Ballyroe
Baile an Róigh, Co. Kildare

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 05 / 05

Baile an Róigh · Co. Kildare

A crossroads hamlet a few miles east of Athy. A school, a scatter of houses, and the flat Barrow country around it.

Ballyroe is a townland that the census decided was a settlement. In 2022 it held 196 people, up a little on the years before, mostly in newer rural housing strung around a crossroads east of Athy. It is in Churchtown civil parish - Baile an Teampaill, the town of the church - in the old Barony of Narragh and Reban West, which is as deep into flat south-Kildare farmland as the county goes.

There is no village in the picture-postcard sense. No main street, no pub, no shop. What there is: Ballyroe Central National School at the crossroads, a small modern housing development called Cluain Laighean beside it, and the long low fields of the Barrow valley running off in every direction. People live here because it is quiet and Athy is five minutes down the L8077, not because there is anything to come and see.

That is honest, and it is fine. If you are staying near here you are really staying near Athy - the working market town at the ford on the River Barrow, with its castle, its Shackleton museum, its Grand Canal terminus and its fourteen pubs. Ballyroe is the dark, quiet field you drive back out to at night.

Population

196 (2022)

Founded

Rural townland, Churchtown civil parish; settlement grew around the crossroads and school

Coords

52.9742° N, 6.9203° W

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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 place

A crossroads, a school, and not much else - and that is the whole of it.

Ballyroe is a small built-up area the 2022 census counted at 196 people. It sits about five kilometres east of Athy on the L8077, in the flat farming country of south Kildare. Ballyroe Central National School is the centre of gravity; the rest is houses and the Cluain Laighean development by the crossroads.

Walks & outings → 02 The base

Athy does the work - shops, pubs, the train, the Barrow.

There is no pub or shop in Ballyroe itself. Everything is in Athy, the market town five kilometres west on the Barrow, with its railway station on the Dublin-Waterford line and fourteen pubs to Ballyroe's none. Use Athy as the base and Ballyroe as the quiet bed.

Where next →

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Stories & lore.

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

Churchtown civil parish

Baile an Teampaill - the town of the church

Ballyroe sits in the civil parish of Churchtown, in Irish Baile an Teampaill, literally 'the town of the church'. The name records an early ecclesiastical site somewhere in this stretch of the Barrow valley, long before the modern hamlet existed. The barony it belongs to, Narragh and Reban West, takes its second name from Rheban, the Norman manor and castle that Richard de St Michael held on the west bank of the Barrow northwest of Athy in the thirteenth century. None of this is on display at Ballyroe crossroads - the names are the heritage here, carried on maps and townland boundaries rather than on stone you can walk up to. For the stone, you go to Athy and its surrounds.

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Things to do outside.

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

Ballyroe lanes Quiet flat farm roads radiating out from the crossroads. No waymarking, no views to speak of - this is working tillage and grass country, big skies and hedgerows. Good for a head-clearing loop if you are staying locally; not a destination walk. Watch for farm traffic on the narrow stretches.

4-6 kmdistance

1 hourtime

Athy and the Barrow The real walking is in Athy, five kilometres west. The Barrow towpath and the Grand Canal line give you flat, scenic, off-road walking for as long as you want it, plus the medieval Woodstock Castle and White's Castle on Crom-a-Boo Bridge in the town. Drive in and start from there.

variesdistance

half daytime

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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 isn't one. Ballyroe is a crossroads with a school and houses around it, not a village with a square and a pub. The census calls it a settlement; on the ground it is a scatter of homes in farmland. Adjust expectations before you arrive and you won't be disappointed.

Confusing it with the other Ballyroes

There are Ballyroes in Kerry, Cork, Mayo and elsewhere, and even a second Ballyroe townland in Kildare itself over in the Kilkea and Moone barony. This is the one near Athy, in Churchtown parish. If your sat-nav sends you towards Tralee, it picked the wrong one.

Getting there.

By car

From Athy, take the L8077 east about five kilometres to Ballyroe crossroads. From Dublin, the M9 motorway is roughly a ten-minute drive away; come off for Athy and follow local roads east. Carlow is around twenty-five minutes south, Kildare town and Kildare Village about half an hour north.

By bus

No direct service to Ballyroe. Bus and Local Link services run to and from Athy, which is the nearest hub; you would need a car or taxi for the last few kilometres out to the crossroads.

By train

Athy railway station, about five kilometres west, is on the Dublin Heuston to Waterford intercity line, with several trains a day each way. It is the nearest station by a good margin.