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COOLDERRY

CO. OFFALY · IE

Coolderry
Cúl Doire, Co. Offaly

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 07 / 07

Cúl Doire · Co. Offaly

A roadside village of eighty people that happens to be the most successful hurling parish in Offaly, with Leap Castle and Gloster House on the doorstep.

Coolderry is a roadside village in south Offaly, eight kilometres north of Roscrea and eleven kilometres south of Birr, with the Slieve Bloom rising to the east. The village itself has a population of around eighty. The Irish name, Cúl Doire, means the corner or back of the oakwood - a memory of forest cleared centuries ago for the tillage and grazing land that surrounds the place now. Administratively it sits in the civil parish of Ettagh, in the old barony of Clonlisk.

What there is in the village: a Roman Catholic church, Coolderry National School, a community hall, and a GAA pitch. That is the honest inventory. There is no hotel, no restaurant strip, no heritage centre, and on the day of writing no pub I can confirm trading in the village itself - Birr and Roscrea are where you go for that. This is a working parish, not a visitor destination, and it does not pretend otherwise.

What makes Coolderry worth knowing is out of proportion to its size. For a village of eighty people it is the most decorated hurling parish in the county, and within a few kilometres you have Leap Castle, the most notorious tower house in Ireland, and Gloster House, the grandest Georgian house in Offaly. You would not base a holiday here. But if you are working the south Offaly backroads between Birr and Roscrea, it is a name worth slowing down for.

Population

~80 (village); 433 in Ettagh ED, 2006

Coords

53.0000° N, 7.7833° 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 hurling

Coolderry GAA - 31 Offaly senior hurling titles and a Leinster club crown.

A village of eighty people that has won the county senior hurling championship thirty-one times, more than any other club in Offaly, plus the 2012 Leinster Senior Club title. The pitch is the heart of the parish. On a championship Sunday the population multiplies.

Stories & lore → 02 The castle

Leap Castle, billed as Ireland's most haunted, is in the parish.

The O'Carroll tower house at Leap, with its Bloody Chapel and the oubliette that gave up three cartloads of bones, sits a few kilometres south on the R421. It is a private home, opened for occasional tours. Not a turnstile attraction - check before you drive out.

Stories & lore → 03 The land

Slieve Bloom to the east, the Tipperary line to the south.

Open tillage and grazing country at the southern edge of Offaly, the Slieve Bloom rising to the east and the border with Tipperary a short run south towards Roscrea. Gloster House, Offaly's finest surviving eighteenth-century house, is down the road.

Stories & lore →

02 / 07

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
Coolderry Lodges	Self-catering lodges, 1 km from the village	Three self-catering lodges converted from farm buildings dating to 1796, on a working tillage farm a kilometre outside the village and close to Gloster House. Willow, beef cattle, bees and hens on the land, country walks from the door. A quiet rural base for the Slieve Bloom, Birr and Roscrea rather than a hotel - bring your own supplies, the nearest towns are the ones with the shops.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

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

Coolderry GAA, since the 1880s

A village of eighty that wins county finals

Coolderry GAA dates to the early 1880s, in the first wave of clubs after the GAA was founded in 1884, and was involved in what records note as the first official inter-club match in Offaly, against Drumcullen in 1893. Hurling is the religion. The club has taken the Offaly Senior Hurling Championship thirty-one times, more than any other club in the county, and in 2012 won the Leinster Senior Club Hurling Championship. For a parish of this size that is a remarkable tally, and it explains why the pitch, not the church or the crossroads, is the true centre of the village.

The O'Carroll stronghold

Leap Castle and the Bloody Chapel

A few kilometres south, on the R421 towards Roscrea, stands Leap Castle - built by the O'Bannon clan as Léim Uí Bhanáin and later the seat of the ruling O'Carrolls. Its history is genuinely grim: in a sixteenth-century feud one O'Carroll brother, a priest, was cut down at the altar by his rival mid-Mass, in the room since called the Bloody Chapel. Early twentieth-century renovations uncovered a hidden oubliette, a spiked pit behind the chapel wall, said to have held enough bones to fill three carts. The castle now markets itself as the most haunted in Ireland. It is a private residence opened for occasional tours rather than a daily attraction, so check ahead.

The Lloyd estate, since 1639

Gloster, Offaly's great Georgian house

Just down the road, over towards the Tipperary side, is Gloster House - the county's most important surviving eighteenth-century house. Thirteen bays wide and two storeys high in blue-grey limestone, it was built for the Lloyd family around 1720, with the design sometimes attributed to Edward Lovett Pearce. The gardens, with a canal, a lime avenue, terraces descending to a small lake and a pedimented arch flanked by obelisks, are the real draw. Sold in 1958 and run for decades as a convent and nursing home, the house fell into disrepair until a sympathetic restoration brought it back. It now operates as an events and wedding venue and opens for Heritage Week tours.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

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

Slieve Bloom from the eastern foothills The Slieve Bloom rises to the east of the village and the range is laced with waymarked trails - Glenbarrow, the Slieve Bloom Way, the loop walks above Kinnitty and Cadamstown. None start in Coolderry itself; you drive to a trailhead. The mountains are the genuine walking country in this corner of Offaly, low, boggy, quiet, and almost never crowded.

Various, half daydistance

Half daytime

Coolderry backroads The lanes around the village run through working tillage and grazing land towards the Tipperary line. Flat, quiet, good for a slow turn on foot or by bike between the village and Gloster, with the Slieve Bloom always on the horizon. Farm traffic and no footpaths - walk with the same care you would on any Irish country road.

Flexibledistance

1 hour plustime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The Slieve Bloom greens up and the trails dry out, the backroads are at their best, and the place is quiet. Good walking and driving weather without the bog underfoot of winter.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings for the mountain trails and the Gloster gardens, and Heritage Week in August is the most reliable window for a Gloster House tour. Hurling championship begins to build towards autumn.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

County hurling championship season - if Coolderry are in it, this is the one time the village is genuinely busy, and worth timing for. The Slieve Bloom turns colour.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days, the mountain trails wet and the bog heavy, Leap Castle and Gloster mostly closed to casual visitors. Little reason to be here unless you are visiting people.

◐ 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.

Turning up at Leap Castle expecting an open door

It is a private home, not a daily visitor attraction. Tours run occasionally and must be arranged. Driving out on spec means looking at it from the road. Worth seeing, but plan the visit.

Looking for a village to base a holiday in

Eighty people, a church, a school, a hall and a pitch. No hotel, no restaurant, no confirmed pub in the village. Base yourself in Birr or Roscrea and treat Coolderry as a name on the way through.

Getting there.

By car

On the R421 in south Offaly. From Birr, about 11 km south. From Roscrea, about 8 km north. From Tullamore, roughly 45 minutes north. Narrow regional roads through farmland - Leap Castle and Gloster House are signposted off the same routes.

By bus

No bus serves the village directly. Local Link Tipperary route 854 (Roscrea to Nenagh) runs through nearby Shinrone and Moneygall; for connections you make your way to Roscrea or Birr.

By train

Nearest station is Roscrea (about 8 km south, in Co. Tipperary) on the Ballybrophy to Limerick line, which connects to the Dublin to Cork main line at Ballybrophy. Two trains each way Mon-Sat. Sparse - most visitors drive.

By air

Shannon (SNN) is the nearest airport, roughly an hour south-west. Dublin (DUB) is about two hours north-east on the M7/M6 corridor.