Ballygeehin Lower

43 registered freehold parcels lie mostly in Ballygeehin Lower, from 98 m² to 295,222 m² (29.52 ha, 72.95 acres). The dashed line is the townland's boundary. 30 neighbouring parcels touch it.

Download the townland as DXF, in Irish Transverse Mercator metres, with its boundary, parcels and buildings, or as GeoJSON or KML.

No zone of a development plan covers Ballygeehin Lower 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.

No planning application touches the townland of Ballygeehin Lower in the national file, which goes back to 2010.

Source: National Planning Applications, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Applicants are not shown.

Designated sites

No designated site (Special Area of Conservation, Special Protection Area, Natural Heritage Area or proposed one) touches the townland of Ballygeehin Lower.

Recorded monuments

• LA023-035 Castle - tower house
  Description

  Owned by the Fitzpatricks, Lords of Upper Ossory. The castle was burned down in 1600 to prevent it being converted into an English garrison (Carrigan 1905, vol. 2, 56). Partial remains of NE wall (L c. 16.2m), SW wall (L c. 7.3m) and NE angle tower survive of this uncoursed rubble limestone tower house with a slight base-batter. Evidence of a barrel-vaulted entrance way running NE-SW. Large splayed ope in NE wall at first-floor level. Bawn wall (LA023-035001-) (wall T c. 1.1m) with a series of gun loops is attached to SE angle encloses an almost circular area. According to Carrigan the townland name means the Town of O'Gihin or O'Gahan. The castle was described by Carrigan as 'a very curious old building. It is 45 ft. long externally, and only 12 ft. wide internally, with a projection at the north-east corner, rectangular below and rounded above. The east side-wall is 30 ft. high; the south wall is entirely destroyed; some fragments of the other walls remain. The walls are from 3 and a half to 4 ft. thick, but to strengthen the west side-wall, another wall of the same thickness was built up against it all along the outside. The courtyard (LA023-035001-) wall is still in fair preservation; it is 12 ft. high all round and was, together with the castle surrounded by a deep fosse' (Carrigan 1905, vol. 2, 56). Revisited and surveyed by Michael Moore on the 30 May 1994 and described a situated on gently rolling country with a hill c. 300m to NNW, wide views all around. Only the NE wall survives to a max. height of c. 4m. It has a slight external base batter. The outline of the rest of the structure can be made out through cairn material (H c. 1m). The only features on the tower house (ext. dims. 12m NW-SE; 7.05m NE-SW) are a putlog hole near the N angle, a destroyed light, a large embrasure (Wth. 2.7m) with a high round arch. There are two small lights in this embrasure. There is a wall built onto the N angle of the tower house, it is at an obtuse angle to the tower house and it is not belonging to a projecting tower but that of a bawn wall (LA023-035001-). The tower house itself has no sign of a barrel vault. Abutting the E angle of the tower house is the wall of the bawn (H 3m ; T 1m) with evidence of a wall walk along the bawn. It runs in straight line off to the S (L. 50m). The bawn was irregular in shape made up of at least 4 sections of straight sided walls, may have been at least octagonal in shape. The available area of the bawn measures 65m NE-SW; 41m NW-SE but the NE-SW dimension may have been 50m. There are four gun loops in the wall, two of them at a point where the wall changes direction sharply. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Laois' (Dublin Stationery Office, 1995) compiled by P. David Sweetman, Olive Alcock and Bernie Moran. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 17 December 2007

• LA023-035001 Bawn
  Description

  Tower house (LA023-035) and bawn owned by the Fitzpatricks, Lords of Upper Ossory. The courtyard wall is 12 ft. high and surrounded by a deep fosse. (Carrigan 1905, vol. 2, 56). According to Carrigan the townland name means the Town of O'Gihin or O'Gahan. The castle was described by carrigan as 'a very curious old building. It is 45 ft. long externally, and only 12 ft. wide internally, with a projection at the north-east corner, rectangular below and rounded above. The east side-wall is 30 ft. high; the south wall is entirely destroyed; some fragments of the other walls remain. The walls are from 3 and a half to 4 ft. thick, but to strengthen the west side-wall, another wall of te same thickness was built up against it all along the outside. The courtyard wall is still in fair preservation; it is 12 ft. high all round and was, together with the castle surrounded by a deep fosse' (Carrigan 1905, vol. 2, 56). In undulating countryside. Remains of an uncoursed rubble limestone, NE wall (L. c. 16.2m), SW wall (L. c. 7.3m) and a NE angle tower. Evidence of a barrel-vaulted entrance way running NE-SW. A large splayed ope in NE wall at first floor level. Bawn wall (T. c. 1.1m) with a series of gun loops is attached to SE angle. Revisited and surveyed by Michael Moore on the 30 May 1994 and described a situated on gently rolling country with a hill c. 300m to NNW, wide views all around. Only the NE wall survives to a max. height of c. 4m. It has a slight external base batter. There is a wall built onto the N angle of the tower house, it is at an obtuse angle to the tower house and it is not belonging to a projecting tower but that of a bawn wall. The tower house (LA023-035) itself has no sign of a barrel vault. Abutting the E angle of the tower house is the wall of the bawn (H 3m ; T 1m) with evidence of a wall walk along the bawn. It runs in straight line off to the S (L. 50m). The bawn was irregular in shape made up of at least 4 sections of straight sided walls, may have been at least octagonal in shape. The available area of the bawn is 65m NE-SW; 41m NW-SE but the NE-SW dimension may have been 50m. There are four gun loops in the wall, two of them at a point where the wall changes direction sharply. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 17 December 2007

• LA029-007 Ringfort - rath
  Description

  Depicted on current edition of the OS 6-inch map as a circular enclosure (approx. dims. 47m N-S; 48m E-W). Shown on the first edition of the OS 6-inch map as a circular grove of trees in a manner similar to a landscape feature possibly assoicated with Ballygeehin House to the SW. Could be a ringfort re-used as a landscape feature or a landscape feature of 18th century date associated with the landscaping carried out by the occupants of Ballygeehin House. On the first edition of the OS 6-inch maps the surveyors did not marke the site as an antiquity. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 17 December 2007

• LA029-008 Fulacht fia
  Description

  Reference to a fulacht fiadh here (Candon 1987, 23). No visible surface remains. According to local information, it was levelled c. 1979. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Laois' (Dublin Stationery Office, 1995) compiled by P. David Sweetman, Olive Alcock and Bernie Moran. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 17 December 2007

Architectural heritage

No building of the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage stands in the townland of Ballygeehin Lower.

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).

Radon

At the centre of the townland of Ballygeehin Lower, about 1 in 10 homes in this area is likely to have high radon levels. Testing a home

Landslides

The 1:50,000 map rates the landslide susceptibility here as moderately low, low, partly inferred.

Terrain model

No LiDAR survey of the Office of Public Works covers the centre of the townland of Ballygeehin Lower.

Flooding

The Office of Public Works publishes its flood maps on floodinfo.ie.

Radon Risk Map of Ireland, Environmental Protection Agency, and Landslide Susceptibility Classification, Geological Survey Ireland, both under 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.

No address of the register names Ballygeehin Lower with five sales or more. The sales of the area are on the page of Co. Laois.

Name

Ballygeehin Lower · Baile Uí Ghaoithín Íochtarach

Area

2,114,949 m² (211.49 ha, 522.62 acres)

Civil parish

Aghaboe, and its townlands

Barony

Clarmallagh

Electoral division

Cuffsborough, the unit of the census

Census 2022

360 people lived in 119 households in the Cuffsborough electoral division. 90% of households owned their home. 44% of homes were built since 2001. 2% of dwellings stood vacant on census night, and 1% were holiday homes.

Neighbouring townlands

Anster, Ballygeehin Upper, Boley Upper, Clonoghil, Cruell, Dairyhill, Legaun, Scotchrath, Tinnaraheen

Placenames

Ballygeehin Lower 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.