Ballygawley - Baile Uí Dhálaigh, the townland of the Ó Dálaigh family - is a small village about nine kilometres south of Sligo town, set under the hills where the Ballygawley Mountains run off the eastern end of the Ox range. The N4 to Dublin passes close to the west. It shares its anglicised name with a larger village in Co. Tyrone, but the two are unrelated.
It is a genuine small village rather than a commuter dormitory pretending to be one: two pubs, two shops, a hairdresser, a post office, a petrol station and a takeaway, a community park with a lit walking track, and a couple of local sports clubs. The 2022 census counted 285 people. What pulls a visitor off the road is what sits around it - Union Wood and Ballygawley Lake to the north, the cairn-topped mountains to the south, and Castle Dargan on its 170 acres just outside.
The real surprise is overhead. Four Neolithic passage-tomb cairns sit on the summits of the Ballygawley Mountains - Cailleach a Bheara (the Hag's House), Sliabh Daeane, Sliabh Dargan and Aghamore Far - built four to five thousand years ago and almost entirely unvisited. There is no car park, no interpretive panel, no coffee. Just a hill, a cairn, and the whole of Sligo Bay laid out below if the day is clear.
Use Ballygawley as a walking base and an honest pint. Sligo town is fifteen minutes north for everything else; the Lough Gill drive and the Yeats hinterland open out to the east. There is no reason to walk the village street itself - the walking is up in the woods and on the hills.
Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.
Named for the Ó Dálaigh family, a learned bardic line active across medieval Ireland. Not to be confused with the larger Ballygawley in Co. Tyrone, which is a different place with the same anglicised spelling.
Stories & lore → 02 The skylineThe Ballygawley Mountains, an outlier of the Ox range, carry passage-tomb cairns on Cailleach a Bheara, Sliabh Daeane, Sliabh Dargan and Aghamore Far. Older than the pyramids and almost nobody walks up to them.
Stories & lore → 03 The honest takeTwo pubs, two shops, a petrol station, a takeaway, a community park. The reason to stop is the walking in Union Wood and the lake, and the pint in Kelly's after. Sligo town does the rest.
Skip →None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:
The pub people send you to in Ballygawley - a straightforward village bar, the obvious place for a pint after a walk in Union Wood or off the hills. There is a second pub in the village as well; Kelly's is the one that gets named.
| Place | Type | Local note | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Castle Dargan | Hotel, golf & spa resort, Tully Beg | Just outside the village on 170 acres, opened in 2005, with a woodland golf course designed by Darren Clarke and the ruins of an 18th-century castle house on the grounds. The four-star option in the immediate area - weddings, golf breaks, spa. Five minutes from the village, fifteen from Sligo town. | |
The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.
Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.
There is no bad time. There are different times.
Union Wood comes into leaf and the hill views are clearest. Good walking weather without the midges.
Long evenings for the woods and the lake. The Ballygawley Music Festival runs in July (an over-18s event founded in 2019). A useful, quiet base for Sligo day trips.
The oak woodland at Union Wood is at its best in the turning light. Late-September visibility from the hill cairns is hard to beat.
Short days and wet hill ground. The lit community-park track and a pint in Kelly's are the realistic winter options; the cairns can wait for spring.
If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.
Different village, different county, different road. If you are heading for the GAA grounds or the A4 in Co. Tyrone, you are in the wrong province.
There is no formal trail, car park or signage to the mountain passage tombs. They are open hill. Read them from below unless you are a confident, properly shod hill walker.
Two pubs, and Kelly's is the one to use. For a night out, Sligo town is fifteen minutes north.
Sligo to Ballygawley is about 15 minutes via the N4 and the local roads (R284 / R290) that meet at the village. Collooney is a few minutes south-west.
Bus routes 566 and 572 serve the village, stopping near the petrol station. Local Link covers the rural runs; frequency varies by day.
No station in the village. Sligo MacDiarmada is about 15 minutes north and runs the line to Dublin Connolly.
Ireland West Airport Knock (NOC) is about an hour by road. Dublin is roughly 2h 45m.