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BALLYKNOCKAN

CO. WICKLOW · IE

Ballyknockan
Buaile an Chnocáin, Co. Wicklow

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 07 / 07

Buaile an Chnocáin · Co. Wicklow

Wicklow's granite village - the stone cut here built half of public Dublin, and the quarrymen built the village out of the off-cuts.

Ballyknockan is a granite village, and it means it more literally than most places that use the phrase. In 1824 a body of stonecutters - by tradition some four hundred of them, led by a man called Olligan - came over the hill from the worked-out quarry near Manor Kilbride and opened the granite face above this spot on the western edge of the Wicklow Mountains. They stayed. They cut stone for Dublin and they built their own houses, walls, gateposts and laneways out of the same grey-speckled granite. The result, two hundred years later, is a village that looks carved rather than built.

The stone went everywhere. Ballyknockan granite is in the Museum Building at Trinity, in St Andrew's on Westland Row, in the Fusiliers' Arch at the top of Grafton Street, in Butt Bridge, in repairs to the Customs House and the old Parliament House on College Green. At its 1838 height the village had four hundred people and a hundred and sixty of them working the rock. By 1838 standards that is a one-industry town, and the industry was hard, dusty and dangerous.

The water came in 1940. The ESB dammed the Liffey at Poulaphouca, flooded the valley below the village, and gave Leinster its biggest reservoir and Dublin a good part of its drinking water. Ballyknockan sits above it at 220 metres, so the village did not drown - it got a view instead. The lake is flat and open in a way the wooded valleys of east Wicklow are not, and the road in from Valleymount runs along granite-walled laneways the masons left behind.

Come for the stone and the quiet. There is one pub, a heritage museum that opened in 2024, the granite-walled lanes, and the reservoir below. The quarrying did not entirely stop - the McEvoy family has worked the rock here since the 1860s and there are still working masons on the site. That is the rare thing about Ballyknockan. It is a heritage village where the heritage is still being made.

Population

227 (2016)

Pubs

1and counting

Founded

Quarrying village from 1824

Coords

53.1058° N, 6.4978° W

01 / 07

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 stone

A whole village built out of the granite it cut for everyone else.

From 1824 the quarries above the village sent dressed granite to Dublin - Trinity's Museum Building, the Fusiliers' Arch on Stephen's Green, churches, bridges, the Customs House repairs. The masons built their own houses and walls from the same stone. It is the most coherent stone-built village in west Wicklow.

Stories & lore → 02 The water

On the western shore of Poulaphouca Reservoir.

The valley below the village was flooded in 1940 when the ESB dammed the Liffey for hydro power and Dublin water. The result is the largest reservoir in Leinster, twenty square kilometres of it, with the village sitting up at 220 metres looking down on the open water and the Wicklow hills behind.

Walks & outings → 03 The trade today

Still a working stone village, with a museum to prove it.

The quarries marked their bicentenary in 2024 and the Ballyknockan Quarries Heritage Museum opened that May. Stonemason workshops are still on the site - the McEvoy family has cut here since the 1860s. This is not a fossilised heritage village. The chisels still go.

Stories & lore →

02 / 07

The pubs.

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

D.J. Cullen Lake View Lounge

Family-run, the only pub for miles

Village pub, overlooking the reservoir

The sole pub in Ballyknockan, and a good one - family-run, set among the granite-walled laneways with the Blessington Lakes below to the north and west. A full menu of home-cooked food at weekends, live music at weekends with name acts passing through, and the kind of place that caters the local wedding and christening. If you came to Ballyknockan, you came here for the pint. There is no second option, and after a look at the view from the door you will not want one.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

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

1824, four hundred stonecutters

The granite that built public Dublin

The quarries opened in 1824 when stonecutters left the exhausted face at Golden Hill near Manor Kilbride and came to the granite above Ballyknockan. For the next century and a half this was the most important source of cut granite blocks for Dublin's public buildings. The list is long and specific: the Museum Building at Trinity College (1853 to 1857), St Andrew's Church on Westland Row, St Francis Xavier's on Gardiner Street, the Fusiliers' Arch at St Stephen's Green (1907), Butt Bridge, Dun Laoghaire railway station, and repair stone for the Customs House and the old Parliament House on College Green. The men who cut it could not afford to live in the buildings their stone went into - but they built themselves a village out of the same rock, and that is what survives.

McEvoy, 1865 to now

Two hundred years, and still cutting

Christopher McEvoy registered a quarry here in 1865 and his descendants were still cutting stone into the present. The quarries marked their bicentenary in 2024, and in May of that year the Ballyknockan Quarries Heritage Museum opened on the site, with stone-cutting demonstrations and guided tours during Heritage Week. Working stonemason workshops remain on the site. Among the names tied to the village trade: Patrick Olligan, the original operator who died in 1853; the McEvoy family across eight generations; and John Doyle, a stonemason and brass-band leader who carved a replica of the Glendalough high cross for the 1907 Irish International Exhibition. The skill did not move to a museum. The museum was built around the skill.

Ballyknockan in the 1880s

The brass band and the one-day house

A quarrying village of this size threw off more than stone. The Ballyknockan Brass Band, going from the 1880s into the 1950s, was reckoned one of the best in Ireland - it played at Carton House in Kildare and marched in Dublin commemorations. In May 1887, during the Land War, the village answered the threatened eviction of a woman named Biddy Mulvey by building her a new house in a single day, complete with a working chimney, so the agents would find a finished home rather than an empty plot. Both stories tell you the same thing about the place: a community that worked with its hands and acted together.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

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

The granite village lanes The village itself is the walk. Granite-walled laneways, lime-mortared stone houses, gateposts and outbuildings all cut from the same rock the masons sent to Dublin. Take it slowly and read the stone. The Heritage Museum on the quarry site is the anchor - check Heritage Week for stone-cutting demonstrations and guided tours of the working quarries.

1.5 km loopdistance

30-45 minutestime

The reservoir shore road The lakeside road links the granite villages of the western shore - Ballyknockan, Valleymount and Lacken - around the open water of Poulaphouca. It is a cyclist's road as much as a walker's: flat by Wicklow standards, with the reservoir on one side and the hills behind. The Blessington Greenway proper runs on the far side from Blessington town to Russborough House, but this western shore is the quieter half.

Variabledistance

Half a day by biketime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The reservoir light is good and the hills behind the village green up. Late May is the anniversary window for the quarries and the museum - worth checking what is on.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings on the western shore, water activity on the reservoir, and the pub doing weekend music and food. Heritage Week in August is the time for quarry tours and demonstrations.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Quiet, clear light on the granite and the open water. The best time if you want the village more or less to yourself.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

At 220 metres and exposed to the reservoir, it can be cold and bare. The pub keeps the place alive but daylight is short. Pick a clear day or wait for spring.

◐ Mind yourself

06 / 07

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

Expecting a tourist village

Ballyknockan is a working stone village of a couple of hundred people, not a visitor centre with car parks and gift shops. There is one pub and a heritage museum. That is the offer, and it is honest. Come for the stone, the lanes and the lake, not for a day out built around you.

The KnockanStockan festival

The independent music festival that ran near here from 2007 wound up after 2019. It is not on. Do not arrive looking for it.

Confusing it with the Blessington side

Most reservoir visitors stay on the eastern, Blessington shore - Russborough House, the Greenway trailhead, the larger town. Ballyknockan is the quiet western shore. Different drive, different feel. The crowds are over the water.

Getting there.

By car

Blessington to Ballyknockan is about 15 minutes: south on the R758 lakeside road and around the western shore of the reservoir via Valleymount. Dublin is around 40 km - roughly an hour by car. The village sits up at 220 metres on the western shore, reached on granite-walled local roads.

By bus

There is no village bus service. Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus run to Blessington (route 65 from Dublin); from there you need a car or local lift for the last stretch around the lake. Local Link covers parts of west Wicklow but does not put you at the door.