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BALLINAKILL

CO. LAOIS · IE

Ballinakill
Baile na Coille, Co. Laois

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 07 / 07

Baile na Coille · Co. Laois

A small planned estate town in south Laois that was once a parliamentary borough. The Square, a Market House, a 1798 monument, and Lutyens gardens a mile down the road.

Ballinakill - Baile na Coille, the town of the wood - is a small estate town in the south of Laois, between Abbeyleix and the Kilkenny border. The name suggests woodland, and the country around it is still soft and wooded. But the village itself is the thing to read: a planned town built on ambition that history quietly walked away from.

It was chartered by James I in 1612, after Sir Thomas Ridgeway took the lands the year before, built a castle and set about making a colony of it. From 1613 to 1800 Ballinakill was a parliamentary borough, returning two members to the Irish House of Commons - a rotten borough in the end, but a borough. The castle was besieged and plundered in the 1641 rebellion and later cannonaded by Cromwell's gunners from the high ground above the town. The 18th century was the good century, when the Trench family laid out the present plan: The Square, Church Street, Bride Street, a Market House, and one of the busiest cattle fairs in the county, which ran on until 1963.

Most of that is still legible if you walk it. The Square holds the Market House and a monument raised in 1898 to the men of 1798. Church Street has the unusual sight of two churches standing all but shoulder to shoulder. The town that once had 4,000 people in its parish now has around 450, and the through-traffic that would have made it a stop is mostly gone. That is the trade. It is quiet, and the quiet is the point.

The reason to make the detour is Heywood. A mile out the R432, on the demesne now shared with Heywood Community School, the Office of Public Works keeps the formal gardens Sir Edwin Lutyens designed around 1906 - a sunken garden with a long elliptical pool, a fountain, a red-tiled loggia, all dropped into an older romantic parkland of lakes and woodland that Frederick Trench began in the 1700s. The big house is long gone. The gardens are not, and they are free to walk.

Population

~445 (2016)

Founded

Charter town 1612 under James I; laid out as a planned estate town in the 18th century

Coords

52.8742° N, 7.3100° 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 borough

A town that once sent two MPs to Dublin.

Chartered in 1612 and a parliamentary borough from 1613 to 1800, electing two members to the Irish House of Commons. The Square, the Market House and the 18th-century street grid are what is left of that ambition.

Stories & lore → 02 Heywood

A Lutyens-and-Jekyll garden, free to walk.

Heywood Gardens sits just outside the village off the R432. A sunken garden with an elliptical pool and a colonnaded loggia, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens around 1906, set in an older Trench parkland. Run by the OPW, free in.

Walks & outings → 03 The scale

Around 450 people. One pub. Be honest about that.

This is a quiet village, not a resort. The heritage is real and the garden is worth the trip, but the amenities are thin. Plan to eat in Abbeyleix or Durrow.

Skip this →

02 / 07

The pubs.

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

Downtown

Locals

Village pub

The pub in the village. A genuine local rather than a destination bar - expect a quiet house and local company. Hours are not guaranteed midweek in a place this size, so check before you plan an evening on it.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

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

Two MPs, 1613 to 1800

The rotten borough

Ballinakill was incorporated by charter under James I in 1612, the year after Sir Thomas Ridgeway acquired the lands and built a castle here. From 1613 until the Act of Union in 1800 it was a parliamentary borough, returning two members to the Irish House of Commons in Dublin on a tiny franchise - the kind of seat that was bought and managed rather than contested. The borough vanished with the Union, but the shape of the town it justified is still on the ground: the formal Square, the Market House, the wide approach streets of a place that expected to matter.

Besieged 1641, cannonaded by Cromwell

The castle and the siege

Ridgeway's castle was the centre of the early plantation town. During the 1641 rebellion the town was besieged and plundered, and the castle passed into the hands of the Confederate Catholic side. When Cromwell's army swept through, the garrison was shelled from the high ground above the town - Warren Hill, by local account - and forced to surrender. The castle did not survive the century in any useful form. Little of it stands now, but the story is why a small Laois village has a 17th-century military history at all.

A planned 18th-century town

The Square and the two churches

The layout you walk today is largely the Trench family's 18th-century work: The Square at the centre with its Market House, and Church Street and Bride Street running off it. On Church Street, two churches stand side by side, an arrangement locals point out as unusual. St Brigid's, the Catholic church, is a Gothic Revival building of the 1830s with a later steeple, its stained glass attributed to Mayer and Co. of Munich. The 1898 monument on the Square remembers the men who died in the 1798 rebellion.

A garden for seven counties

Heywood and Lutyens

Heywood began as a late-1700s romantic landscape laid out by Frederick Trench - lakes, woodland, follies and long views said to take in seven counties. In the early 1900s Sir Edwin Lutyens added the formal gardens that make the place famous: a sunken garden built around a long elliptical pool with a central fountain, walled and terraced, closed off by a colonnaded loggia with a red-tiled roof and round windows framing the parkland. Gertrude Jekyll is generally credited with the planting. The house burned and was demolished; the gardens, now beside Heywood Community School and in OPW care, are open and free.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

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

Heywood Gardens The reason most visitors come. Start at the Gate Lodge off the R432 a mile from the village; information panels guide you through the Lutyens sunken garden, the loggia, the lakes and the woodland of the older Trench demesne. Free entry, car park, toilets. Open from 8.30am with seasonal closing (later in summer). Uneven ground in the parkland - wear proper shoes. Dogs on leads.

Allow 1 hour, more to wanderdistance

1 hour-plustime

The town heritage walk A short loop of the planned town: The Square with the Market House and the 1798 monument, up Church Street past the two churches standing side by side, and around Bride Street. It is a quiet half-hour and tells you most of what the borough was. Not signposted as a formal trail - read it as you go.

1.5 km loopdistance

30 minutestime

Masslough lake A small lake on the edge of the village, a quiet local spot rather than a marked long-distance walk. Pair it with the swimming pool in summer. Modest, but it is the green on the doorstep.

Short, lakesidedistance

30 minutestime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Heywood is at its best as the parkland greens up and the longer hours start in April. The village is quiet and easy.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Heywood stays open until late evening, the outdoor swimming pool runs June to September, and the Twin Trees painting festival uses the gardens and village in July. The best window.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Woodland colour at Heywood and still-decent opening hours into September. A good quiet visit.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Heywood closes at 5pm and the parkland can be wet underfoot. The village is very quiet. Go for the garden on a crisp day, but do not expect much else open.

◐ 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.

Coming for food or a night out

There is one pub and no restaurant in the village. Eat in Abbeyleix (Morrissey's and others, 10 minutes away) or Durrow, and treat Ballinakill as a heritage and garden stop.

Expecting the castle to still stand

The 17th-century castle is gone bar fragments. The history is real but the building is not there to photograph. Come for the planned town and Heywood, not a ruin tour.

Confusing it with the Galway Ballinakill

The famous Ballinakill Ceili Band of the 1920s and '30s came from a Ballinakill in east Co. Galway, near Loughrea - not this one. Different place, same name.

Getting there.

By car

South Laois on the R432 between Abbeyleix and Ballyragget/Castlecomer. Abbeyleix is about 10 minutes north; Portlaoise and the M7 (junction for Dublin and the south-west) are about 25 minutes north. Free parking at Heywood Gardens off the R432.

By bus

TFI Local Link route 822 (Mountrath to Carlow) and the Slieve Bloom Coaches Town Link (Portlaoise to Borris-in-Ossory) serve the area, but services are limited and rural - check timetables before relying on them. There is no train; the nearest station is Portlaoise on the Dublin to Cork line.