway is Midleton, on the Cork suburban line with frequent services to Kent Station in Cork city; drive or taxi the last 10 km.

By air

Cork Airport (ORK) is roughly 45 minutes by car, the obvious arrival point for international visitors.