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BALLYMORE EUSTACE

CO. KILDARE · IE

Ballymore Eustace
An Baile Mór

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 09 / 09

An Baile Mór · Co. Kildare

Liffey village on the edge of the Pale, with the lake that drowned its neighbour.

Ballymore Eustace is the older half of a story Blessington gets the credit for. The big lake to the south is called the Blessington Lakes by everyone in Dublin and the Poulaphouca Reservoir by everyone else. Either way, the village that sits at the dam end of it is this one — a square, a bridge, a river, three pubs, a thinned-out main street.

The Eustaces — Norman, originally — held the castle here from 1373 and the village took their name. The castle is gone. So is the cotton mill that employed 700 workers in the 19th century. So is most of the valley to the south, which the ESB drowned in 1940 to power Dublin and water it. Seventy families were moved out, most never moved back, and the lake has been there long enough that nobody local thinks of it as new.

What the village still has is the Liffey. The river bends through it under a seven-arch bridge that's the wrong kind of beautiful for the size of the road it carries. There are racing yards in every direction — the Curragh is twenty minutes north — and on a Sunday morning you'll see lads in jodhpurs walking horses up the main street like it's any other commute. Stay an evening. The pubs around the square are the village; the lake is the day out.

Population

689

Pubs

3and counting

Walk score

Square to seven-arch bridge in five minutes

Founded

Castle granted a fair in 1244; Eustace family from 1373

Coords

53.1322° N, 6.6181° W

01 / 09

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 Square

Three pubs and a band hall.

Mick Murphy's, Paddy Murphy's and the Ballymore Inn sit within a hundred yards of each other. Different Murphys, same village, no relation worth tracing.

Pubs → 02 The Lakes

The reservoir drowned a valley in 1940.

Poulaphouca was flooded on the third of March, 1940. Seventy-six houses, three bridges and a 12th-century stone cross went under. Some of it still shows in a dry summer.

Stories & lore → 03 The Liffey

A seven-arch bridge, a cotton-mill ghost.

The R411 crosses the river on a rare seven-arch bridge. The mill that once employed 700 people is gone. The water still runs out the other side toward Dublin's taps.

Walks & outings →

02 / 09

The pubs.

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

Mick Murphy's

Unspoiled, music room

Traditional pub on the Square

Run by Phil and Sean Murphy. The back room hosts Ballymore Acoustic Gigs most Mondays — a singer-songwriter night that's been going over twenty years and pulls names you'd pay good money to see in Dublin. Quiet pint the rest of the week.

Paddy Murphy's

Local, library-cornered

Pub & off-licence on Main Street

Trading in the Murphy family since 1957 — different Murphys to the ones up the road. Lounge bar with a feature library section, a public bar, and a small off-licence with its own door. Looks onto the Square.

The Ballymore Inn

Food-led, weekend room

Gastropub & dining room

The dining destination, not the local. New owners since 2022 — same crew as Hartes of Kildare and the Dew Drop Inn in Kill — kept the kitchen on. Wed–Sun, lunch through dinner. The back bar serves food daily from 3pm if you don't want a sit-down.

03 / 09

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
The Ballymore Inn	Modern Irish gastropub	€€€	Bord Bia–approved Irish meat, sustainable fish, a kids' menu that isn't an afterthought. A reliable Sunday lunch. Book ahead at the weekend; it pulls from Dublin.
Paddy Murphy's bar food	Pub plates	€	Toasties, soup, the usual short pub list. Eat at the bar with the paper. Don't expect a menu the length of a novel.

04 / 09

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
Tinnycross House B&B	B&B	600 metres from the Square. A handful of rooms, breakfast included, the kind of place where the host knows where the keys are without asking.
Self-catering on the lake road	Self-catering	Several cottages and farmhouses around the reservoir let by the week. The closer to the water, the quieter the morning.

05 / 09

Stories & lore.

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

March 3rd, 1940

The drowned valley

At ten in the morning on the third of March, 1940, the gates closed at Poulaphouca and the Liffey started backing up behind the dam. By September the water was a third of the way up. Seventy-six houses had already been demolished. Bridges at Humphreystown, Baltyboys and Burgage were blown. A 12th-century stone cross was lifted out and resited in Blessington graveyard. Around three hundred people — seventy farming families — were moved on compulsory purchase, most to land they didn't know. In a long dry summer the lake still drops far enough that field walls and a bit of a road show up on the eastern shore. People still walk out and find them.

Normans on the edge of the Pale

The Eustaces

Thomas FitzOliver FitzEustace was made constable of the castle here in 1373 on £10 a year. His grandson did the job, and his great-grandson, and the family name stuck to the village. Ballymore was on the very edge of the Pale, the English-controlled bit around Dublin, which meant it got raided regularly by the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes coming down out of Wicklow. An earthen rampart was thrown up around the village in the 1400s. Parliament was held here in 1389. The castle itself fell to Cromwell in the 1650s, and there's nothing left of it above ground today.

The waterworks

Dublin drinks here

Most of the water that comes out of a Dublin tap has been through the Poulaphouca treatment works just outside the village. It was built in tandem with the dam in the 1940s and has been quietly upgraded ever since. The reservoir holds 166 billion litres. The hydroelectric station beside it produces about 30 megawatts when it's running flat out. Neither of these is a tourist attraction. They are why the village is on the map at all.

The Curragh is up the road

Racing country

The Curragh — Ireland's flat-racing capital — is fifteen minutes north. Goffs sales ring is twenty. The result is that the fields around Ballymore Eustace are stud farms, the lanes carry horseboxes, and Bobby Coonan, the six-time National Hunt champion jockey, was born here in 1940 and rode his first winner before he could legally drink in any of the pubs he later did.

06 / 09

Things to do outside.

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

The Liffey at the seven-arch bridge Out from the Square, down to the bridge, along the river bank for a few hundred metres and back. The bridge is the photo. The river underneath it is the reason the village is here.

1 kmdistance

20 mintime

Poulaphouca shore loop Park near the dam, walk south along the eastern shore. The water-line moves with the season — in late summer there are field walls visible that haven't seen daylight since 1939. It's a working reservoir, not a park; bring sensible shoes.

3–6 km depending on how far you pushdistance

1–2 hourstime

Russborough House grounds Ten minutes south, on the Wicklow side. Palladian house, scandal-thick provenance on the art collection, gardens worth the entry on their own. Not Ballymore Eustace, but the obvious afternoon out from it.

5 km of pathsdistance

Half a day with the housetime

07 / 09

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar–May

The Liffey is high, the lake is full, the racing yards are out at first light. Quiet pubs, easy parking.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun–Aug

Dublin pours out at the weekend. Russborough and the lake pull crowds; the village itself stays roughly itself. Avoid Sunday lunch at the Ballymore Inn without a booking.

◐ Mind yourself

Autumn

Sep–Oct

The light over the reservoir is something else, and the water is at its lowest — best chance of seeing the drowned field walls.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov–Feb

Cold, often closed early, and the back roads on the Wicklow side ice up. The Monday-night gig at Mick Murphy's runs through it regardless.

◐ Mind yourself

08 / 09

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 the castle

There isn't one. Cromwell took it, the stones were robbed for centuries, and there is no monument or marker. The village square is the nearest thing.

Treating Blessington Lakes as a beach day

It's a drinking-water reservoir. Swimming is discouraged and the shore is mostly rough pasture and forestry, not sand. Walk it instead.

Booking the Ballymore Inn for a quick pint

It's a restaurant with a bar attached, not a pub with food. If you want a pint and a chat go to either of the Murphys. If you want dinner book ahead.

Driving into the village on a Cheltenham week

Half the village is in Gloucestershire and the other half is watching the racing. Pubs are full, the kitchens are short-handed, the talk is exclusively about the 3:30. Lovely if you're in on it; hard work if you aren't.

Getting there.

By car

Naas to Ballymore Eustace is 15 minutes south on the R411 off the N81. Dublin city centre is 50 minutes via the M7/M9 and N81. From Wicklow town allow an hour over the Sally Gap on a dry day.

By bus

Bus Éireann route 65 runs Dublin–Blessington–Ballymore Eustace several times a day, about 1h 15m. Local route 885 connects to Sallins train station for the Dublin commuter line.

By train

No station. Sallins (20 minutes by bus or car) is the nearest, on the Dublin–Cork line.

By air

Dublin Airport (DUB) is 1h by motorway. Nothing else is closer.