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KILROSSANTY

CO. WATERFORD · IE

Kilrossanty
Cill Rosanta

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 05 / 05

Cill Rosanta · Co. Waterford

A Comeragh-foothills parish that punches above its weight at football and once hid a hanged highwayman.

Kilrossanty is a parish first and a village second. The village proper — a church, a graveyard, three holy wells dedicated to St. Brigid, and Micilin's Bar at the crossroads — would fit on a postcard. The parish runs from the R676 up into the eastern flank of the Comeragh Mountains and takes in farms, forestry, and a corrie lake that an 18th-century highwayman used as a hideout. The road through it is the Comeragh Drive coming down from Mahon Falls toward Dungarvan, and most cars are passing through on the way to somewhere else.

What makes Kilrossanty worth a stop rather than a passing glance is that the things attached to it are bigger than it is. Crotty's Rock — the lookout above Coumshingaun Lough — is a serious mountain scramble that starts from the Kilclooney Wood car park on the parish road. The GAA club has carried senior football here since 1937, even though it plays its home games at a pitch on the N25 in Lemybrien. And Comeragh House, the big landed mansion outside the village, was occupied from 1964 until his 1976 arrest by a Dutch art collector later convicted as a World War 2 war criminal. None of it is on a brochure. All of it is here.

Population

~150 (village; parish larger)

Walk score

A church, a pub, a pitch up the road — a parish more than a street

Coords

52.1779° N, 7.5448° W

01 / 05

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 parish

Cill Rosanta, under the Comeraghs.

11 km north of Dungarvan on the R676, tucked into the eastern foothills of the Comeragh Mountains. The civil parish is large; the village itself is a church, a pub, a few houses. The life of the place is the parish, not the street.

Stories & lore → 02 Crotty country

The highwayman's lake is up the back of the hill.

William Crotty — robber, rapparee, hanged in Waterford in 1742 — used a corrie lake on the eastern face of the Comeraghs as his lookout. The rock above it still carries his name. The trailhead is on the Kilrossanty road.

Walks & outings → 03 The club

Senior since 1937.

Kilrossanty GAA went up to senior football in 1937 and largely stayed there. Home games are played at Páirc Naomh Bríd in Lemybrien, down on the N25 — the pitch is over the hill from the parish church, which catches outsiders out.

Stories & lore →

02 / 05

The pubs.

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

Micilin's Bar

Thursday-to-Sunday local

Village pub, in the Walsh family since 1880

The pub at the crossroads. Bought by William "Bill Jack" Walsh in 1880 and run by the same family ever since — Joe Walsh has had it since 1989. Now opens Thursday to Sunday rather than seven nights. Under the Comeraghs, on the parish road. The kind of bar where you are the only stranger and nobody minds.

03 / 05

Stories & lore.

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

Hanged in Waterford, 1742

Crotty the highwayman

William Crotty robbed travellers on the Waterford-to-Carrick road in the 1730s and 1740s, hid in the Comeraghs above Kilrossanty, and was hanged at Waterford gaol on 18 March 1742. His main hideout was a cave at the foot of a rock rising sheer from the edge of a corrie lake on the eastern side of the Comeraghs — "Crotty's Lough", "Crotty's Rock", "Crotty's Den" — accessible only by lowering yourself down on a rope. The lake commanded a view across most of south Waterford. The rock still carries the name. The story is half outlaw, half landscape feature, and entirely local.

Senior football since 1937 — but the pitch is in Lemybrien

Kilrossanty GAA

The club won the Waterford junior football title in 1937 and was promoted to the senior grade, where it has spent most of the years since. Home games are played at Páirc Naomh Bríd, the parish pitch — but the pitch is at Lemybrien, down on the N25, several kilometres from the village of Kilrossanty itself. The parish is large, the village is small, and the pitch sits where the parish meets the main road. On a Sunday in summer the cars parked along the verge of the N25 are mostly here for a match.

An explorer's house, a war criminal's hideout

Comeragh House and Pieter Menten

Comeragh House, outside the village, was the family seat of John Palliser, the 19th-century Anglo-Irish explorer (Dublin-born, Trinity-educated) who mapped large parts of western Canada in the 1850s. From 1964 until his 1976 arrest in the Netherlands, the house was occupied by Pieter Menten, a Dutch art collector — tried, and convicted of war crimes committed in Galicia in 1941. The house outlasted both of them. The story tends not to come up in the parish unless you ask.

04 / 05

Things to do outside.

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

Coumshingaun and Crotty's Rock Loop Park at Kilclooney Wood off the R676 north of the village. Up through forestry to Coumshingaun Lough — a corrie lake walled in by near-vertical cliffs — then up onto the ridge, past Crotty's Rock with its lookout view, and back down. Scrambling, exposure, and a head for heights all required. Do it clockwise. Do not do it in cloud.

7.5 km loopdistance

3–4 hourstime

The Comeragh Drive Kilrossanty sits on the signed Comeragh Drive — the scenic loop that links Lemybrien, Mahon Falls, Mahon Bridge and Kilrossanty before dropping back to Dungarvan. Drive it slowly. The Magic Road and Mahon Falls are both on the loop. The village itself is one of the quieter stops.

~50 km loop by cardistance

Half daytime

Mahon Falls from the Kilrossanty road The signed Mahon Falls car park is up the R676 a few minutes from the village. A flat valley track to an 80-metre cascade off sandstone cliffs. The easiest walk in the Comeraghs and the one most cars are here for.

2 km return from car parkdistance

40 mintime

Getting there.

By car

On the R676 between Lemybrien (10 min south on the N25) and Carrick-on-Suir. Dungarvan is 15 minutes by the Comeragh Drive. Waterford City is 35 minutes east. The village is one corner of the parish — the GAA pitch is at Lemybrien, the mountains start out the back.

By bus

No scheduled bus through the village. Nearest service is the Bus Éireann Expressway 40 (Cork–Waterford–Rosslare) on the N25 at Lemybrien, then a 10-minute drive or a long walk.

By train

No train. Nearest station is Waterford (35 min by car).

By air

Cork (ORK) is 90 minutes by car. Dublin is 2.5 hours.