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BLUE BALL

CO. OFFALY · IE

Blue Ball
An Phailis, Co. Offaly

The Ireland's Hidden Heartlands
STOP 07 / 07

An Phailis · Co. Offaly

A crossroads village named after its own pub, and the field that hosts Ireland's biggest one-day show.

Blue Ball is a small crossroads village nine kilometres south-west of Tullamore, where the N52 to Birr crosses the R357. On the map and in the records it is Pallas - An Phailis in Irish, the townland name - in the civil parish of Killoughy. But almost nobody calls it that. The village is called Blue Ball after the pub that has traded at the crossroads since 1897, one of those Irish places where the public house came first and the settlement took its name from the sign over the door.

Most of the year it is exactly what it looks like: a junction, a pub, a scatter of houses, and Pallas Lough sitting quietly to the east. There is no tourist infrastructure, no shops trading on the name, no reason for a coach to stop. It is farming country, the flat fertile middle of Offaly, the kind of place that does its living away from the road.

And then there is the second Sunday in August. The Tullamore Show - despite the name - is held here, on the Butterfield Estate at Blueball, and on that one day around sixty thousand people descend on the village for the biggest one-day agricultural show in the country. Livestock, machinery, home industries, show-jumping, the lot. The next morning the field is empty again and Blue Ball goes back to being a crossroads with a pub.

Population

<200

Pubs

1and counting

Coords

53.2167° N, 7.6167° 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 name

The pub came first. The village took its name.

The official townland is Pallas - An Phailis in Irish. But the place is known as Blue Ball, after the Blue Ball pub that has stood at the crossroads since 1897. The pub named the village, not the other way round.

Stories & lore → 02 The Show

60,000 people, one Sunday in August, one field.

The Tullamore Show - the biggest one-day agricultural show in Ireland - is held not in Tullamore but here, on the Butterfield Estate at Blueball, on the second Sunday of August. For one day the quiet crossroads is the busiest place in the Midlands.

Stories & lore → 03 The crossroads

Where the N52 meets the R357.

Blue Ball is a junction with a pub, a few houses and the lough behind it. It is the place you pass through between Tullamore and Birr, or on your way to the Slieve Bloom. A working rural village with one good reason to stop.

Getting there →

02 / 07

The pubs.

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

The Blue Ball

Roadside local, since 1897

Bar & restaurant at the crossroads

The pub that gave the village its name, trading at the N52 crossroads since 1897. Smaller-looking from the road than it is inside. Does food as well as drink, catering for locals and for motorists passing between Tullamore and Birr. This is the one pub in Blue Ball - say so plainly - and on Tullamore Show day it is the busiest bar in the county.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

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

Blue Ball, since 1897

The pub that named the village

The Blue Ball pub has stood at this crossroads since 1897, run in its early years by the Lawless family. The English name of the whole village derives from it - the official townland is Pallas (An Phailis), but the pub sign was the landmark travellers knew, and over time the place simply became Blue Ball. It is a clean example of how a great many Irish placenames really happened: not from saints or chieftains, but from the nearest inn. The pub still trades as a bar and restaurant on the N52.

Second Sunday in August, on the Butterfield Estate

The Tullamore Show

Ireland's largest one-day agricultural show is held at Blueball, not in Tullamore. The first Tullamore show dates back to 1840; it lapsed and was revived more than once, and in its modern form has run since 1991. It settled on the Butterfield Estate at Blueball, about five kilometres from Tullamore town, where it now draws crowds of sixty thousand and more - in recent years closer to seventy. Livestock and equestrian classes, the FBD National Livestock Show, seven hundred trade stands, home industries, vintage, fashion and food. For three hundred and sixty-four days Blue Ball is a quiet crossroads. On the second Sunday in August it is the centre of rural Ireland.

A medical officer's house, c. 1910

The Killoughy Dispensary

At Pallas, in the village, stands the former Killoughy Dispensary - a detached two-storey house built around 1910 as the local medical officer's residence with a dispensary attached at the rear. Pebbledashed walls picked out with red brick, gabled bays front and back. It is a private house now, but it is listed on the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage for its social as much as its architectural interest: for decades this was where the rural poor of the parish came for medical care. An ordinary building that did important work.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

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

Pallas Lough A small fishing lake just east of the village, within Killoughy parish. Quiet water, a few anglers, the flat Offaly farmland around it. No marked trail as such - this is a local lough rather than an amenity - but the back roads around it make an honest rural walk.

2-3 kmdistance

30-45 minutestime

Lough Boora Discovery Park Not in Blue Ball but a short drive west: a reclaimed Bord na Mona bogland turned into a 2,000-hectare park, with around fifty kilometres of walking and cycling trails, large-scale land-art sculptures, mesolithic history and serious birdlife. The proper outdoor day-out of the area. Bring a bike if you have one.

up to 50 km of trailsdistance

half a daytime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Quiet, green, the back roads at their best. The Slieve Bloom and Lough Boora are nearby and uncrowded. The village itself is sleepy - that is the appeal.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The one date that matters is the second Sunday in August - the Tullamore Show, when sixty thousand people fill the Butterfield Estate. If you want the show, book a bed in Tullamore months ahead. If you want quiet, come any other day.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Mild and quiet again once the show has packed up. Good walking weather at Lough Boora.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days and flat damp Midlands weather. The pub keeps going; little else does. Pass through rather than plan around it.

◐ 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 to explore

Blue Ball is a crossroads, a pub and a lough. There is no main street, no heritage trail, no cluster of shops. Come for the pub, the show or as a stop on the way to somewhere - not for a wander.

Looking for it under Pallas

The townland is Pallas (An Phailis) and that is what appears in some records and on logainm, but signs, the pub and locals all say Blue Ball. Don't drive in circles looking for two separate places.

The Tullamore Show every weekend

It is one day - the second Sunday of August. The rest of the year the Butterfield Estate is a private farm and the field is empty. Check the date before you build a trip around it.

Getting there.

By car

Tullamore to Blue Ball is about 9 km south-west on the N52, roughly 12 minutes. The village sits where the N52 meets the R357. Birr is around 30 km further south-west on the N52. Dublin is about 100 km north-east, roughly 1 hour 30 minutes.

By bus

No dedicated village bus service. Tullamore, 9 km away, is the nearest town with Bus Eireann and Local Link connections; Local Link covers the rural roads of west Offaly.

By train

No station. The nearest is Tullamore (about 12 minutes by car) on the Dublin-Galway line, with services to Dublin Heuston, Athlone and Galway.

By air

Dublin Airport (DUB) is about 1 hour 45 minutes by car. Shannon (SNN) is around 1 hour 20 minutes south-west.