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Kilcullen, Co. Kildare

Kilcullen, Cill Cuilinn, Co. Kildare

Cill Cuilinn · Co. Kildare

Ireland's bare-knuckle champion fought here. Twenty thousand people watched.

Kilcullen sits on the River Liffey in mid-Kildare, six kilometres from the Curragh, fifty from Dublin. It has a medieval bridge, a round tower on a hill two kilometres out, and one of the best boxing stories in Irish history. Most people drive through it on the way to somewhere else. That is their loss.

The Dan Donnelly story is the one to know. On 13 December 1815, a Dublin carpenter turned bare-knuckle fighter climbed into a natural hollow on the Curragh and defeated the English champion George Cooper in eleven rounds, watched by something close to 20,000 people. The hollow was renamed for him on the spot. His footprints - pressed into the turf by the crowd after the fight - are still there. When Donnelly died five years later, grave robbers sold his body to a surgeon. The surgeon kept the right arm. That arm toured Irish pubs for a century before ending up in the Hideout on Main Street, where it sat in a glass case from 1953 to 1997. This is not a metaphor. It actually happened.

The town itself is low-key and working. Berney Brothers on Main Street is Ireland's last family-run saddlery - founded in 1880, still making saddles for a county that still runs horses. Bardons is the main pub-restaurant, solid and local. The Hideout has reinvented itself as a museum pub and live music venue. Woodbine Books on Lower Main Street keeps the secondhand tradition alive with proper floor-to-ceiling shelves. Fallon's - the restaurant that made the town famous for food through the 1980s and '90s - has new owners and is back in business.

Two kilometres up the hill from town, Old Kilcullen has a damaged round tower, high cross shafts, and the field where the 1798 battle was fought. Dún Ailinne on Knockaulin Hill is one of Ireland's four great royal sites - the inauguration hill of the Kings of Leinster, older than the Curragh racetrack by two thousand years. For a town of 3,500 people, Kilcullen is carrying a serious amount of history.

Population
~3,500
Pubs
4and counting
Walk score
Main Street end to end in eight minutes
Founded
Bridge built 1319; monastic site c. 448 AD
Coords
53.1317° N, 6.7528° W
01 / 10

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 Donnelly's Hollow

The Curragh hollow where Ireland beat England.

On 13 December 1815, Dan Donnelly knocked out George Cooper in eleven rounds before a crowd of 20,000. The hollow on the Athgarvan side of the Curragh still has 45 footprints pressed into the turf where the crowd cut the shape of his feet as he walked away victorious.

Stories & lore → 02 The Hideout

Ireland's first museum pub.

The Hideout on Main Street is where Dan Donnelly's mummified right arm was displayed for forty years from 1953. The pub is still open, still telling the story, and doing live music most weekends.

Pubs → 03 Woodbine Books

A proper secondhand bookshop, still going.

Lower Main Street. Floor-to-ceiling shelves, no algorithm, no curation by committee. The kind of place where you go in for one book and leave with four you didn't know you needed.

Stories & lore →
02 / 10

The pubs.

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

The Hideout

History, loud at weekends
Museum pub & live music venue

Ireland's first museum pub. The Dan Donnelly memorabilia is the hook - his arm was displayed here in a glass case for forty years. DJ nights on Friday and Saturday, live bands on Sunday. Refurbished and reopened to considerable local relief. Worth going to for the story alone.

Bardons Bar & Grill

Reliable, community-rooted
Pub, restaurant & accommodation

Main Street. The town's anchor pub - food served all day, rooms upstairs, bar for anyone who just wants a pint. Not a session pub, not a destination, but solid and genuine. The kitchen handles the basics well and the staff know their regulars.

Fallon's Restaurant

Food-led, revived
Restaurant (formerly Fallon of Kilcullen)

The restaurant that put Kilcullen on the food map in the 1980s has new owners - Sean and Patrick Kelly - and a fresh run at it. History includes stints as Berney's Bar and under Brian Fallon's long stewardship. Worth watching to see where the new chapter goes.

03 / 10

Where to eat.

PlaceType€Local note
Bardons Bar & Grill Pub food & grill €€ Traditional meat and fish, home-made desserts, reliable. Not destination dining but a proper meal before or after Old Kilcullen or the Hollow. Booking recommended at weekends.
Fallon's Restaurant €€€ Under new ownership since the Kelly brothers took over from the long Fallon era. The kitchen history is serious - this address has been feeding County Kildare well since the 1980s. Ring ahead; the new chapter is still settling in.
04 / 10

Where to sleep.

PlaceTypeLocal note
Bardons Rooms B&B above pub & restaurant Seven rooms above the bar on Main Street. Central, convenient, unpretentious. Walk everywhere from the front door. Breakfast in the restaurant downstairs.
The Curragh Country House Country house B&B Out toward the Curragh. Garden, terrace, quiet. A better choice if you want to be away from the Main Street and closer to the hollow and the racetrack.
Self-catering toward Ballymore Eustace Self-catering Drive ten minutes south into the Wicklow foothills and the rental options multiply and the prices ease. The Liffey valley is the backdrop. Worth the swap if you have a car.
05 / 10

Stories & lore.

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

The arm, the hollow, the crowd

Dan Donnelly

Daniel Donnelly was born in Dublin in 1788, one of seventeen children, trained as a carpenter, and turned to bare-knuckle fighting by a patron who spotted something in him. He was already Ireland's champion when George Cooper - one of England's best - was brought to the Curragh to face him on 13 December 1815, the year of Waterloo. Twenty thousand people stood in the hollow to watch. Donnelly finished Cooper in eleven rounds with a shot that broke his jaw. The crowd named the hollow for him on the spot, then pressed the shape of his feet into the turf as he climbed out. Those 45 footprints are still there. Donnelly died in 1820, aged 31, of what the period called 'drink-related illness'. The night of the funeral, body snatchers dug him up and sold the corpse to a Dublin surgeon. The surgeon removed the right arm for anatomical study and reburied the rest. The arm changed hands several times over the following century - displayed at fairs, sold between collectors - before ending up at the Hideout pub in Kilcullen in 1953, where it sat behind glass for forty years. It is now in a museum in Clane. The footprints are still on the Curragh.

Natural amphitheatre, permanent memorial

Donnelly's Hollow

The hollow sits on the Athgarvan side of the Curragh - a natural dip in the plain that formed something close to an amphitheatre and let 20,000 people stand around the ring and actually see the fight. There is a stone memorial at the lowest point. Leading uphill from it are the 45 footstep impressions, still visible, that mark the path Donnelly walked out of the hollow after the fight. The custom is to follow them up. Some are easier than others depending on the season. The monument and the hollow are free and open; you park on the road and walk in.

Ireland's last family saddlery, since 1880

Berney Brothers

Four and five generations of the Berney family have been making saddles on Main Street since 1880. This is not a heritage attraction - it is a working saddlery producing saddles for a county that still runs thoroughbreds. The Curragh is six kilometres down the road; the Aga Khan's stud farms are nearby; the logic is built into the landscape. Berney Saddles are the oldest continuously produced saddles in these islands. You can walk in and watch the work if the door is open, which it usually is.

Round tower, high crosses, 1798

Old Kilcullen

Two kilometres from the town centre, on a hill with a view over the Curragh plain, is Old Kilcullen - the site of the original 5th-century monastic settlement assigned by St. Patrick to Bishop Mac Táil around 448 AD. The round tower, built in the 9th or 10th century against Viking raids, originally rose over 30 metres with four windows. The 1798 Battle of Kilcullen was fought here - 300 United Irishmen used the churchyard walls as a fort against General Dundas's forces - and the tower took damage that reduced its four windows to one. That single window is still visible. Two decorated high cross shafts stand in the circular graveyard. The Viking raids of 936 and 944 each carried off over a thousand prisoners - which tells you how large and wealthy this place once was.

06 / 10

Music, by day of the week.

Schedules drift. This is roughly right. The real answer is "ask in the first pub you find."

Mon
Quiet
Tue
Quiet
Wed
Quiet
Thu
The Hideout - occasional midweek
Fri
The Hideout - DJ from 9pm
Sat
The Hideout - DJ, sometimes live
Sun
The Hideout - live band most Sundays from about 8pm
07 / 10

Things to do outside.

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

Donnelly's Hollow Park on the road on the Athgarvan side of the Curragh and walk in to the hollow. The stone monument is at the lowest point. Follow the 45 footstep impressions uphill - they are the reason you came. Flat, easy, no facilities. Do it in the morning when the Curragh is quiet.
1 km return from roaddistance
30 mintime
Old Kilcullen Round Tower & High Crosses Walk from the town centre up to the hilltop monastic site. The round tower, the high cross shafts, and the circular graveyard are all within the enclosure. Views back over the Curragh plain on a clear day. The 1798 battle was fought in this field - the tower damage tells you how.
4 km return from towndistance
1.5 hourstime
Liffey Walk - Bridge to Harristown The river walk north from the medieval bridge toward Harristown House. Flat, quiet, trout water. North Kildare TSAA manages the fishing rights on this stretch. The 1740 Harristown House (gutted by fire 1891, rebuilt by Fuller) is the turning point.
5 km one-waydistance
1.5 hourstime
Dún Ailinne, Knockaulin Hill One kilometre north of Old Kilcullen, Knockaulin Hill was the inauguration site of the Kings of Leinster - one of Ireland's four great royal sites, alongside Tara, Emhain Macha, and Cruachain. Iron Age earthworks dating to 700 BC. The hill is working farmland; access via the interpretive panels at Nicholastown.
3 km loopdistance
1 hourtime
08 / 10

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring
Mar-May

The Curragh is at its best - flat, empty, the horses out on the plain in the morning. The hollow is quiet and the footprints are freshly visible.

◉ Go
Summer
Jun-Aug

Race days at the Curragh (six kilometres down the road) bring the county to life. Long evenings for the Liffey walk. Bardons and the Hideout both busy.

◉ Go
Autumn
Sep-Oct

The Curragh in October is something particular - low light, empty plain, the hollow to yourself. Irish Champions Weekend at the Curragh is in mid-September.

◉ Go
Winter
Nov-Feb

Cold and quiet. Most of the draw is outdoors. The Hideout stays open and warm. The hollow is bleak in February - which is actually when it looks most like it did in December 1815.

◐ Mind yourself
09 / 10

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

×
Driving straight through on the N9

The Dan Donnelly story, Old Kilcullen, Berney's saddlery, and Woodbine Books are all within fifteen minutes of each other. There is more here than the road sign suggests.

×
The Curragh racecourse without a race day

The Curragh is the home of Irish flat racing and worth a visit on race day. On a non-race day it is a large empty car park surrounded by a track. The hollow is more interesting any day of the year.

×
Treating Donnelly's Hollow as a short walk

It is a short walk. The point is to stand in the hollow, find the footprints, and take a moment with the story. Rushing it misses the whole thing. Give it an hour.

×
Passing Woodbine Books without going in

Lower Main Street. Floor-to-ceiling shelves. No algorithm. You will find something.

+

Getting there.

By car

Dublin to Kilcullen is 50km on the N9/M9 - about 45 minutes. Naas is 12km north on the R413. The Curragh is 6km south-west on the R413. Athy is 25km south.

By bus

Bus Éireann route 130 runs Dublin-Carlow via Kilcullen and Naas, several times daily. The stop is on Main Street. About 1h 15m from Dublin.

By train

No station in Kilcullen. Newbridge (8km north) is on the Dublin Heuston-Limerick/Waterford line. Taxi or bus from Newbridge.

By air

Dublin Airport (DUB) is 60km - about 55 minutes by car via the M7. No closer airport.

Next on the tour

Co. Kildare
Naas
County town, twelve kilometres north. The Curragh runs between you and it. Market square, the Japanese Gardens nearby, a decent pub circuit.
Co. Kildare
Athgarvan
Three kilometres west, just off the Curragh. The village closest to Donnelly's Hollow. Worth stopping if you want to orient yourself before the walk in.
Co. Kildare
Ballymore Eustace
Ten minutes south along the Liffey into the foothills. A quieter stretch of the river, good self-catering country, the valley narrowing toward Wicklow.
Co. Kildare
Brannockstown
Four kilometres east in the Liffey valley, a one-road estate village with a romantic story attached.
Co. Kildare
Cut Bush
West to the southern lip of the Curragh - a pub, a school, and a plain to the horizon.
Co. Kildare
Johnstown
North-east toward Naas, where eight centuries of Crusader history sit behind the houses.