Ballinea, Béal an Átha, Co. Westmeath

Béal an Átha · Co. Westmeath

Five kilometres west of Mullingar, where the canal goes flat and the bridge goes sideways.

Ballinea is a townland and a few houses on the R390 about five kilometres west of Mullingar, where the road and the Royal Canal cross paths and a small harbour sits behind a hawthorn hedge. The name is Béal an Átha - the mouth of the ford - older than the canal by some centuries. The 1837 topographical dictionary counted eighteen houses and a hundred and nine people. The modern numbers are folded into Mullingar's rural fringe and the village itself, by any honest reckoning, is well under two hundred souls.

What it has is the canal. Ballinea sits on the long summit pound of the Royal Canal - the flat run between Mullingar Harbour and the 26th lock at Coolnahay, three kilometres further west. No locks here, no aqueducts, no flight of steps in the water; just the towpath, the bridge, and a small harbour with a picnic bench. The bridge itself is the thing worth slowing for. It is one of only two skew bridges on the whole canal, built on a slant because the road and the water refused to meet at a right angle. Stone-laid courses that lean a few degrees the wrong way to anyone used to looking at bridges. Once you see it you cannot unsee it.

Don't make a special trip. Make Ballinea a stop on a longer canal day - walk or cycle the greenway out from Mullingar, look at the bridge, eat your sandwich at the harbour, push on west to Coolnahay or back into town for the pint. That is the size of it, and that is enough.

Population

Under 200 (rural townland; counted with Mullingar Rural)

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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 skew bridge

One of only two on the Royal Canal.

The original Ballinea Bridge crosses the canal at an angle, not a right angle - a stone-mason's puzzle solved in courses that lean. There is one other like it on the whole 146 km of the Royal Canal. Almost nobody stops to look.

Stories & lore → 02 The summit pound

The flat bit at the top of the canal.

From Mullingar Harbour west to Lock 26 at Coolnahay the canal does not climb or fall - it just runs level for about 11 km. Ballinea sits in the middle of that pound, with a small harbour and a picnic table.

Walks & outings → 03 The village

A junction, a pub-shaped distance from anywhere.

A scatter of houses on the R390, a bridge over the canal, a hand-painted sign or two. The shops and the train station are five kilometres back in Mullingar. Ballinea is somewhere you arrive at on a bike, not on purpose.

Getting there →

02 / 04

Stories & lore.

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

Two on the whole canal

The skew bridge

The Royal Canal has 146 kilometres of waterway and only two skew bridges - bridges built on a slant because the road they carry crosses the canal at something other than a right angle. Ballinea Bridge is one of them. The mason's trick is to lay each course of stone on a helical line so that the arch can twist while still standing up; it is the kind of problem that took canal-age engineering to solve and modern road-builders to forget. The original 1810s structure is still in use. Walk down to the harbour, look up at the underside of the arch, and you can see the courses tilt.

Why there is no lock here

The summit pound

The Royal Canal climbs out of Dublin through twenty-five locks, reaches its summit at the western edge of Mullingar, and then runs level - the summit pound - for about eleven kilometres before the 26th lock at Coolnahay starts the long fall down to the Shannon. Ballinea is on that pound. The summit was reached in 1806; Coolnahay and the descent followed three years later when the lock cuttings were finished and the canal could finally push west into Longford. For a boatman heading from Dublin to the Shannon, Ballinea is the point at which the work of climbing is over and the work of dropping has not yet begun. For a walker today it is the same idea: the flattest stretch of the whole canal, easy on the knees.

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Things to do outside.

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

Royal Canal Greenway - Mullingar Harbour to Ballinea Start at Mullingar Harbour, head west along the towpath. Flat the whole way - you are on the summit pound. Belmont Bridge is the first crossing, then the canal swings south-west into open country and Ballinea Bridge appears. Picnic at the harbour, then either turn back or push on to Coolnahay.

~5 km one-waydistance

1 hour walk / 20 min cycletime

Royal Canal Greenway - Ballinea to Coolnahay West from the bridge along the level towpath to the 26th lock at Coolnahay, where the canal stops being flat and starts dropping toward the Shannon. The least-walked stretch of the Westmeath greenway. Quiet enough to hear the wind in the reeds.

~3 km one-waydistance

40 min walk / 12 min cycletime

Mullingar-Coolnahay round trip The whole summit pound, out and back, with Ballinea Bridge and the harbour in the middle. Bike makes more sense than feet for this one. There is nothing to buy at either end except the cafés in Mullingar, so carry water.

~22 km returndistance

4-5 hours walk / 1h 30m cycletime

Getting there.

By car

Mullingar to Ballinea is 5 km west on the R390 - about 8 minutes. Athlone is 50 minutes south-west on the N52. Dublin is 1h 15m on the M4 and N4.

By bus

No regular bus service stops in Ballinea itself. Bus Éireann routes from Mullingar run on the R390 through to Multyfarnham and Castlepollard but Ballinea is small enough that you would do better to drive, cycle the greenway from Mullingar, or walk it.

By train

Mullingar station (Sligo line from Dublin Connolly) is the nearest, 5 km east. Walk or cycle the canal in from there - it is the obvious way to arrive.