Killinierin is a village you'd drive past if the road went through it, which the N11 does not - it sits four kilometres west, a turn off the main road towards Inch and the hills. Two-seventy people at the last count. A church, a school, a graveyard with the Esmondes in it, and the lanes climbing west into the foothills of Croghan.
What the place has is its name - wood of the iron - and a mountain on the skyline that had its fifteen minutes in 1795 when a gold rush broke out on its lower slopes. The Esmonde family of Ballynastragh ran the parish from the big house for three centuries until the anti-Treaty IRA burned it down in March 1923. The house is gone. The plaque inside the chapel still lists them with the other benefactors. The country goes on like that.
Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.
The locals spell it Kilanerin and have done for generations. The signpost says Killinierin. Same place. The iron in the name is older than either spelling.
Stories & lore → 02 The churchSt Peter and Paul's, gothic, paid for in part by the Esmondes of Ballynastragh. E.W. Pugin and George Ashlin did the design - the same office that did half the catholic churches in Leinster after Emancipation.
Stories & lore → 03 The mountainCroghan Kinsella is the hill on the skyline. In 1795 a peasant found gold in a stream off it and the country lost its head for a summer. The crown took the workings over. The hill is still up there.
Stories & lore →The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.
There is no bad time. There are different times.
Lambs in the fields up the Croghan road. Long evenings start in April.
The lanes are at their best. The Owenavorragh and the local streams fish well after rain.
Quiet, golden, the kind of light you stop the car for. Croghan turns colour from the top down.
Short days, wet lanes, nothing much open. Pass through unless you live nearby.
If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.
There isn't one. It's a chapel, a school, and a graveyard at a crossroads. Don't drive in expecting shops.
It's only 606 metres but the cloud comes down fast on the open ground up top. Pick a clear day or pick a different walk.
Off the N11 between Gorey and Arklow - take the Inch exit and west for 4 km. Gorey is 12 km south, Arklow 10 km north.
Nearest Bus Éireann stop is on the N11 at Inch. Local Link 383 (Gorey-Aughrim) passes through some days - check the timetable.
Nearest station is Gorey, 15 minutes by car. Then taxi or lift.