Tallanstown, Baile an Tallúnaigh, Co. Louth

Baile an Tallúnaigh · Co. Louth

A small Glyde-side village with a ruined Plunkett seat and a Tidy Towns trophy.

Tallanstown is a small one-pub village on the R171, thirteen kilometres south-west of Dundalk and ten minutes east of Ardee, sitting on the north bank of the River Glyde. About six hundred and seventy people, a Catholic church from around 1780 dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, a national school of 1840 (now the community hall), and a stone bridge over a river that knew its way to the sea long before there was a road on either side of it.

The history of the place is the Plunketts of Louth Hall. A branch of the Anglo-Norman Plunkett family - different cousins from those at Beaulieu - settled here by the late 15th century. Oliver Plunkett was created Baron Louth by Henry VIII in 1541. The Plunketts held the title and the tower house at Tallanstown for the next four hundred years. The big Georgian house wrapped around the original tower in about 1760, with Richard Johnston adding a ballroom and Gothic windows in 1805, and the family lived there until the 14th Baron sold up after the 1903 Wyndham Land Act and decamped to Jersey. A fire in 2000 took the plasterwork and the interiors. The shell is still there.

The other big house in the parish is Knockabbey, five minutes up the road - a tower house of 1399, Georgian wing, Gothic flourishes, and the eleventh-century water gardens that Cyril O'Brien took on in 1998 and brought back from a hundred years of sleep. It opens seasonally. If Louth Hall is the warning of what happens when a country house loses its purpose, Knockabbey is the second chance.

Don't come for a checklist. Tallanstown is where you stop on the way between Ardee and Dundalk for a quick pint at Smyth's, half an hour at Knockabbey gardens, and a look at the ruined hall. One night here, two nights in Carlingford or Ardee. The Tidy Towns silverware is on display in the community hall; the village earned it by behaving the way villages used to.

Population

~674 (2016)

Pubs

1and counting

Walk score

Two pints of conversation across the bridge

Founded

Plunkett tower house at Louth Hall, late medieval

Coords

53.9196° N, 6.5479° 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 Louth Hall

Four hundred years of Plunkett baronage, ruined since 2000.

On the edge of the village, a long Georgian house wrapping around a 14th-century tower. Oliver Plunkett was made Baron Louth here by Henry VIII in 1541. The 14th Baron sold up after the 1903 Wyndham Act. Fire took the interiors in 2000. A landlord's house, derelict.

Stories & lore → 02 Knockabbey

A 14th-century tower house with eleventh-century water gardens.

Five minutes north of the village, a tower house from 1399 with a Georgian wing and a Gothic doorway. The water gardens in the demesne are reckoned among the finest of their date in Ireland. Restored from 1998 by the O'Brien family. Open seasonally.

Walks & outings → 03 The river

On the Glyde, on the R171.

The River Glyde runs through the village, under the bridge, and out to Annagassan and the sea twenty kilometres east. Trout water in summer. The village won National Tidy Towns in 2010 - Lisrenny demesne, the Catholic church of 1780, and a single-pub Main Street.

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:

Smyth's Louth Arms

Single, settled, local

Village pub on Main Street

The pub of the village. Run for years by the Smyth family. Wood, mirrors, a back lounge, a fire in the cold months. The kind of bar where the regulars remember every face, and a stranger gets two minutes of polite quiet before someone asks where they are from. Pints, no pretensions, occasional music.

A note on choice

There is one pub

Tallanstown has one operating bar. Reaghstown is a couple of kilometres north and has another. For more options, ten minutes either direction puts you in Ardee (Brian Muldoon's, Boylan's) or Castlebellingham (the Bellingham Castle bar). Plan accordingly.

Five minutes in Reaghstown

Crossroads bar

Country pub

A short drive north on small country roads brings you to a single-pub crossroads at Reaghstown. Quieter again than Tallanstown, useful if Smyth's is closed for whatever reason a one-pub village closes.

Ten minutes in Ardee

More choice

Town bars

If you want a session, a bigger crowd, or food with the pint, drive ten minutes west to Ardee. Brian Muldoon's on Bridge Street, Boylan's on Market Street, and the Railway Bar all do the job Tallanstown's one bar can't.

03 / 09

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
Knockabbey tearooms	Seasonal tearoom in the gardens	€	Open during the gardens' summer season. Sandwiches, cake, tea. Not a destination meal but the right place to sit on a warm afternoon when you have given the water gardens an hour. Check opening times before you drive out.
Smyth's Louth Arms	Pub plates	€	Bar food at the village pub when the kitchen is on, which is not every day. Toasties, soup, the occasional Sunday roast. Phone first.
Five minutes in Ardee	Town restaurants	€€	For dinner, drive to Ardee. Nosh on Market Street for the day-time sit-down, Brian Muldoon's for fish or steak in the evening. The reliable local options that Tallanstown's size doesn't support on its own.
Fifteen minutes in Castlebellingham	Country-house dining	€€€	Bellingham Castle does a hotel restaurant for a country-house dinner if you want the Saturday-night plate. Ten minutes east on the country roads or the R166 down to the N52. The kind of place you book for an occasion, not a stop.

04 / 09

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
Country B&Bs around Tallanstown	Farmhouse B&Bs	A handful of small B&Bs and farmstays in the townlands around the village - Lisrenny, Reaghstown, Mansfieldstown. Not in the village itself; you will be looking up by townland not by street. Quiet, often working farms, breakfast at a kitchen table.
Bellingham Castle, ten minutes east	Country-house hotel	The proper stay within easy reach of Tallanstown is across at Castlebellingham. A Plunkett-built castle (a different Plunkett - these were the Bellinghams) turned country-house hotel, weddings, restaurant, the kind of place to spend a weekend if you have a wedding to go to or a wedding-grade reason to be there.
Ardee or Carlingford for a base	Better-served towns	Tallanstown is better treated as a stop than a base. Sleep in Ardee (Hatch's Castle, Railway Bar B&B) for the inland Boyne run, or in Carlingford (Ghan House, McKevitt's) for the coast and the Cooley. Drive in for the morning at Knockabbey.

05 / 09

Stories & lore.

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

Four centuries of Barons Louth

The Plunketts of Louth Hall

The Plunketts came over with the Anglo-Norman wave under Henry II - Sir Hugh de Plunkett the original. A branch settled at Tallanstown by the late 1400s. In 1541 Henry VIII created Oliver Plunkett the first Baron Louth, and the family held the barony from then until the 20th century. The original tower house at Louth Hall was 14th century; the big Georgian wrap-around went up around 1760; Richard Johnston added a ballroom with a bow window and inserted Gothic windows into the old tower in 1805. The 14th Baron sold most of the estate after the 1903 Wyndham Act, the family eventually retreating to Jersey, and the house was destroyed by fire in 2000. The shell still stands at the edge of the village. A landlord's house outliving its landlord, slowly.

A garden that fell asleep for a century

Knockabbey water gardens

Knockabbey Castle started as a tower house in 1399, defending the north-west corner of the Pale. Georgian and Gothic wings followed. The water gardens in the thirty-acre demesne are reckoned among the most important examples of their date in Ireland - eleventh-century origins, layered through every century since, and entirely overgrown by the late 20th century. Cyril O'Brien bought the place in 1998 and started a long restoration with help from the Great Gardens of Ireland Restoration Fund. The tulip tree in the small arboretum is one of the largest in the country. The gardens open seasonally - check before you drive out.

Older history in the parish

The motte and the standing stones

Long before the Plunketts, this stretch of the Glyde valley was lived in. The Record of Monuments and Places notes the ruins of a motte-and-bailey castle in the Louth Hall townland - earlier still than the tower - and a scatter of standing stones and enclosures across the surrounding townlands of Lisrenny, Mansfieldstown and Reaghstown. The medieval landlords built on top of older ground. The pattern of the parish is older than any wall in it.

The trophy in the community hall

Tidy Towns 2010

Tallanstown won the National Tidy Towns competition in 2010 - the small-village category that pits one stretch of road, one pub, one church and one community hall against every other parish in the country. The trophy is on display in the old national school of 1840, now the community hall. The village earned it by mowing verges, painting railings, planting tubs and arguing politely with the council for two decades. Mention it in the pub if you want a long answer.

06 / 09

Things to do outside.

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

Knockabbey Castle gardens Inside the demesne, which is the only walk on this list you actually pay for. The water gardens, the tulip tree, the tower house from outside. Open in season - typically May to September on selected days. Phone or check the Knockabbey site before you drive over from Tallanstown village.

2 km loopdistance

1.5 hourstime

Glyde river walk From the bridge in the village, follow the riverbank west along the Glyde where it is walkable. Trout water, herons, the back of the Louth Hall demesne, the kind of small-river path that is empty most days of the year. Wellies after rain.

3 km returndistance

1 hourtime

Louth Hall demesne (from the road) Walk the public road past the gates of the ruined house and along the demesne wall. The hall itself is private property and not safe to enter - fire damage, structural issues - but the wall, the stable yard glimpses, and the parkland trees over the wall give you the scale. A landlord's mile in fifteen minutes.

1 kmdistance

30 mintime

Five minutes south to Ardee Tallanstown's natural neighbour for an afternoon out. Drive ten minutes west to Ardee, walk the Market Street castles loop, eat at Nosh, and come back via the country roads through Mansfieldstown. Combine the two villages on one day rather than treating them as separate trips.

10 km drivedistance

Half a day with the walk in towntime

07 / 09

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The Glyde is full, the demesne hedges break into hawthorn, and Knockabbey reopens for the new season. Quiet roads. The single pub does its best trade after a Saturday football match in Ardee.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Knockabbey water gardens at their fullest, long evenings, the Glyde shallow enough to walk into in waders. Tidy Towns season - the village is at its most photographable in July.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

October light on the Louth Hall stone is properly bleak, in the way that ruined houses earn their atmosphere. Knockabbey closes mid-September - go early in the season if the gardens are the reason you're coming.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Knockabbey shuts. Short days. Smyth's stays open, and so does the bridge. A wet Saturday with the Louth Hall shell looming through bare trees is honest Tallanstown. Drive carefully - the country roads in and out are narrow.

◐ 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.

Trying to get inside Louth Hall

The hall is a fire-damaged ruin on private land. It is not safe and it is not open to the public. Walk the public road past the gates, photograph it from the verge, and leave it at that. The owners are aware of the visitor traffic; do not push it.

Knockabbey out of season

The gardens are seasonal. Outside the published opening months you will get a closed gate at the end of a long driveway and no view of the water gardens. Ring ahead or check the Knockabbey site before you drive over.

Looking for a restaurant in the village

There isn't one. Tallanstown's economy supports one pub and a community hall, not a sit-down dinner. Ardee is ten minutes west and Castlebellingham is fifteen minutes east. Plan dinner there.

Getting there.

By car

Dublin to Tallanstown is 1h 5m on the M1 to junction 14 (Dunleer/Ardee), then west on the N33 to Ardee and east on the R171. From Dundalk it is twenty minutes on the N52 and R171. Belfast is 1h 15m via the A1/M1 and Dundalk.

By bus

Local Link operates a limited weekday service between Ardee, Tallanstown and Dundalk; check the Local Link Louth-Meath-Fingal timetable. No Bus Éireann service stops in the village.

By train

No train. Nearest station is Dundalk on the Belfast-Dublin Enterprise line, twenty minutes north-east. Drogheda is forty minutes south.

By air

Dublin Airport (DUB) is 1 hour by car. Belfast International (BFS) is 1h 15m. Most visitors fly into Dublin.

Next on the tour

Co. Louth

Ardee

Ten minutes west on the R171. The market town with two surviving castles on Market Street and proper restaurants. The natural base if Tallanstown is a stop on the day.

Co. Louth

Louth

Ten minutes north on small roads. The village that gave the county its name, with St Mochta's 12th-century oratory and the ruined Augustinian friary. A natural pairing on the inland Louth loop.

Co. Louth

Castlebellingham-Kilsaran

Fifteen minutes east on the country roads. Bellingham Castle as a country-house hotel, the planned village around it, and the coast a few minutes further on at Annagassan.

Co. Louth

Knockbridge

Seven kilometres south-west, out where the Tain ends - the standing stone Cu Chulainn lashed himself to, in a field beyond the village.