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BALLINDINE

CO. MAYO · IE

Ballindine
Baile an Daighin

The Ireland's West
STOP 04 / 04

Baile an Daighin · Co. Mayo

A village on the N17 between Claremorris and Tuam, with a Davitts jersey on the wall.

Ballindine is a small village on the N17 in south Mayo, sitting on the Galway border in flat farming country the locals call the Plains of Mayo. Four hundred and sixty-eight people at the last count. Claremorris is six kilometres north, Tuam fifteen south, and the road between them runs straight through the middle of the village like a ruler.

It is, plainly, a commuter village now. The Western Railway Corridor used to stop here — Ballindine station opened in 1894 and closed in 1963, and the line is still there, mostly silent, occasionally promised back. The cattle and sheep fair has run monthly since the 1960s. There was a Gooseberry Festival in July up until 2002, commemorating an older fair tradition that nobody in the village under fifty really remembers.

What the village has is ground. Michael Davitt, who founded the Land League and broke the back of Irish landlordism, was born in Straide twenty kilometres up the road, and the local GAA club takes his name. Sabina Coyne, wife of President Michael D. Higgins, comes from here. So does former Labour leader Pat Rabbitte. None of that gets you a brochure. It does mean the parish has produced more than its share of people who went out and argued for a living.

Don't make a detour for Ballindine. Do stop if you're driving the N17 between Galway and Sligo and want a pint somewhere honest. The Borderline on Main Street is the obvious one — sponsors the Davitts jerseys, does an all-day breakfast for €7.50, and the regulars will tell you exactly how the football is going.

Population

468 (2022)

Pubs

2and counting

Walk score

Main Street end-to-end in five minutes

Founded

Parish of Kilvine; fair tradition since the 1960s

Coords

53.6667° N, 8.9550° W

01 / 04

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 road

The N17 runs straight through it.

Over ten thousand vehicles a day pass the door. The old Sligo–Galway road — the same one The Saw Doctors sang about — is the village's main street, for better and worse.

Stories & lore → 02 The club

Davitts GAA, named for the man.

The Ballindine–Irishtown club takes its name from Michael Davitt, founder of the Land League, born up the road in Straide. Intermediate County and Connacht champions in 2011.

Stories & lore → 03 The plains

South Mayo, on the Galway border.

Flat farming country — the Plains of Mayo, locally — with Claremorris six kilometres north and Tuam fifteen south. Cattle and sheep fairs still happen monthly.

Getting there →

02 / 04

The pubs.

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

The Borderline Bar

Locals, GAA

Pub & food, Main Street

Seven-day licensed premises in the middle of the village. Sponsors the Davitts GAA jerseys. Food daily 10am–6pm — all-day breakfast €7.50, lunch from €9.50. The pub the team comes back to after a match.

O'Brien's

Quiet, regulars

Pub, Main Street

The other pub on the street. Smaller, quieter, the kind of place where the same five men have been on the same five stools since approximately the parish split from Kilvine. Good pint.

03 / 04

Stories & lore.

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

Why the GAA jerseys say what they say

Davitt's club, Davitt's idea

Michael Davitt was born in Straide, twenty kilometres north-east of Ballindine, in 1846 — the second year of the Famine. His family was evicted when he was four. He lost an arm in a Lancashire cotton mill at eleven. He came back to Mayo in 1879 and founded the Irish National Land League, which over the next decade broke the landlord system in Ireland through rent strikes and the original boycott. The Davitts GAA club — Ballindine and Irishtown combined — carries the name because the parish considers him theirs. The club won the Intermediate County Championship and the Connacht Intermediate Championship in 2011. The Borderline puts the team photos on the wall.

Western Railway Corridor, 1894–1963

The station that closed

Ballindine station opened on the Galway–Claremorris line in April 1894 and shut in June 1963 in the great sweep of branch-line closures that took half the railways in the west of Ireland. The track is still there. Successive governments have promised the Western Rail Corridor will reopen. Some sections — Ennis to Athenry — have. The Claremorris stretch through Ballindine has not. The village has been waiting sixty years and is in no particular hurry to stop.

The road in the song

The N17

The Saw Doctors are from Tuam, fifteen kilometres south. The N17 they sang about — stone walls and the grass is green — is the road through Ballindine's main street. Over ten thousand vehicles a day. Half the village's economy is people stopping for petrol, a sandwich, a paper. The bypass debate has been running for two decades. The pub regulars have firm views, mostly contradictory.

Getting there.

By car

On the N17 between Claremorris (6km north, 8 minutes) and Tuam (15km south, 15 minutes). Galway city is 50 minutes; Knock airport 25 minutes; Castlebar 30 minutes.

By bus

Bus Éireann 64 (Galway–Derry) and the Citylink Galway–Sligo run along the N17 and stop in the village on request. Several services daily.

By train

Nearest station is Claremorris (10 minutes by car), on the Dublin–Westport line. The old Ballindine station has been closed since 1963.

By air

Ireland West Airport Knock (NOC) is 25 minutes north up the N17. Galway and Shannon are both within 90 minutes.