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RYLANE

CO. CORK · IE

Rylane
Ráth Léin, Co. Cork

The Lee Valley
STOP 07 / 07

Ráth Léin · Co. Cork

A small hill village on the old Butter Road north of Macroom, and the place that gave Ireland the ballad of Thady Quill.

Rylane is a small village in the hills of East Muskerry, in the parish of Aghabullogue, sitting roughly midway between Millstreet and Cork city and north of Macroom. It is upland farming country - green fields, stone walls, the road climbing to nearly two hundred metres - and it is honest about what it is. A church, a pub, a post office, a school, a couple of pitches, and a parish that has been here a great deal longer than any of those.

The thing worth knowing first is that Rylane gave the world a song. Johnny Tom Gleeson, a local farmer born in 1853, wrote The Bould Thady Quill around 1895 about a real neighbour, and the ballad has been sung in pubs from here to Boston ever since. The other thing is the road. Rylane sits on the old Butter Road, the mid-18th-century turnpike that carried Kerry butter over the hills to the Cork Butter Exchange. The Kerryman's Table, a flat rock where the carters rested their horses, is a few miles up the road toward Millstreet.

There is no reason to make a special journey here unless one of those things pulls you, or unless you like quiet upland roads and the company of standing stones. The parish has its prehistory - a wedge tomb, a stone circle, a levelled ringfort, an ogham stone - and St Olan, the parish patron and reputed teacher of St Finbarr of Cork, has a holy well and pattern day on 5 September over in Aghabullogue townland. As a base it makes more sense than a destination: Macroom, Blarney and the Lee valley are all within a short drive.

Population

Small village in the parish of Aghabullogue

Pubs

1and counting

Walk score

Half the parish is a hill walk between standing stones

Founded

Townland on the old Cork-Kerry Butter Road; turnpike opened 1748

Coords

51.9839° N, 8.8408° 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 ballad

Birthplace of Johnny Tom Gleeson, who wrote The Bould Thady Quill.

Gleeson (1853-1924) was a Rylane farmer who fancied himself a balladeer and lampooned half the parish. He immortalised a real local labourer, Timothy Quill, as a beer-swilling, lady-loving sportsman - which by all accounts the man was not. The song outlived everyone in it. Gleeson is buried in Aghabullogue.

Stories & lore → 02 The road

On the Butter Road, the 18th-century turnpike from Kerry to the Cork Butter Exchange.

Opened in 1748, the road ran roughly seventy miles from Castleisland to the butter market in Cork city. Farmers brought firkins by donkey and cart, in all weathers, over the hills. Rylane sits on the line of it, halfway between Millstreet and Cork.

Stories & lore → 03 The hills

Wedge tomb, stone circle, ringfort and an ogham stone, all within the parish.

The townland runs to 543 hectares of East Muskerry upland. A Bronze Age wedge tomb near Knockagoun, a small stone circle at Oughtiherra, and the ogham stone pulled from a Rylane pig-sty in the 1830s and now in UCC. This was settled country a long time before the road.

Walks & outings →

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 village pub

One pub, parish trade

Local bar, Rylane Cross

Rylane has a pub at the cross, a post office and a shop - the standard spine of a small Cork parish village. This is a local first and last, not a destination bar; it serves the farms and the football and the funeral crowd. A pint and the talk of the parish, and on the right night somebody will give you a verse of Thady Quill whether you asked for it or not.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

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

Johnny Tom Gleeson, 1853-1924

The bould Thady Quill

Johnny Tom Gleeson was a Rylane farmer with a turn for verse and a habit of putting his neighbours into ballads. Around 1895 he wrote The Bould Thady Quill - first set down on paper about 1905 - about Timothy Quill, a poor labourer and occasional cattle-jobber who owned neither land nor house and did odd jobs around the parish. The song paints Thady as a great sportsman, a hurler, a ladies' man and a drinker. By the accounts that survive he was a teetotal bachelor who slept in barns and had no luck with women at all. He seems to have been delighted by it anyway. The Clancy Brothers and most of the ballad-singers since have carried it well beyond Cork. Gleeson is buried in Aghabullogue graveyard.

Turnpike, opened 1 May 1748

The Butter Road

Rylane is strung along the old Butter Road, one of the turnpikes built in the mid-18th century to bring butter down out of the Kerry and west Cork hills to the Cork Butter Exchange, where it was graded and auctioned for export. The main line ran about seventy miles from Castleisland to the city. The carts were donkey-drawn and the journey was long and wet, and the road in the early days was little more than a boreen. The Kerryman's Table, a large flat rock about four miles from Millstreet on the Rylane road, is the spot where the carters traditionally stopped to rest and feed the horses - reckoned to be the exact halfway point between Cork and Killarney.

Eolang, patron of the parish

St Olan and the ogham stone

St Olan - Eolang in the old records, said to have been a teacher of St Finbarr of Cork - is the patron of Aghabullogue parish, which takes in Rylane. His holy well stands in Aghabullogue townland and his pattern day is 5 September, when rounds are still paid at the well and two further stations, St Olan's Stone and St Olan's Cap, at Coolineagh nearby. Rylane's own contribution to the early-Christian record is an ogham-inscribed stone taken from the north of the parish, at Glounaglogh, in the 1830s, where it had been doing duty as a lintel in a pig-sty. It now stands in the Stone Corridor at University College Cork.

Bronze Age East Muskerry

Stones older than the saints

Long before the road or the church, this was settled upland. A Bronze Age wedge tomb near Knockagoun, dated very roughly to 3000-1500 BC, keeps a short gallery under its roof slabs. There is a small stone circle at Oughtiherra, only a couple of metres across, with standing stones scattered in the fields around it. A ringfort recorded on the Ordnance Survey maps of 1842 and 1904, with two ramparts and a wide entrance, survived until it was levelled in the late 1970s. The monuments are working farmland now - ask before you cross a gate.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

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

The Butter Road to the Kerryman's Table Follow the old road northwest toward Millstreet to find the Kerryman's Table, the flat resting-rock the butter carters used, reckoned to be midway between Cork and Killarney. More a stop than a hike - park sensibly on a quiet hill road and walk the last stretch. The views over the Muskerry hills are the point.

Short drive plus a strolldistance

30-45 minutestime

Parish prehistory wander The wedge tomb near Knockagoun, the stone circle at Oughtiherra and the standing stones in the surrounding fields make a loose circuit of the high parish. None are signposted attractions and most sit on private farmland, so this is for the curious with an OS map and good manners, not a waymarked trail. Boots, and ask at the nearest farmhouse before crossing land.

Variable, by roaddistance

A half daytime

St Olan's Well at Aghabullogue Six or seven kilometres east in Aghabullogue townland, St Olan's holy well and its great lichened ogham-marked standing stone are the parish's main pilgrimage site, busiest around the pattern day on 5 September. Quiet and worth the short hop from Rylane if the old wells interest you.

Short, in the next villagedistance

30 minutestime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The hill country greens up and the lanes dry out. Good light over the Muskerry uplands and quiet roads for the prehistory wander.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings and the easiest driving. The parish runs community events through the summer, and the pub is at its liveliest. The best window for the standing stones and the Butter Road.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

St Olan's pattern day falls on 5 September, the one fixed date in the calendar worth timing for. October light on the hills is good, the roads still passable.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Upland Cork in winter - short days, wet, and the high lanes can be bleak. The pub and the church keep going but there is little to draw a visitor up the hill in the rain.

◐ 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.

Expecting a "village" in the picturesque sense

Rylane is a working parish village - a cross, a pub, a shop, a post office, a church and pitches - not a tidy-towns set-piece. Come for the song, the road and the stones, not for a streetscape.

A named heritage centre or visitor trail

There is no ticketed attraction here. The prehistory is on private farmland and the Butter Road is just a road. The local ACR Heritage group (Aghabullogue, Coachford and Rylane) is the best source if you want to dig deeper before you come.

Searching for St Olan's Well in Rylane itself

The well, the stations and the pattern day are in Aghabullogue townland and at Coolineagh, the neighbouring parts of the parish, not in Rylane village. Rylane's own relic, the ogham stone, long since moved to UCC in the city.

Getting there.

By car

On minor hill roads north of the N22 Cork-Macroom road, in East Muskerry. About 40 km west of Cork city, and roughly midway between Millstreet and the city on the old Butter Road line. A car is effectively essential.

By bus

Sparse. A single weekday Bus Éireann service runs to Cork for the morning and evening commute, with a twice-weekly service to Macroom. Not a practical way to visit on a day trip.

By train

Nearest station is Millstreet, about 20 km away on the Mallow-Tralee line. You would still need a car or taxi from there.