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TUBBERCLARE

CO. WESTMEATH · IE

Tubberclare
Tobar Chláir, Co. Westmeath

The Ireland's Hidden Heartlands
STOP 05 / 05

Tobar Chláir · Co. Westmeath

A village and a parish name on the east shore of Lough Ree, nine kilometres north of Athlone and two north of Glasson.

Tubberclare - Tubberclair on the parish letterhead, Tobar Chláir on the postmark - is a townland and a small village on the N55 between Athlone and Ballymahon. Nine kilometres north of Athlone, two kilometres north of Glasson, on the east shore of Lough Ree. The village itself is a corner: a primary school, a community centre, a heritage centre, a few houses, the kind of place you drive through on the way to somewhere with a kitchen. The parish that takes its name reaches further - south to Glasson, down to Ballykeeran, and out to the lake.

The eating and the sleeping and the pier-going belongs to the neighbours. Tubberclare keeps the school, the parish name, the GAA club, and the older Irish, the well of the plain. The club is what to watch. It sits at intermediate grade most of the time, then a year like 2025 comes round and they take the Westmeath Intermediate, the Under-20 and run all the way to a Leinster final in the same autumn. Out of three small villages on a flat fertile plain by a big lake. That is the shape of the place - the headlines come in clusters and the rest of the time it is the quiet road and the school bell.

There is one piece of real history out on the shore that is worth knowing before you pass through. In 1631 a community of Poor Clare nuns built a convent on the lakeside near here and called it Bethlehem. It lasted barely a decade before the wars caught up with it, and only a few stones survive on private land. But for ten years there was a working convent on the edge of Lough Ree, and the name still clings to the townland. That, and the well, and the football, is Tubberclare.

Population

A small village; the wider parish of Tubberclair runs to a few hundred households

Founded

Parish church first built 1807, present church rebuilt in the 1830s

Coords

53.4942° N, 7.8553° 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

Tubberclair is the umbrella, not the village.

Tubberclair parish covers Tubberclare, Glasson and Ballykeeran. The one parish church, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, stands at Glasson; the parish takes its name from the older townland on the N55. The school and the GAA club still carry the name.

Stories & lore → 02 The well

"Tobar Chláir" - the well of the plain.

The first half of the Irish name is the word for a well. The second half, clár, means a board, or a flat plain, and scholars are not certain which is meant here. The land round Tubberclare is flat and fertile, sloping gently to the lake, which argues for the plain.

Stories & lore → 03 The club

Westmeath intermediate champions, 2025.

Tubberclair GAA draws its players from all three villages of the parish. Senior county champions in 1985, they took the Westmeath Intermediate and the Under-20 Division 1 in the same 2025 season, then ran to a Leinster intermediate final. A good run for a parish this size.

Stories & lore →

02 / 05

Stories & lore.

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

Tobar Chláir

The well of the plain

The Irish name is older than any of the spellings on the road sign. Tobar is a well - there are hundreds of Tubber- and Tober- placenames across the country, every one of them once a holy well or a watering point. Clár is harder. It can mean a board or a plank, which would suggest a covered well. It can also mean a flat plain, which would suggest the well of the plain - and the parish round Tubberclare is exactly that, flat and fertile country sloping gently to Lough Ree. The English spelling has settled, more or less, on Toberclare; the parish itself prefers Tubberclair; the road sign and the postmark argue gently between them.

A Poor Clare convent, 1631-1642

Bethlehem on the lake

In 1630 the English authorities ordered a community of Poor Clare nuns out of their convent at Merchant's Quay in Dublin. The mother abbess, Cecily Dillon, came from a family that held much of the land round Tubberclare, and the nuns retreated west to the quiet east shore of Lough Ree. In 1631 they moved into a new convent on the lakeside and named it Bethlehem. For a decade it grew - by 1641 there were around sixty sisters, enough to found a daughter house on Nuns Island in Galway. Then the war of 1641 reached the midlands. In 1642 the English besieged Athlone, the nuns fled across the lake, and soldiers burned the convent. Only a few stones survive today, on private farmland, along with two pieces said to have been saved from the fire: the tabernacle and a wooden statue of Our Lady of Bethlehem. The townland still carries the name.

Tubberclair GAA, 1985 and 2025

A village in three villages

The Gaelic football club is named for the parish, not the village. It draws on Tubberclare, Glasson and Ballykeeran together - three small places on the same stretch of the N55, none of them big enough on their own. They won the Westmeath senior championship in 1985, sat at intermediate for most of the years that followed, and in 2025 took the Westmeath Intermediate Championship and the Under-20 Division 1 in the same season, then ran through Leinster as far as the provincial intermediate final. The point of the club is the parish - the thing that holds the three villages together when the road would otherwise pull them apart.

03 / 05

Things to do outside.

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

The Goldsmith Trail (Glasson loop) The signed Goldsmith Trail runs through the parish, taking in Glasson village two kilometres south and the country Oliver Goldsmith knew as a boy. From Tubberclare you join it at Glasson. Quiet lanes, the lake never far off. Bring the map; the waymarking is honest rather than lavish.

Various; the loop through Glasson is a few kmdistance

1 to 2 hourstime

Lough Ree shore at Ballykeeran The lake itself is reached through the neighbours - Ballykeeran six kilometres south has the marinas and the slips down to the inner lakes. Tubberclare sits up on the plain above the water; for the shore proper you drop down to Glasson or Ballykeeran. The reward is the wide flat light off Lough Ree.

Short walks to the waterdistance

30 to 60 minutestime

04 / 05

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Looking for a village centre

Tubberclare is a townland, a school, a community centre and a parish name more than a street of shops. The pubs, kitchens and piers are down the road at Glasson and Ballykeeran. Come for the name and the history; do the eating and sleeping next door.

Hunting the Bethlehem ruins

Only a few stones of the 1631 convent survive, and they are on private farmland. The story is worth knowing and the townland name carries it, but there is no signed site to visit. Respect the boundaries.

Getting there.

By car

Athlone to Tubberclare is 9 km on the N55 north, about twelve minutes. Glasson is 2 km south of the village; Ballymahon is twenty minutes further north. Mullingar is around forty minutes east.

By bus

No regular village stop. Local Link routes between Athlone and Ballymahon pass along the N55; check the current schedule. A taxi from Athlone is the usual answer.

By train

Athlone station, on the Dublin to Galway and Dublin to Westport lines, is the nearest, about twelve minutes away by taxi.

By air

Dublin Airport is around 1h 45m by car. Shannon is about 1h 15m. Ireland West (Knock) is about 1h 30m.