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STAPLESTOWN

CO. KILDARE · IE

Staplestown
Baile an Stáibléaraigh, Co. Kildare

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 07 / 07

Baile an Stáibléaraigh · Co. Kildare

A north Kildare farming village with a church the British burned in 1798, four kilometres from the woods at Donadea.

Staplestown is a small farming village in north Kildare, roughly forty kilometres west of Dublin in the flat country between Clane, Prosperous and the woods at Donadea. There is a church, a primary school, a GAA pitch and a shop. That is most of it. It is the kind of place you pass through on a country road rather than set out for, and it does not pretend otherwise.

The name is the interesting part. Baile an Stáibléaraigh has been read as "the town of the stapler" - a staple being a medieval market town with the official right to trade in particular goods. Whatever commerce that designation once carried has long gone. What is left is an ordinary Irish rural parish that happens to have one genuinely old building at its centre and one sharp moment of history attached to it.

That moment is 1798. On 24 May rebels stormed the British barracks at Prosperous, eight kilometres west, and killed most of the garrison. The next day the troops came through and burned the thatched chapel at Staplestown in reprisal. The parish rebuilt it. The church that stands now, St Benignus, was raised on the old walls and enlarged in 1829, and it is reckoned one of the oldest Catholic churches in the Kildare and Leighlin diocese.

Come for the church and the woods, not for a day out in the village itself. Donadea Forest Park is four kilometres up the road and is the one thing in this corner of Kildare that genuinely draws people. Staplestown is the parish around it - school, pitch, a graveyard worth a slow walk - rather than a destination in its own right.

Population

A small rural parish village, a few hundred people

Founded

Chapel of ease c. 1750; burned 1798, rebuilt and enlarged 1829

Coords

53.3300° N, 6.7667° W

01 / 07

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 church

St Benignus - one of the oldest Catholic churches in the diocese.

Built around 1750 as a thatched chapel, burned by troops the day after the rebel attack on Prosperous in 1798, then rebuilt and enlarged in 1829 with three galleries. It is still the parish church.

Stories & lore → 02 The woods

Donadea Forest Park is four kilometres up the road.

Six hundred acres of mixed woodland around a lake, an Aylmer tower house, and a 5 km loop. The real reason most outsiders end up near Staplestown, and the nearest village to the forest gate.

Walks & outings →

02 / 07

The pubs.

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

Roche's of Donadea

Family-run village local

Country pub, Donadea (about 4 km)

Staplestown itself does not have a pub. The nearest is Roche's, a traditional family-run bar in Donadea village by the forest park, about four kilometres away. A proper rural local with a Sunday trad session. If you want a pint near Staplestown, this is where the parish goes.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

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

1798, the day after Prosperous

The church the soldiers burned

A chapel of ease was built at Staplestown around 1750 - a low, T-shaped thatched building, plain as you would expect for a penal-era Catholic church. On 24 May 1798 the United Irishmen attacked the barracks at Prosperous, eight kilometres west, and killed most of the garrison of North Cork Militia and Ancient British cavalry. It was one of the few clear rebel victories of the Kildare rising. The reprisal came the next day, when troops moving through the parish set fire to the thatched church at Staplestown. The parish did not abandon it. The walls were raised by several courses, the building enlarged in 1829 with large additions to the nave and transepts and three galleries reached at first by an outside stone stair. That rebuilt church, dedicated to St Benignus, is the one you see today, and it is counted among the oldest Catholic churches in the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin.

Scoil Naomh Mhuire, 1833

Educating the poor children of the parish

Reverend Maurice Kearney, parish priest from 1824 to 1842, founded a school in the grounds of St Benignus in 1833, four years after Catholic Emancipation made such openly Catholic institutions possible. The stated purpose was "the Education of the Poor Children in the Parish of Staplestown." A two-storey schoolhouse went up beside the church. A new two-room school followed in 1929, and the building was extended again in 2006. Scoil Naomh Mhuire is still the parish national school. For a village this small to have kept a school running on the same ground for nearly two centuries is the kind of quiet continuity that does not make the guidebooks but holds a rural parish together.

Gaelic football since 1945

St Kevin's, the local club

The GAA club was founded in 1945 as Staplestown, playing in green, white and gold. In 1963 it took the name St Kevin's and changed to black and red. The present grounds were bought in 1961 and named Jack Casey Memorial Park after the club secretary who drove the purchase, with dressing rooms added in 1982. Like a lot of small Kildare clubs it draws its players from the wider parish and the neighbouring townlands around Donadea. On a club championship Sunday the pitch is the busiest place in the village by a distance.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

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

Donadea Forest Park Four kilometres up the road and the main reason to come this way. Six hundred acres of mixed Coillte woodland around a small lake, with the ruined Aylmer tower house and a 17th-century church in the demesne. There is a 5 km loop and a flat, wheelchair-accessible walk around the lake. Free to walk; car park charge applies. The closest village gate is Staplestown's side.

5 km loop, shorter lake walkdistance

1 to 2 hourstime

St Benignus church and graveyard The old graveyard around the church is worth a slow wander for the headstones and the sense of a parish that has buried its dead on the same ground since the 1700s. The church itself, with its three galleries and round-headed sash windows, is the one piece of real heritage in the village.

Short strolldistance

20 to 30 minutestime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Donadea Forest in fresh leaf is the pull. Bluebells, birdsong, the lake walk dry underfoot. The best time to be in this corner of Kildare.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings and the forest park at its busiest with families and walkers. The village stays quiet; the woods do the work.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Donadea in autumn colour is the picture, and the GAA championship is on in the parish. A good month for a forest walk and a pint after.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days, muddy forest trails, and very little open in the village. Fine for a bracing woodland walk, but bring boots and do not expect much else.

◐ Mind yourself

06 / 07

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

Expecting a village day out

Staplestown is a church, a school, a pitch and a shop in flat farming country. There is no main street to stroll, no cluster of cafes or shops. Come for the church and the forest, treat the village as the setting, and you will not be disappointed.

Confusing it with Staplestown in Carlow

There is another Staplestown in Co. Carlow. This is the Kildare one, in the parish of Cooleragh and Staplestown near Donadea. Set the satnav for Donadea Forest Park and you will not go wrong.

Getting there.

By car

Staplestown is best reached by car. From Dublin it is about 40 km and 50 minutes: the M4 west, then south through Maynooth and Clane on the R407, and minor roads toward Donadea. From Naas it is roughly 15 km north. The simplest landmark to aim for is Donadea Forest Park, signposted off the local roads between Clane and Edenderry.

By bus

Public transport to the village itself is sparse to non-existent; the nearest scheduled services run through Clane, Prosperous and Naas. In practice this is a car-access village.

By train

There is no station in the village. The nearest railway is Sallins and Naas on the Dublin Heuston to Kildare line, about 15 km south, from where you would need a car or taxi for the last leg.