Overview
Ballyduff (Irish An Baile Dubh, ‘the black townland’) is a small village in North Kerry, on the R551 between Ballyheigue and Ballybunion, on hills above Cashen Bay where the River Feale runs out to the sea. About 25 km north of Tralee, it is quiet farming country rather than a tourist town, and its one genuine landmark is just outside it at Rattoo. If you have half an hour here, give it to the round tower and the carvings on it.
Rattoo Round Tower
Rattoo Round Tower is the only complete round tower in County Kerry. It stands beside a graveyard and the remains of an old church on a monastic site traditionally founded by Bishop Lughach, one of the first Christian evangelists in Kerry. The sandstone tower dates to around 1100. The raised doorway carries fine curvilinear moulding with carved spirals. The sheela-na-gig, an explicit female figure used as a protective charm, is on an inner window frame.
Heritage Ireland lists Rattoo as an unguided site for external viewing only, so plan on seeing the tower from outside and check the Heritage Ireland page before you travel. Leave the masonry and graveyard undisturbed.
The North Kerry Museum
The village’s other draw is the North Kerry Museum at Knoppogue North, Ayle, overlooking the Cashen River. It runs from the Mesolithic and Neolithic through the Bronze and Iron Ages to the Christian and Viking eras and on to the 20th century and the Civil War, with rooms on smuggling and piracy, old farming methods, the local great houses, thatched cottages and the land wars. Check its current opening arrangements before you go.
A hurling village in a football county
Ballyduff’s oddest claim to fame: its GAA club won the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship in 1891, trained by James McDonnell, the only time a Kerry team has taken that title in the home of Gaelic football. The village also fields a soccer side, Rattoo Rovers, in the Kerry District League, and a statue in Ballyduff honours the wrestler Steve ‘Crusher’ Casey.
Its history runs darker too. On 1 November 1920, in reprisal for IRA actions against the RIC, the Black and Tans shot a local man, John Houlihan, dead, burned the creamery and torched seven homes in the Abbeydorney area. Two of the area’s three great houses, Rattoo Great House and Bushmount, still stand; Ballyhorgan House was burned in 1920.
Getting to Ballyduff
- By car: on the R551, reached from Listowel or Tralee. Rattoo is signposted just outside the village.
- By bus: Local Link Kerry route 274 stops at Church Square in Ballyduff on the route between Tarbert and Tralee, via Ballybunion, Ballyheigue and Ardfert. Check both directions before setting out.
- Nearby: the beaches and cliffs of Ballybunion, the Kerry Writers’ Museum in Listowel, and the cathedral and round tower at Ardfert are all a short drive.