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LISSELTON

CO. KERRY · IE

Lisselton
Lios Eiltín

The North Kerry
STOP 03 / 06

Lios Eiltín · Co. Kerry

A crossroads on the road from Listowel races to Ballybunion's beach.

Lisselton isn't a village so much as a crossroads with a chapel, a school and a few houses leaning on it. Lios Eiltín — the ring-fort of Eiltín — sits on the R553 between Listowel and Ballybunion, eight kilometres of road that most Kerry people drive without ever stopping. The place is the road. The road is the place.

What's here is North Kerry farming country at its quietest. Flat green fields, cattle, the odd silage pit, the smell of slurry in spring. The parish is Ballydonoghue. The GAA club is Ballydonoghue. The chapel is St. Michael's. The two primary schools — Lisselton and Coolard — sit a mile apart and have done for generations. Three of the parish men were on the Kerry team that played the 1947 All-Ireland in the Polo Grounds in New York, the only final ever held outside Ireland. People still talk about that.

Don't come to Lisselton for a weekend. Come for ten minutes. Pull in at the cross, look at the chapel, read the GAA fixture on the gate, drive on to Ballybunion for the swim or back to Listowel for the pint. That's the trip. The interest is that this small parish, with its road and its school and its handful of houses, produced Maurice Walsh — the man who wrote The Quiet Man — and sat down the lane from John B. Keane's people. Talent doesn't need a town.

Population

~150

Walk score

Cross, chapel, school — five minutes end to end

Coords

52.4881° N, 9.5764° 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 North Kerry farmland

Cattle country, not coast.

The fields run flat and green from the Feale to the cliffs at Ballybunion. Dairy, suckler, silage. The Atlantic is six kilometres west and you can smell it on a westerly, but you can't see it.

The letter → 02 The road

R553, Listowel to Ballybunion.

The eight kilometres of road that fills up every September when Listowel Races finishes and half of Munster drives west looking for a chip and a swim. Lisselton is the bit in the middle.

Stories & lore → 03 Listowel hinterland

Writer country.

Maurice Walsh was born up the road in Ballydonoghue. John B. Keane's people came from the parish. North Kerry has produced more writers per acre than any other corner of the country and Lisselton sits in the middle of the field.

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.

The crossroads

Lisselton Cross

The village is its crossroads. The R553 from Listowel to Ballybunion meets the local road that runs north toward Ballylongford and the Shannon. There's a chapel on one corner, a few houses on the others, and that's the whole of it. For a hundred and fifty years it's been a place you stop at, ask directions, and drive on from. The Lartigue Monorail had its only intermediate station here between 1888 and 1924 — a passing loop where the up-train and the down-train swapped sides on the strange one-rail line. The track ran along the road you're on. Nothing of it is left.

Listowel races to Ballybunion

The September migration

Every September the Listowel Harvest Festival fills the town for a week and the racing fills the racecourse, and when the last race is run a slow tide of cars pours west on the R553 toward Ballybunion. Lisselton sits in the middle of that tide. For one week the road is busy. For the other fifty-one it isn't. The parish takes both as they come.

Three men in the Polo Grounds

Ballydonoghue GAA

The parish club — Ballydonoghue GAA — is based at Coolard, a mile from the cross. It has put men on the Kerry senior team in most decades since the 1940s. Three Ballydonoghue men were on the 1947 Kerry side that travelled to New York to play the All-Ireland final at the Polo Grounds — the only final ever held outside the country. Cavan won. The parish remembers anyway. The neighbouring parish at Finuge sent Paul Galvin out a few decades later, and the rivalry between Ballydonoghue and Finuge is the kind that gets sorted in junior championship matches on wet Sunday afternoons.

Born up the lane

Maurice Walsh and the Quiet Man

Maurice Walsh — the novelist who wrote The Quiet Man — was born in 1879 in the townland of Ballydonoghue, a mile or two from Lisselton Cross. He went to school in Lisselton and on to St. Michael's in Listowel. By the 1930s he was one of the best-selling Irish authors of his generation, translated into half a dozen languages. John Ford turned the short story into the 1952 film with John Wayne and the rest is the version everyone knows. Walsh's part of it started here, in a small farmhouse on a small road in a parish John B. Keane later called possessed of a throbbing vein of literary genius. He wasn't being polite.

03 / 06

Things to do outside.

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

The R553 to Ballybunion Not a walk so much as the road itself. Hedges, fields, a few farmhouses, then the dunes start and the sea opens up. Most people drive it. If you're walking it, do it on a Sunday morning when the road is quiet.

8 km one waydistance

1h 45m walking, 10 min drivetime

Ballydonoghue loop Quiet back-road loop through the townland that produced Maurice Walsh. Flat, hedged, unremarkable in the best way. There's no plaque to find. The point is the country, not the marker.

5 km loopdistance

1 hourtime

Cashen Estuary Drive ten minutes west to where the Feale meets the Atlantic at the Cashen. Mudflats, waders, a long beach south to Ballybunion. The river's mouth is the locals' walk when Ballybunion strand is too crowded.

Variabledistance

An hour or twotime

04 / 06

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar–May

Lambs in the fields, hedges greening up, light coming back. The parish at its most itself.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun–Aug

Long evenings, dry roads, the beach at Ballybunion ten minutes away. Quiet at the cross even when the coast is busy.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep–Oct

Listowel Races week — the first week of September — turns the R553 into a slow river of cars. Lovely if you want the buzz, frustrating if you don't.

◐ Mind yourself

Winter

Nov–Feb

Wet, dark, and there's nothing here to keep you warm. Drive through, don't stop.

◐ 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.

Looking for a Maurice Walsh visitor centre

There isn't one. He was born in a farmhouse in Ballydonoghue and the farmhouse is a private house. Read The Quiet Man in Listowel library and call that the pilgrimage.

Stopping for lunch

The village doesn't really do lunch. Drive on to Listowel (eight minutes) or Ballybunion (ten) and eat there. Both have the goods.

Trying to find the Lartigue station

Gone since 1924. The track ran along the road you're already on. The reconstructed museum is in Listowel — that's where to see it.

Getting there.

By car

On the R553 between Listowel (8km east) and Ballybunion (8km west). Tralee is 35 minutes south. Limerick is an hour and twenty.

By bus

Local Link 274 runs Listowel–Ballybunion several times a day and stops at the cross. Bus Éireann's Tralee–Listowel service drops you in Listowel; the connection west is the Local Link.

By train

No train. Nearest station is Tralee, then bus or taxi.

By air

Kerry Airport (KIR) is 50km — about 50 minutes by car. Shannon is 1h 30m.