Ballyroney, Baile Uí Ruanaidh, Co. Down

Baile Uí Ruanaidh · Co. Down

A crossroads on the upper Bann that fathered Kate McKay and trained Patrick Bronte.

Ballyroney is a small village on the upper River Bann, between Rathfriland and Dromara, on the B7. The crossroads, the chapel, a few houses, the lake out the road - that is the village. The wider parish of Drumballyroney stretches further, taking in the back lanes that drop south toward Rathfriland and the Mourne foothills. Population for the village and the immediate townlands sits around three hundred. It is a place you arrive at by accident on the way somewhere else, and a place you remember the name of afterwards.

The reason you remember the name is the Brontes. Drumballyroney parish - Ballyroney is the village core of it - is where Patrick Bronte preached his first sermon in 1806, in the church on Church Hill Road, after he came home from St John's College, Cambridge. Before Cambridge he had taught at the parish school next door as a young man. The church and the schoolhouse are restored, and the schoolhouse is now the Bronte Homeland Interpretative Centre. The signed Bronte Homeland Drive starts at the church door and loops out through Emdale, where Patrick was born, and Glascar Hill, where he had his first teaching post. His three daughters in Yorkshire - Charlotte, Emily, Anne - wrote the books. The County Down half of the story stayed in the parish of Drumballyroney, and a fair share of the visitor traffic ends up at the Ballyroney end of it.

The other story the place gives you, if you ask, is Kate McKay. Kate was born in Ballyroney in 1691. By the middle of the eighteenth century she was running the boarding house where the workmen building the new stone bridge over the Bann a few miles upstream lodged. They named the bridge after her. The hamlet that grew up around it took the bridge's name. Kate's name is now the name of the next village down the road, and her own village is not on the road signs. That is the shape of the thing.

Don't come for a day out. Come for half an hour with a reason. Walk the church and schoolhouse yard at Drumballyroney, look at the motte where the Norman castle was, drive the lanes out to Emdale, and push on to Rathfriland for lunch or Katesbridge for a pint at the Anglers Rest. Ballyroney is the country, not the visitor centre. The visitor centre is the church.

Population

~300 (village and immediate townlands)

Walk score

A crossroads, a chapel, a lake - ten minutes end to end

Founded

12th-century motte-and-bailey; rebuilt 1248

Coords

54.2900° N, 6.1167° 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 Bronte parish

Where Patrick Bronte preached his first sermon.

Ballyroney is the village inside the parish of Drumballyroney. The restored 18th-century church on Church Hill Road, where Patrick Bronte preached his first sermon in 1806 after coming back from Cambridge, sits a short walk from the crossroads. The schoolhouse next door, where he had taught as a teenager, is now the Bronte Homeland Interpretative Centre. The signed Bronte Homeland Drive starts at the church door.

Stories & lore → 02 Kate McKay

Born here in 1691.

Kate McKay - the woman whose name the next village down the road still carries - was born in Ballyroney in 1691. By the 1740s she was running a boarding house up the road that lodged the workmen building a new stone bridge over the Bann. They named the bridge after her. Katesbridge is the result.

Stories & lore → 03 The motte

A 12th-century castle in a field.

Ballyroney Castle was a motte-and-bailey raised in the 1100s and rebuilt in stone by John FitzGeoffrey, Justiciar of Ireland, in 1248. There is no keep left - just the earthwork, the bailey, and the slight rise of ground that explains why a Norman lord put a watch on the upper Bann.

Stories & lore →

02 / 06

Stories & lore.

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

His first sermon, 1806, on Church Hill Road

Patrick Bronte at Drumballyroney

Patrick Brunty - anglicised at Cambridge to Bronte - was born on 17 March 1777 in a two-roomed cottage at Emdale, in the parish of Drumballyroney, a couple of miles south-west of Ballyroney village. He taught at Glascar Hill Presbyterian school as a teenager and at the Drumballyroney parish school beside the church on Church Hill Road. The rector, the Rev. Thomas Tighe - evangelical, Cambridge-educated, a fellow of Peterhouse - took him up, and Patrick sailed for St John's College, Cambridge, in 1802. He came home in 1806 newly ordained, and preached his first sermon in Drumballyroney Church on Church Hill Road. He left for Yorkshire shortly after and never came home. His three daughters wrote Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The church and the schoolhouse, restored, are now the Bronte Homeland Interpretative Centre.

Born in Ballyroney in 1691, gave her name to the next village

Kate McKay

Kate McKay was born in Ballyroney in 1691. By the mid-eighteenth century she was living a few miles up the Bann, running the boarding house where the workmen building a new stone bridge over the river lodged during the construction. The workmen, by tradition, found her so good a landlady that they named the bridge in her honour. The hamlet that grew up around it took the bridge's name and is still called Katesbridge. There is no monument to Kate in Ballyroney. There is no statue and no plaque. There is just a place that her name left, and another that her name made, ten minutes apart on the B7.

A Norman motte rebuilt by the Justiciar of Ireland in 1248

Ballyroney Castle

The earthwork at Ballyroney is what is left of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle raised in the 12th century - one of the chain of mottes the Anglo-Normans threw up across south Down after the invasion to hold the country between the Bann and the Mournes. In 1248 it was rebuilt in stone by John FitzGeoffrey, Justiciar of Ireland under Henry III and a substantial Anglo-Norman lord with lands in Ireland, Wales and England. The stone castle did not last. There is no keep, no curtain wall, no readable masonry. There is a motte, a bailey, and the slight rise of ground that explains why a Norman lord wanted a watch here on the upper Bann. The site is on private farmland; read it from the road.

Banbridge to Ballyroney, 1880; extended to Castlewellan, 1906

The branch line

The Great Northern Railway opened the Banbridge-Ballyroney branch on 14 December 1880, with Ballyroney as the terminus. The station - a substantial stone building that survives as a private house - was the end of the line for twenty-six years. In 1906 the GNR pushed the line on to Castlewellan, where it met the Belfast and County Down Railway's branch from Newcastle. For half a century after, Ballyroney was a through station on the line between Banbridge and the sea at Newcastle. The whole branch closed on 2 May 1955 in one of the era's mass closures. The Newcastle-Castlewellan end is now a greenway. The Ballyroney section is half-grown-over hedge and embankment in the fields, readable if you know where to look. The station building is still there.

03 / 06

Things to do outside.

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

The Bronte Homeland Drive Starts at Drumballyroney Church and Schoolhouse on Church Hill Road, a short walk from the Ballyroney crossroads. Loops out to the Emdale birthplace cottage ruin, the Glascar Presbyterian school where Patrick Bronte first taught, and the family graves. Park at the church; walk the church and schoolhouse yard; drive the rest. The country roads are quiet and the signs are easy to miss - get the leaflet from the centre or check Discover Northern Ireland before you set off.

16 km looped driving traildistance

2-3 hours with stopstime

Ballyroney Lake and Bog Walk The published WalkNI loop out from the village around Ballyroney Lake and across Lackan Bog. The lake holds a small island and a wintering waterfowl population - whooper swan, teal, tufted duck, coot - and the bog is one of the strongest dragonfly sites in Ireland. Quiet underfoot, occasionally wet, and the kind of walk that explains why the country here was settled in the first place.

9.5 km looped traildistance

2 hrs 40 mintime

Ballyroney Lackan Bog Walk The shorter of the two published WalkNI routes, crossing Lackan Bog via the Green Road - an old bog rampart and a long-asserted public footpath running about a mile across the bog from Lackan Road to Dickson's Hill. The views over the bog habitat are the point. Pick the day; pick the boots.

6.4 km loopdistance

1 hr 50 mintime

Around the motte The Ballyroney Castle earthwork - motte, bailey, no masonry - sits on private farmland a short distance from the crossroads. There is no formal access. The site reads best from the road verges around it. Park considerately; look; do not climb.

~1 kmdistance

20 mintime

04 / 06

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

St Patrick's Day weekend is the date if you want to pair Ballyroney with the Bronte birthday - Patrick was born 17 March 1777, and the interpretative centre at Drumballyroney church tends to mark it. Drumlin hedgerows greening up; bog walks at their best.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings, the lake and bog walks open out, and the dragonflies on Lackan Bog are at peak. The Bronte centre is on full seasonal hours.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Drumlin country turns colour, the back lanes are quiet, the wintering waterfowl start arriving on the lake. Interpretative-centre hours start to thin out for winter; check before you drive out.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days, very little open in the village itself, and the Bronte centre is on reduced winter hours or by arrangement only. The lake and bog walk in flat winter light is its own thing if you are dressed for it.

◐ 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.

Coming looking for a Bronte museum in Ballyroney village

There isn't a separate one. The interpretative centre is the restored schoolhouse beside Drumballyroney Church on Church Hill Road, a short walk from the crossroads, and it runs on seasonal hours. The birthplace cottage at Emdale is a roadside ruin you view from the gate. The story is the country; the centre is the church.

Treating Ballyroney as a destination day

The village is a crossroads, a chapel, a few houses, a lake out the road. Half an hour gives you the visible village. Pair it with the Bronte drive, Rathfriland for the Diamond, Katesbridge for a pint at the Anglers Rest, or Banbridge for shops and lunch.

Looking for a working pub in the village

Ballyroney is not a pub village in this generation. The nearest reliable pint is the Anglers Rest at Katesbridge, ten minutes north, or up into Rathfriland or down to Banbridge. Drive the short distance either way.

Trying to climb the motte

Ballyroney Castle is an earthwork on private farmland with no formal access. Read it from the road verges. Climbing the motte is trespass, and the site is a scheduled monument - leave it alone.

Driving the Bronte lanes in something big

The signed loop runs on single-track country roads with passing places and tractor traffic. A small car is the right car. A people-carrier reversing into a hedge is the wrong one.

Getting there.

By car

Banbridge to Ballyroney is about 15 minutes south-east on the B7 - roughly 11 km. Rathfriland is about 10 minutes south on the same road. Castlewellan is about 20 minutes east. Belfast is about 50 minutes via the A1 to Banbridge, then the B7. Dublin is about 1 hour 40 by motorway to Newry, then 25 minutes on the back roads.

By bus

Translink Ulsterbus 38 (Banbridge-Castlewellan) passes through Ballyroney on weekdays, with thinner services at weekends. Check Translink for the current timetable; rural services of this kind move around.

By train

No train. Ballyroney lost its station on 2 May 1955 with the rest of the Banbridge-Castlewellan branch. The nearest active station is Portadown (about 30 minutes by road) on the Belfast-Dublin Enterprise line.

By air

Belfast International (BFS) is about 1 hour. George Best Belfast City (BHD) is about 55 minutes. Dublin (DUB) is about 1 hour 45.

Next on the tour

Co. Down

Rathfriland

Ten minutes south on the B7. Hilltop market town with the Diamond at the summit, the view of the Mournes, and the Bronte Homeland Interpretative Centre at Drumballyroney out the road.

Co. Down

Katesbridge

Ten minutes north on the B7. The next village up the Bann, named for Kate McKay who was born in Ballyroney in 1691. The Anglers Rest is the pint Ballyroney does not have.

Co. Down

Banbridge

Fifteen minutes north-west. Market town with the Cut through Newry Street, the F. E. McWilliam Gallery, and the obvious lunch stop for a Bronte morning.

Co. Down

Ballyward

Five kilometres north-west, a Drumgooland crossroads set between Castlewellan and the upper Bann.

Co. Down

Dromara

North-west under Slieve Croob, a mill village where the Lagan rises as a hillside spring.