Ballybeggan is a townland on the north-eastern edge of Tralee, two and a half kilometres from the town centre, and to almost everyone who has ever heard the name it means one thing: the racecourse. Ballybeggan Park. Tralee Races. The week in August when the town empties into a field and the bookmakers take over.
It was a deer park first. The family of Daniel O'Connell — the Liberator's own people — owned the ground, and the Big House at its centre, long before anyone thought of putting horses around it. The first Tralee meeting ran in 1767 on a different course altogether; the fixture moved around the parish for over a century before it landed permanently at Ballybeggan in 1898. From then on the name of the townland and the name of the racecourse were the same thing.
The last race ran on 1 October 2008. P'Tit Fute won the Denny Havasnack. Then the gates closed, the recession came, and the place sat. Point-to-points and pony racing kept the rails warm for a few years. In 2024 the Ard-Rí Group bought the lands for €5 million and lodged plans for a manufacturing and distribution complex with houses on the perimeter — Tralee's largest building, if it gets built. Whatever Ballybeggan becomes next, the deer-park-turned-racecourse-turned-industrial-estate is most of the story it has ever had.
Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.
The first six-day meeting started on 10 August 1767, making it one of the oldest racing fixtures on the island. The course shifted around for over a century before settling at Ballybeggan Park in 1898. The last fixture ran on 1 October 2008.
Stories & lore → 02 The deer parkBallybeggan Park belonged to the family of Daniel O'Connell — the Liberator's people — long before the rails went up. The Big House, Ballybeggan House, sat at the centre of it. The deer are long gone. The name stuck.
Stories & lore → 03 The bypassMost travellers cross Ballybeggan without noticing. The N69/N22 Tralee bypass, opened in August 2013, skirts it on the east. The N21 from Limerick ends at Camp Roundabout on the same bypass. The racecourse gates are a kilometre off the dual carriageway.
Getting there →The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.
There is no bad time. There are different times.
Nothing on. The racecourse is closed; there is no village to walk. Stay in Tralee and pass through.
Late August is Rose of Tralee week — the town is full, the traffic on the bypass is real, and the racecourse is the empty centre of what used to be the noise.
Quiet. October was the last month of the last meeting in 2008. There is a melancholy to walking the perimeter at this time of year if you knew it before.
Bare fields, a bypass in the wind, a Big House behind walls. Not a destination.
Ballybeggan sits on the northern edge of Tralee, two and a half kilometres from the town centre and one kilometre off the N69/N22 Tralee bypass. The N21 from Limerick comes in at Camp Roundabout on the same bypass. From Tralee centre, head north on the Listowel road and the racecourse lands are signposted on the right.
No direct service. Take any Tralee town bus to the centre and walk or taxi the last two kilometres.
Tralee station is the western terminus of the Mallow line. From there it is a five-minute taxi to the racecourse gates.