Ballymacward, Baile Mhic an Bháird, Co. Galway

Baile Mhic an Bháird · Co. Galway

A village whose name carries a clan of bards, set in deep east Galway farmland with a ruined friary down the road.

Ballymacward sits in the rolling farmland of east Galway, on the R359 in the barony of Tyaquin, about 24 kilometres west of Ballinasloe and the same distance again short of Galway city. The Irish is Baile Mhic an Bháird - the homestead of the Mac an Bháird, the sons of the bard. The name is the most interesting thing the village carries and the least visible: there is no monument to it, no heritage centre, no sign explaining who the Wards were. The history is in the language and the language has simply gone on being used.

Get the history straight, because it is easy to get wrong. The Mac an Bháird here were not the celebrated bardic family of Ulster. They were a clan of the Soghain, an old population group of the kingdom of Uí Maine, and their seat was at Muine Casáin in this parish. So the poets the name remembers were local Connacht poets, not imported ones. That is a better story, and a truer one.

What is actually here today: St Peter and Paul's Church, a primary school, the Pádraig Pearses GAA grounds shared with neighbouring Gurteen, scattered farms, and the road running through. The nearest pub is Mitchell's in Gurteen, the next townland over. This is a parish more than a village in the postcard sense - a half-dozen settlements stitched together by a church bell and a football team.

You come here for the friary at Cloonkeenkerrill and for the shape of a real working parish that asks nothing of visitors. If you want services, Ballinasloe or Athenry are the towns. If you want the quiet version of inland Galway - the Galway the Wild Atlantic Way drives straight past - this is it.

Population

~300 (parish)

Founded

Medieval Soghain territory; parish church 1851

Coords

53.383° N, 8.483° 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

Baile Mhic an Bháird - the homestead of the sons of the bard.

The Mac an Bháird (anglicised Ward) here were not the famous Ulster poets but a clan of the Soghain of Uí Maine, based at Muine Casáin in this parish. The poet connection is local and old, carried in the name and almost nowhere else.

Stories & lore → 02 The friary

Cloonkeenkerrill - a Third Order Franciscan friary in ruins since the 1600s.

Erected around 1435 by Thomas O'Kelly, Bishop of Clonfert, confirmed by Pope Eugene IV in 1441. A bishop's effigy and a Burke tomb survive inside the roofless walls. The real reason to stop.

Stories & lore → 03 The land

Working farm country on the R359, miles from any town.

Twenty-four kilometres from Ballinasloe, forty-eight from Galway city, four kilometres north of Woodlawn station. A church, a school, a GAA pitch, a pub in the next townland. No tourist infrastructure at all.

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:

Mitchell's Bar

Local, run by the same family

Village pub, Gurteen

The pub for the parish, in Gurteen the next townland over. Eddie and Helena Mitchell run it; it is the kind of bar that does the lotto draw, the quiz night, the match on the television and the GAA sponsorship. Not a destination - the community's front room. If you want a pint within reach of Ballymacward, this is where you have it.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

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

Mac an Bháird of the Soghain

The sons of the bard

Baile Mhic an Bháird means the homestead of the Mac an Bháird, the sons of the bard. The temptation is to tie this to the famous Mac an Bháird poets of Donegal and Ulster, but the local family were a different one: a clan of the Soghain, an ancient people of the kingdom of Uí Maine in east Galway, with their seat at Muine Casáin within this parish. Bards were professional poets attached to a ruling family, keepers of genealogy and praise-verse, and a place named for them marks where such a family held land. The genealogical thread is long broken. The name is the monument, and it has outlasted everything the Wards ever built here.

Franciscan Third Order, c. 1435

Cloonkeenkerrill friary

Two parishes were joined here - Ballymacward and Clonkeen - and Clonkeen is where the stone is. At Cloonkeenkerrill, near Gurteen, stand the ruins of St Kerrill's Abbey, a Third Order Franciscan friary. Thomas O'Kelly, Bishop of Clonfert, raised the existing parish church into a friary around 1435; Pope Eugene IV confirmed the grant in 1441. The house survived until about 1618. Inside the roofless walls you can still find a carved limestone effigy of a bishop set into the east gable, a Burke family tomb with a cat-of-mountain carved on it, and an ogee-headed window. The site is named for Saint Kerrill, an early monastic figure said to have lived somewhere between the sixth and ninth centuries. It is unsignposted, unmanned, and worth the detour for anyone who likes their medieval Ireland without a turnstile.

Born Gurteen, 1892 - murdered 1920

Father Michael Griffin

Michael Griffin was born in Gurteen, in this parish, in 1892, the son of a farmer who chaired Galway County Council. He was ordained at Maynooth in 1917 and was serving as a curate in Galway city when, on the night of 14 November 1920 during the War of Independence, he was lured from his lodgings and never came back. His body was found a week later in a bog near Barna, shot through the head; Crown forces were widely blamed. More than twelve thousand people followed his coffin. St Michael's Church in Gurteen, built in 1931, is dedicated to his memory, and there is a road named for him in Galway city. He is the parish's best-known son and a fixed point in local memory.

The parish church, 1851

St Peter and Paul's

The foundation stone of St Peter and Paul's at Ballymacward was laid in 1851, replacing an older thatched church on the same site, and the bell tower was added in 1894. It is a solid mid-nineteenth-century rural Connacht church rather than a great architectural set-piece, but it is the building the parish is organised around, and it is the one most people in Ballymacward will name first if you ask what is in the village.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

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

Cloonkeenkerrill friary The friary ruins near Gurteen are the one set-piece. There is no visitor centre and no fixed opening hours - it sits in the landscape and you walk up to it. Look for the bishop's effigy in the east gable and the cat-of-mountain on the Burke tomb. Boots in winter; the approach can be wet. Treat it gently, it is a working graveyard as well as a monument.

Short field walkdistance

30-45 minutestime

Parish roads loop There are no waymarked trails here. What you get instead is quiet country lanes between Ballymacward and Gurteen - hedgerows, cattle, the occasional tractor, big skies over flat-to-rolling farmland. Good for a clear-headed hour. Wear something visible; the lanes are narrow and have no footpaths.

4-6 kmdistance

1 hourtime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Hedges greening, lanes dry enough for the friary walk, light long enough to make the drive out worth it.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The best of it. Long evenings, GAA in full swing at the Pádraig Pearses grounds, the friary at its most photogenic in low evening light.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Quiet and golden over the farmland. Harvest traffic on the narrow roads, so drive accordingly.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days and wet ground. The friary approach gets muddy and there is nothing indoors here to retreat into. Save it for a brighter month unless you only want the pub.

◐ 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.

Looking for a village centre

There is no tidy main street with shops and cafes. Ballymacward is a parish of scattered townlands - church, school, GAA pitch, and the pub a field away in Gurteen. Come expecting that and it delivers; come expecting a town and you will wonder why you turned off the road.

The Ulster bardic family connection

The name does mean sons of the bard, but the Mac an Bháird remembered here were a local Soghain clan of Uí Maine, not the famous Donegal poets. Plenty of sources blur the two. The local story is the right one and the better one.

Expecting the friary to be signposted

Cloonkeenkerrill is an unmanned ruin in a graveyard, not a managed heritage site. No car park, no panels, no guide. That is the appeal, but bring a map and reasonable footwear and do not expect to be met.

Getting there.

By car

Ballymacward is on the R359. From Ballinasloe it is about 24 km west; from Galway city about 48 km east via the M6 and local roads. Woodlawn is 4 km south. A car is the only sensible way in.

By bus

No regular bus serves Ballymacward itself. Local Link operates rural east Galway routes that may pass nearby on limited timetables - check in advance. Ballinasloe has Bus Éireann connections on the Galway-Dublin corridor.

By train

The nearest station is Woodlawn, 4 km south, an intermediate stop on the Dublin-Galway intercity line between Ballinasloe and Attymon. Services are limited, so confirm the timetable before relying on it. Athenry, further west, has more frequent trains.

Next on the tour

Co. Galway

Woodlawn

4 km south. The nearest railway station and a Georgian estate village - your way in or out by train.

Co. Galway

Kilconnell

East toward Ballinasloe. A Franciscan friary in good ruins, alone in its field - a better-preserved cousin to Cloonkeenkerrill.

Co. Galway

Attymon

South-west. Another small farming village with a working halt on the Dublin-Galway line.

Co. Galway

Ballinasloe

24 km east. The market town and horse-fair hub - the nearest place for full services and the October fair.

Co. Galway

Castleblakeney

South down the road, a crossroads village that gave the National Museum its finest bog body.