POSTED FROM

CURRAGHBOY

CO. ROSCOMMON · IE

Curraghboy
An Currach Buí, Co. Roscommon

The Ireland's Hidden Heartlands
STOP 07 / 07

An Currach Buí · Co. Roscommon

A small village in the yellow marsh, fourteen kilometres northwest of Athlone, with one pub, a folk museum of 7,500 things, and one of the great club football teams in the country.

Curraghboy is a small village in south County Roscommon, fourteen kilometres northwest of Athlone on the R362 regional road. The Irish name An Currach Buí means "the yellow marsh" - the land here was wet ground before it was drained into fields. It sits in the civil parish of Cam, barony of Athlone, in the flat middle of the country that the tourist board now calls Ireland's Hidden Heartlands.

It has the essentials of a small place and not much more: one public house, two grocery shops, St Brigid's Roman Catholic church, a national school, and an indoor handball alley. That is the village. The road carries traffic between Athlone and the smaller centres to the north, and Curraghboy is where the road slows down to pass through.

Two things give it more weight than its size suggests. The Derryglad Folk and Heritage Museum, built up over decades by the Finneran family, holds well over 7,500 objects of Irish rural life and is a genuine reason to stop. And the parish feeds St Brigid's GAA, the club from Kiltoom, Curraghboy and Brideswell that won the All-Ireland club football title in 2013 - a remarkable thing for a place this small to have done.

Do not come expecting a destination. Come if you are driving the R362, want a proper look at how rural Ireland actually lived, and do not mind that the pub is currently a prefab. The folk museum is the morning. The pint is the afternoon. That is Curraghboy, and it is honest about it.

Population

A small village; no separate census figure is published

Coords

53°29'02"N 8°06'36"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

An Currach Buí - the yellow marsh.

Wet ground before it was fields. The townland runs to about 300 hectares in the civil parish of Cam, barony of Athlone, fourteen kilometres northwest of the town on the R362. South Roscommon, the flat middle of Ireland, Hidden Heartlands on the brochure.

Stories & lore → 02 The museum

Derryglad - one family, 7,500 objects, 250 years of rural life.

The Finnerans built a folk and heritage museum out of a lifetime of collecting. Village shop, schoolroom, kitchen, butter churns, farm machinery, Croke Park memorabilia. The reason most outsiders ever turn off the R362.

Stories & lore → 03 The football

St Brigid's - All-Ireland club champions, 2013.

The GAA club drawn from Kiltoom, Curraghboy and Brideswell. Nineteen Roscommon titles, six Connacht, and on St Patrick's Day 2013 the All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championship, won with Frankie Dolan's last-minute point. The handball alley is here in the village.

Stories & lore →

02 / 07

The pubs.

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

McDermott's Bar

The one pub, holding on

Village pub, currently a prefab

The only pub in Curraghboy. The original premises burned in May 2018 and it has been trading from a temporary prefab building in the village since, with the rebuild still working through planning. Do not arrive expecting an old-world snug - arrive expecting a local that refused to close. That is the whole story of the place in one pint.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

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

250 years of rural life, collected

Derryglad, one family, 7,500 things

The Derryglad Folk and Heritage Museum just outside the village is the work of the Finneran family, who spent decades gathering the objects of vanished rural Ireland and built a museum to hold them. The collection runs past 7,500 items: a reconstructed village shop, a schoolroom, a farmhouse kitchen, butter churns, ploughs and tractors, dairy gear, household tools, and a wall of Croke Park and GAA memorabilia. It is not a slick visitor centre - it is one family's life's work, guided in person, and it is the better for it. There is a garden and a seating area if you brought a flask. It is the one thing that pulls outsiders off the R362, and it earns it.

A small parish, a national title

St Brigid's, All-Ireland champions

St Brigid's GAA was affiliated in 1944, drawing players from the parishes of Kiltoom and Cam - the villages of Kiltoom, Curraghboy and Brideswell. The club has won the Roscommon Senior Football Championship nineteen times and the Connacht club title six times. The peak came on St Patrick's Day 2013, when St Brigid's beat Ballymun Kickhams 2-11 to 2-10 in the All-Ireland Senior Club Football final, the winning score a last-minute point from Frankie Dolan. The club produced Frankie Dolan, Senan Kilbride, Karol Mannion and the goalkeeper Shane Curran among others. The pitch is at Kiltoom; the indoor handball alley is here in Curraghboy. For a scattering of small villages to hold a national title is the kind of thing the GAA exists to make possible.

McDermott's Bar, since 2018

The pub that burned

McDermott's Bar was the village pub until a fire shortly before one o'clock at the end of May 2018 gutted the premises and the hair and beauty salon next door. Nobody was hurt. Since then the pub has carried on trading from a prefab in the village while the rebuild works its way through the planning system - by early 2024 the council was refusing to extend the original permission. So the social heart of Curraghboy is, for now, a temporary building. It still pours a pint. It is a small, honest illustration of how a one-pub village holds on to its one pub.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

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

The village and the museum There is no marked loop here - this is a working farming village, not a trailhead. The walk is the village itself: the church, the school, the handball alley, the shops, and out the road to Derryglad. Allow well over an hour once the museum has you, because a personal guided tour of 7,500 objects does not get hurried.

2 km returndistance

45 minutes plus the museumtime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The land greens up and the museum is open for the season. Mild and quiet. A good time to combine Derryglad with a run up the R362.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Peak season for the folk museum and the safest bet for finding it open. Long evenings for the wider south Roscommon and Lough Ree country around it.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Quiet, fine for a museum visit. County football is in full swing if you want to follow St Brigid's.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days and not much open. Check the museum is taking visitors before you drive out - it runs on a season, not all year. The pub keeps going.

◐ 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.

Treating it as a destination

Curraghboy is a one-pub farming village on a regional road, not a day out in itself. The honest plan is Derryglad museum plus a pint, slotted into a wider drive through south Roscommon. Set the expectation right and the place delivers.

Turning up at the museum unannounced in winter

Derryglad runs on a season and on a family's time, not nine-to-five all year. Phone ahead, especially outside the summer, or you will drive out the R362 to a locked gate.

Looking for the GAA pitch in the village

St Brigid's play at Kiltoom, not Curraghboy. What is in the village is the indoor handball alley. Do not show up here on a championship Sunday expecting a stadium.

Getting there.

By car

Athlone is 14 km southeast on the R362; the village sits on that road. From the M6 motorway, come off at Athlone and head northwest. The R362 is the slow north-south route through south Roscommon, not a fast road - which is rather the point.

By bus

No frequent scheduled service through the village. Local Link Roscommon runs rural routes in the area; check current timetables. In practice this is a place you reach by car.

By train

The nearest station is Athlone, on the Dublin to Galway and Dublin to Westport lines, about 14 km away. From there it is a taxi or a lift.

By air

Dublin Airport (DUB) is about two hours by road via the M6. It is the realistic option for international visitors; Athlone is roughly the midpoint of the country.