Drumraney
Droim Raithne

The Ireland's Hidden Heartlands
STOP 03 / 03

Droim Raithne · Co. Westmeath

A ridge of ferns, a small church, and a parish that turns out for a Sunday football match.

Drumraney is a small rural parish in south-west Westmeath, set on a low ridge above the bogland that runs south toward the Shannon. The name in Irish is Droim Raithne — the ridge of the ferns — and the parish itself is older than the village core that grew around the church and the GAA pitch. There is no main street to speak of. There is a road, a church on the rise, a national school, a club ground, and a few houses set back behind hedges. The country either side is farms.

What Drumraney has is a GAA history older than most. Sides under the Drumraney name lifted the Westmeath Senior Football Championship in 1920, 1926 and 1946, when the parish boundaries fed several reorganisations. The club on the ground today is Maryland GAA, founded in 1957 and intermediate champions of Westmeath in 1980 and again in 2008. On a Sunday in summer the cars line both verges of the road for half a mile and the parish doubles in population for ninety minutes. The rest of the week it is what it looks like: a quiet country place that gets on with itself, with the church on the rise and the bog at the back of the houses.

Population

A few hundred across the parish

Walk score

A church, a hall, a pitch — three minutes end to end

Coords

53.4222° N, 7.8131° W

01 / 03

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 St Brigid's

The Catholic church on the rise.

The parish church sits on the small ridge that gives Drumraney its name — Droim Raithne, the ridge of the ferns. The Roman Catholic parish of Drumraney pairs with Tang a few kilometres west.

Stories & lore → 02 The club

Maryland GAA, with deep Drumraney roots.

The pitch and clubhouse are the social centre as much as the sporting one. The current club is Maryland GAA, founded 1957 and twice intermediate champions of Westmeath. Drumraney sides under earlier names had a senior football run in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.

GAA history → 03 The hinterland

A rural parish, scattered townlands.

Drumraney is less a village than a parish — a church, a hall, a school, a pitch, and a network of small townlands strung along the back roads between Moate and Ballymahon.

Onward stops →

02 / 03

Stories & lore.

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

A parish that has played football under several names

Drumraney and Maryland

The parish has fielded football teams since the early decades of the GAA. Sides under the Drumraney name lifted the Westmeath Senior Football Championship in 1920, 1926 and 1946, when parish boundaries and club arrangements shifted with the decades. The current club is Maryland GAA, founded in 1957 and twice winners of the Westmeath Intermediate — 1980 and 2008. The pitch is on the road into the village. On a Sunday with a championship game on, you will not find a parking space within half a mile of it.

A patron and a place-name

St Brigid's and the parish

The Catholic church in the village is dedicated to St Brigid, one of the three patron saints of Ireland and the figure most attached to the midlands and the Curragh. The Roman Catholic parish of Drumraney is paired with the neighbouring parish of Tang — one priest, two churches, one of the standard arrangements in rural Westmeath since the post-Famine consolidations. The parish records here, like most in the diocese of Meath, run back into the early nineteenth century and are the first port of call for anyone tracing midlands family back through the National Library digitisations.

Getting there.

By car

Moate to Drumraney is about 15 km north-west on the back roads via Tang — allow 20 minutes. Athlone is 25 km south-west, around 30 minutes. Mullingar is 40 km north-east, allow an hour on the smaller roads. The village sits a few kilometres off the N55 Athlone–Ballymahon road; the turn is signposted but easy to miss.

By bus

There is no regular village bus service. The nearest scheduled routes run on the N55 corridor between Athlone and Longford — closer to Tang and Ballymahon than to Drumraney itself. In practice, you drive.

By train

No station. The nearest are Athlone (on the Dublin–Galway line) and Mullingar (on the Dublin–Sligo line). From either, it is car or taxi the rest of the way.