Ballybeg
Townland in the civil parish of Croghan, barony of Philipstown Lower, Co. Offaly; in Irish An Baile Beag
- Area
- 375.1 ha
- 927 acres
- Land parcels
- 21
- registered freehold, median 72,767 m² (7.28 ha, 17.98 acres)
- Zoning
- —
- not in a zoned settlement
- Planning
- 4
- applications since 2010
Land parcels
Registered freehold land, Tailte Éireann
21 registered freehold parcels lie mostly in Ballybeg, from 30 m² to 2,022,943 m² (202.29 ha, 499.88 acres). The dashed line is the townland's boundary; 18 neighbouring parcels touch it.
Download the townland: DXF, in Irish Transverse Mercator metres, with its boundary, parcels and buildings; GeoJSON or KML.
Zoning
Development plans, national zoning
No zone of a development plan covers Ballybeg in the national zoning. Outside zoned towns and villages, the county development plan's rural policies apply to each application.
Source: Tailte Éireann and the Department of Housing (MyPlan), national zoning, CC BY 4.0.
Planning applications
Sites that touch the townland, newest first
13 Mar 2026Conditional
the construction of a single storey dwelling and a domestic garage and a waste water treatment system and a vehicular entrance and all associated site works
Permission, 1 home · Offaly County Council, 2660131
11 Apr 2023Conditional
CONSTRUCTION OF A SINGLE STOREY DWELLING AND A DOMESTIC GARAGE AND A WASTEWATER TREATMENT SYSTEM AND A NEW SITE ENTRANCE AND ALL ASSOCIATED SITE WORKS
Permission, 1 home · Offaly County Council, 23158
24 Mar 2023N/a
THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SINGLE STOREY DWELLING AND A DOMESTIC GARAGE AND A WASTE WATER TREATMENT SYSTEM AND A NEW SITE ENTRANCE AND ALL ASSOCIATED SITE WORKS
Permission · Offaly County Council, 23127
20 Sept 2021Conditional
THE CONSTRUCTION OF A DWELLING AND A DOMESTIC GARAGE AND A WASTEWATER TREATMENT SYSTEM AND A VEHICULAR ENTRANCE AND ALL ASSOCIATED SITE WORKS
Permission, 1 home · Offaly County Council, 21577
Source: National Planning Applications, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Applicants are not shown.
Nature and heritage
Designated sites and recorded monuments
Designated sites
No designated site (Special Area of Conservation, Special Protection Area, Natural Heritage Area or proposed one) touches the townland of Ballybeg.
Recorded monuments
- OF010-004007 Ritual site - holy well
Description
Two spring wells (OF010-004006-) marked on all eds. of the OS 6-inch maps as Glenmore Holy Wells. Situated on the NE side of Croghan Hill, burial mound (OD010-004001-) on summit of Croghan Hill located 490m to the SW . Rectangular area surrounded by concrete wall enclosing well which has a concrete canopy. According to the 1934 National Schools Survey of Holy Wells this enclosing wall and 'other improvements' was undertaken in the late 1920s by Rev. W. Fanning a local curate of the area (NFC 468, 135). Now referred to as St. Patrick's Well. Second holy well 25m to the NW (OF010-004006-) and Bishop Mac Caille's church site (OF010-004002-) located 420m to the S. According to Comerford (1883, 320-1) there were three wells of which only one survives. This well is enclosed in a house like construction with a statue of St Patrick on a low shelf. The well is dedicated to St Patrick and is said to have curative powers. In 1932 this well was described as, 'There is very little known about the origin and history of this well. On a stone by the well there are prints of the forelegs of a horse. It is said that they are the marks left by St. Patrick's horse when he knelt to drink. In recent years, visitors to the well have greatly increased in numbers, especially on 17th March. A man living at the foot of Croghan Hill told me there were between two and three thousand people at the well on last St. Patrick's Day. The Rosary and Litanies are recited by the people themselves and the priest. Usually it was given out and answered in Irish, but that latter custom has now died out. There is a wall built around the well to protect it. Various cures have been recorded, and people return every year and leave beads, pictures, medals, etc., in thanksgiving' (Anon 1933, 172). On the 20th of June 1934 it was recorded that on the 17th of March people from the surrounding region visited the holy well and the burial mound (OF010-004001-) on top of Croghan Hill (NFC 468, 136). The 1934 National Schools Survey of Holy Wells recorded the following information regarding Glenmore Holy Well where it stated that there was no special acts of devotion carried out at the well and that the people said their own prayers and there were no special rounds carried out at the well. People in bad health and those suffering from neuralgia or toothache go to the well to get a drink which they consider to be ‘efficacious’. People place small medals or beads or badges on the well. These get removed somehow and only an occasional one is found there. The folklore regarding the well and St Patrick stated that ‘when St Patrick visited the Hill he jumped his horse from the moat (OF010-004001-) to the well. The horse knelt down on a flat stone to get a drink and left the impression of his knee on the stone. The stone remained there and is there still. The track or print of the horse’s knee is visible on the stone’ (NFC 468, 136). In 1938 the following folklore was recorded from Croghan National School regarding this holy well; 'There are some Holy Wells in the parish of Croghan. The best known is St. Patrick's Well. It is situated in Glenmore at the bottom of Croghan Hill. It has a cement wall all round it and has a small green gate. There is a pilgrimage to the well every year on the seventeenth day of March in commemoration of St. Patrick's Death. The people of Croghan and the neighbouring districts visit the well on that day. Everyone gets a drink of holy water. If a person had a bad head-ache or a tooth-ache and believe in the water he would be cured' (The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0803, Page 314; www.duchas.ie). There is a plaque on the enclosing wall of the well commemorating the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Offaly' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload/revision: 18 December 2013
Architectural heritage
No building of the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage stands in the townland of Ballybeg.
Designated sites: National Parks and Wildlife Service. Recorded monuments: Sites and Monuments Record, National Monuments Service. Buildings: National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Works at or in relation to a recorded monument need two months' written notice to the National Monuments Service (National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1994, section 12).
Ground and risks
Radon, landslides, flooding
- Radon
- About 1 in 10 homes in this area is likely to have high radon levels. Testing a home
- Landslides
- Susceptibility high, moderately high, moderately low, low, low (inferred), on the 1:50,000 map.
- Terrain model
- No LiDAR survey of the Office of Public Works covers the centre of the townland of Ballybeg.
- Flooding
- The flood maps of the Office of Public Works: floodinfo.ie.
Radon Risk Map of Ireland, Environmental Protection Agency; Landslide Susceptibility Classification, Geological Survey Ireland; both CC BY 4.0. LiDAR: contains Irish Public Sector Data (Geological Survey Ireland & the Office of Public Works) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Homes sold
Property Price Register
No address of the register names Ballybeg with five sales or more. The sales of the area are on the page of Co. Offaly.
The townland
- Name
- Ballybeg · An Baile Beag
- Area
- 3,750,659 m² (375.07 ha, 926.81 acres)
- Civil parish
- Croghan, and its townlands
- Barony
- Philipstown Lower
- Electoral division
- Croghan, the unit of the census
- Census 2022
- Croghan electoral division: 570 people in 182 households; 94% of households own their home; 29% of homes were built since 2001; 7% of dwellings stood vacant on census night, and 0% were holiday homes.
- Neighbouring townlands
- Ballyfore, Barrysbrook, Cannakill, Coolcor, Croghanhill, Derryarkin, Derryiron
- Placenames
- Ballybeg on logainm.ie, the Placenames Database of Ireland
Townlands, civil parishes, baronies and electoral divisions, National Statutory Boundaries, Tailte Éireann, CC BY 4.0. Census 2022, Small Area Population Statistics by electoral division, Central Statistics Office, CC BY 4.0. A townland is the smallest land division of Ireland, and the unit of a rural address; old registers such as the 1901 and 1911 censuses file it under its civil parish and barony.