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BALLYDUFF

CO. KERRY · IE

Ballyduff
An Baile Dubh

The Wild Atlantic Way
STOP 08 / 08

An Baile Dubh · Co. Kerry

A near-perfect medieval round tower, 30 metres of it, in a field outside a hurling village.

Ballyduff is a small North Kerry village on the R551, the road that runs between Ballyheigue and Ballybunion along the back of the Shannon estuary. About 450 people. A main street, a few pubs, a creamery once, a GAA pitch that punches a long way above its weight. You wouldn't slow down for the village. You slow down for what sits in a field a kilometre south of it.

Rattoo Round Tower is the reason. Built around the year 1100, near thirty metres tall, conical cap still on, the only complete round tower left in Kerry and one of the thirteen most intact in the country. It marks an old monastic site — Rath Tuaidh, the northern fort — and it has one detail no other Irish round tower has: a sheela-na-gig, a small carved female figure, set into the inside jamb of the north window. Nobody is entirely sure why she's there. The replica is in the County Museum in Tralee. The original is up the wall, where it has been for nine hundred years.

Past the tower, the village's other claim is hurling. Kerry is a football county — except for a strip of North Kerry where, for reasons of soil and history, they play hurling instead. Ballyduff, Lixnaw, Causeway and Crotta carry it. Ballyduff GAA, founded 1887, won the Kerry senior hurling championship nineteen times between 1955 and 1995 alone, and have kept winning into this century. There is a 1891 All-Ireland final on the wall too, the only one Kerry has ever taken. Stop, see the tower, walk down to the Cashen, have a pint in Lowes, and you have the village.

Population

447 (2022)

Coords

52.4530° N, 9.6630° 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 Rattoo

The last complete round tower in Kerry.

Twenty-nine and a half metres of 11th-century stone, conical cap intact, in a field a kilometre south of the village. No ticket. No queue. Walk up to the door and look at it.

Stories & lore → 02 Hurling country

Kerry hurling lives here.

Kerry is a football county everywhere except this corner. Ballyduff, Lixnaw, Causeway, Crotta — the North Kerry hurling clubs. Ballyduff GAA have won the Kerry senior championship more times than any other club.

Stories & lore → 03 The Cashen

Where the Feale meets the Shannon.

The last six miles of the River Feale are called the Cashen. The estuary opens onto Cashen Bay south of Ballybunion. One of the great salmon and sea-trout rivers of Ireland comes out here.

Walks & outings →

02 / 08

The pubs.

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

Lowes Bar

Locals, GAA

Village pub

Main Street. The pub the hurling crowd ends up in after a Ballyduff match. No frills. No tunes laid on. A pint and the talk.

Yer Man's Bar

Sociable

Village pub

The other one on the street. Same idea, different door. On a quiet weeknight you'll find one open and the other not — that's how it works.

The Hawthorn

Local

Village pub

Third of the village pubs, smaller. Worth a look if Lowes is heaving on a championship Sunday.

03 / 08

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
The Cashen Diner	Diner & takeaway	€	Family-run, on the village edge towards the Cashen. Burgers, fish, the kind of dinner that goes with a long drive. Open evenings — check before you set out.

04 / 08

Stories & lore.

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

Cloigtheach Rath Tuaidh

Rattoo Round Tower

Built around 1100 on the site of a sixth-century monastery founded, by tradition, by a disciple of St. Brendan. Twenty-nine and a half metres tall, base circumference fifteen metres, the conical cap still in place — most Irish round towers lost theirs centuries ago. It is the only complete round tower in Kerry and one of the thirteen most intact in Ireland. There is no visitor centre, no gate, no charge. You walk across a field, look at the door six metres up the wall — that's where the monks would have pulled the ladder up — and stand in the silence.

The carved woman in the wall

The Sheela-na-gig

On the inside jamb of the round tower's north window, six storeys up where almost nobody can see her, there is a sheela-na-gig — a small grotesque carving of a female figure with an exaggerated vulva. They turn up on Irish churches and castles by the dozen but this is the only one ever found inside a round tower. Theories run from fertility charm to evil-eye guard to a genuinely strange medieval joke. You can see a replica at eye level in the North Kerry Museum in Tralee. The original stays where the masons put her.

The football county's other game

North Kerry hurling

Drive into Ballyduff in late summer and you'll see why this corner is different. The pitch is at the edge of the village. The county jersey is football green and gold but the parish jersey is hurling, and has been since 1887. Ballyduff GAA hold the Kerry senior hurling championship more times than any other club — nineteen titles between 1955 and 1995, more since. They beat Dublin to win the 1891 All-Ireland, the only time a Kerry side has ever taken the senior hurling final. The North Kerry rivalry — Ballyduff, Lixnaw, Causeway, Crotta — is as old, and as serious, as the football one in the south of the county.

Where the Feale runs out

The Cashen estuary

The River Feale rises in the Cork mountains, runs west through Abbeyfeale and Listowel, and for its last six miles becomes the Cashen — broad, tidal, salmon water. The estuary spills into Cashen Bay south of Ballybunion. It is one of the named salmon and sea-trout rivers of Ireland, fifteen-hundred salmon a season in a good year. A small huddle of houses called The Cashen sits at the mouth. It has been a minor harbour for centuries; the boats are smaller now.

05 / 08

Things to do outside.

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

Rattoo Round Tower approach Park near the gate on the lane south of the village, walk across the field. The ruined church beside the tower is later — fifteenth century — and worth ten minutes of its own. Bring a coat; the field is open.

1 km returndistance

20 mintime

Cashen estuary Drive west out of the village to where the Cashen widens into the bay. Mudflats, gulls, a slip where the salmon boats used to launch. Quiet. No path as such — wander the bank as the tide allows.

Variabledistance

1–2 hourstime

North Kerry Way (Banna to Ballyheigue) The waymarked North Kerry Way runs Tralee to Ballyheigue along the coast. Ballyduff isn't on the official route, but Ballyheigue is twenty minutes' drive west and a sensible base for the last day. Beach, low cliffs, Kerry Head.

Section of 48 km routedistance

Half daytime

06 / 08

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar–May

The tower in early-spring light is the picture. Field is dry. Nothing is busy.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun–Aug

Long evenings, hurling championship season — go to a Ballyduff match if the fixtures align.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep–Oct

The North Kerry hurling final is usually around now. Storms coming in off the Shannon estuary. Quiet pubs.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov–Feb

The village pubs keep going but the field around the tower turns to mud. Bring boots.

◐ 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.

Driving past on the R551 without stopping

The tower is signposted and a kilometre off the road. Ten minutes is plenty. There is genuinely nowhere else in Kerry like it.

Looking for the sheela-na-gig with the naked eye

She's six storeys up on the inside of the tower wall. You won't see her without binoculars or the replica in Tralee. Go to the North Kerry Museum if you want a proper look.

Coming for a 'foodie' weekend

It's a small village with a few pubs and a diner. The food story is in Listowel up the road. Eat there, sleep there, drive over for the tower and a pint.