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ENFIELD

CO. MEATH · IE

Enfield
An Bóthar Buí, Co. Meath

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 09 / 09

An Bóthar Buí · Co. Meath

A coaching inn that became a railway town that became a motorway town, now leaning on the Royal Canal for a reason to stop.

Enfield sits in the south-western corner of Meath, hard against the Kildare border, on the old road west out of Dublin. It has always been about the route rather than the place. In ancient times the Slighe Mhór, one of the five great roads of Ireland, ran through here on its way between Dublin and Galway and on toward Tara. In the 1730s the Dublin-Mullingar coach road was built and a wayside inn, the Royal Oak, gave the settlement its first name, New Inn. The Bridge House bar is said to stand on the site, thatched until the 1940s.

Then came the Royal Canal, reaching Enfield around 1807, and the railway, which opened to the town on the 2nd of July 1847. For a small place it had an unusual amount of infrastructure pointed at it, all of it built to carry people and goods somewhere else. Barrington's Hotel grew up beside the station to catch the railway trade. None of it was ever really about stopping in Enfield.

That is the honest centre of the town. In December 2005 the M4 motorway opened a bypass and the constant stream of cars that had defined Main Street for generations simply went around. What was left was a commuter town - the 2022 census counted 3,663 people, up from 3,239 in 2016 - and the question of what to do with itself. The answer has been the canal. The Royal Canal was reopened for navigation in 2010, the greenway came through in 2021, and the amenity park, harbour and slipway on the western edge are now the town's open-air room.

Come for an hour on the towpath, not for a day in the town. Enfield will feed you, water you and put you up well enough - it has a serious country-house hotel just outside it and a clutch of pubs - but it does not pretend to be a destination. It is a junction that learned to sit still. If you want the canal, the castles of the Pale and the Boyne Valley are within easy reach, and Dublin is thirty-five minutes back down the motorway.

Population

~3,663 (2022)

Walk score

Main Street to the canal harbour in ten minutes

Founded

Coaching inn settlement on the Dublin-Mullingar road, c. 1735

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 The name

An inn, then Innfield, then Enfield by an Englishman's mistake.

It began as the Royal Oak coaching inn on the road west, which made the place New Inn, then Innfield. A postmaster who came from Enfield in London late in the 19th century used the spelling he knew, and it stuck. The Irish name, An Bóthar Buí, the yellow road, came from the mud on the main street.

Stories & lore → 02 The water

The Royal Canal runs through it, and the greenway runs with it.

There is a harbour, a slipway and an amenity park on the western side of town, with coarse fishing and a flat towpath. The Royal Canal Greenway runs 130 km from Maynooth to Cloondara in Longford, opened in March 2021, and Enfield is one of its access points.

Walks & outings → 03 The bypass

The M4 took the traffic in 2005. The town is still working out what it kept.

For two centuries Enfield was a place you passed through, first by coach, then by car. The motorway bypass opened in December 2005 and the through-traffic vanished overnight. What remains is a commuter town on the Dublin-Sligo rail line with a canal it has chosen to make the most of.

Stories & lore →

02 / 09

The pubs.

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

The Bridge House

On the site of the old inn

Town-centre bar

Held to stand where the original Royal Oak coaching inn stood, the building that gave the town its name and kept a thatched roof into the 1940s. A working Main Street bar now rather than a heritage attraction, but the location is the story. The natural first stop if you want a pint with a sense of where you are.

Harnan's Bar

Family-run, music on Monday nights

Traditional thatch pub, Rathmolyon (a short drive)

Not in Enfield itself - it is out at Rathmolyon, a few minutes north - but it is the pub locals send you to. A genuine thatched country bar run by the Harnan family across three generations, with a live traditional session on Monday nights. Players from Lankum and others have turned up in its short-film fame. Worth the detour if a sing-song is what you are after.

03 / 09

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
Fire & Salt	Restaurant at The Johnstown Estate	€€€	The fine-dining room at the country-house hotel just outside town. The proper night-out option in the area, with the Coach House Brasserie alongside it for something more relaxed. You are paying hotel-restaurant prices, but it is the best table within easy reach of Enfield.
Main Street eateries	Cafes, takeaways and pub food	€-€€	The town carries the usual run of a commuter village: a couple of cafes, takeaways and pubs doing food. Functional and fine for a stop off the canal or the motorway. Nothing here you would make a special journey for, and the town is honest enough not to claim otherwise.

04 / 09

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
The Johnstown Estate	4-star country-house hotel & spa	The one real reason to book a bed in Enfield. A Georgian house of the 1750s set in 120 acres just outside town, with 128 rooms, 40 self-catering lodges, an award-winning Elemis spa with thermal suite and rooftop, a 20-metre pool and two restaurants. Thirty-five minutes from Dublin and the airport, which makes it a popular wedding and spa-break address. Book well ahead for summer weekends.
Local B&Bs and guesthouses	Rooms and self-catering	A handful of smaller guesthouses and B&Bs serve the town and the canal walkers. Perfectly adequate, but most people doing the greenway either stay at the Johnstown Estate or base themselves in a larger town and drive out to the towpath.

05 / 09

Stories & lore.

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

A coaching inn that named a town

From Royal Oak to Enfield

Before the road there was nothing much; after it, an inn. The Dublin-Mullingar coach road of the 1730s needed a stop, and the Royal Oak inn became one, lending the growing settlement the names New Inn and then Innfield. The change to Enfield is usually pinned on a postmaster who arrived from Enfield in north London late in the 19th century and used the spelling familiar to him. The Irish form, An Bóthar Buí, the yellow road, is older and more local, said to come from the yellow mud churned up on the main street by coach and cart. The Bridge House bar is held to stand on the site of the original inn, which kept its thatch until the 1940s.

1807, 1847, 2005

Canal, rail and the long habit of passing through

Enfield's whole history is transport infrastructure built to move people elsewhere. The Royal Canal arrived around 1807, part of the Dublin-to-Shannon trade route that was finished in 1817. The Midland Great Western Railway opened its line as far as Enfield on the 2nd of July 1847, in the middle of the Famine. Barrington's Hotel rose beside the station to serve the trains and ran until 1959. Then the M4 bypass opened in December 2005 and took the road traffic away in a single stroke. Passenger trains still call on the Dublin-Sligo line, the canal has been restored for navigation since 2010, and the greenway opened along the towpath in 2021 - the same routes, finally being used to bring people to Enfield rather than past it.

Poet of the emigrant, 1868 to 1943

Teresa Brayton and the Old Bog Road

Teresa Brayton was born in 1868 at Kilbrook, just over the Kildare line from Enfield, and trained as a teacher before emigrating to America, where she spent most of her adult life in Boston, Chicago and New York. She is remembered for one poem above all the rest: The Old Bog Road, first printed in her 1913 collection Songs of the Dawn and later set to music, a lament of the Irish emigrant who cannot get home for a parent's death. She returned to Ireland for good in 1932 and died in 1943 in the same Kilbrook room where she had been born. A seven-foot Celtic cross stands over her grave, raised by Enfield Muintir na Tíre, and the local Comhaltas branch is named in her honour.

06 / 09

Things to do outside.

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

Royal Canal towpath, Enfield harbour Start at the harbour and amenity park on the western side of town and walk the towpath in either direction. It is flat, surfaced and part of the Royal Canal Greenway, so you share it with cyclists. Coarse anglers work the harbour stretch. The further you go from the town the better it gets - hedgerow, still water and the odd lifting bridge. Turn back when you have had enough.

4-6 km return, choose your owndistance

1-1.5 hourstime

Enfield to Blackshade Bridge A longer canal stretch heading east toward Kilcock, taking in the quiet Blackshade Bridge crossing. The Irish Times has written this one up as a go-walk. Mostly level greenway, good underfoot, very little to interrupt it. Bring water; there is nothing to buy once you leave the harbour.

~8 km returndistance

2 hourstime

07 / 09

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The towpath is at its best in mild dry weather and the canal hedgerows green up. The town itself is quiet. This is the season the walk is the point.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings for canal walking and cycling, the greenway busy with day-trippers, the Johnstown Estate full of weddings. Book the hotel ahead at weekends.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Clear days, low golden light on the water, fewer people on the towpath. Probably the best season for the canal if you want it to yourself.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Cold, wet and dark, and the towpath turns muddy. The hotel spa is the obvious indoor answer; the town gives you little reason to be out of doors.

◐ 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.

A full day in the town itself

Enfield is a commuter town that learned to live without its through-traffic. It is not a destination in its own right. Come for an hour on the canal, a meal or a spa night, then move on. Without the towpath as your reason, your time is better spent elsewhere in Meath.

Looking for a heritage core

The Royal Oak inn is long gone, the railway hotel closed in 1959, and the old road is now the R148 with the motorway swinging round it. The history here is one of routes rather than monuments. Read the canal and the rail line, not a preserved old town, because there is not one to find.

Getting there.

By car

Dublin to Enfield is about 35 minutes on the M4 west; the town sits just off it on the R148, the old N4 line. Trim and the Boyne Valley are a short run north; Kildare and the Pale castles are south.

By bus

Bus Éireann route 115 (Dublin-Mullingar-Athlone) and Citylink route 763 call at Enfield, giving regular links to Dublin and the midlands.

By train

Enfield station is on the Dublin-Sligo line, with commuter services to Dublin Connolly. Passenger trains were restored here in 1988 after a long gap; the line itself first reached the town in 1847.