Ballinahown (), also spelled Ballynahown, is a village in

County Westmeath "Noble above nobility" , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Westmeath.svg , subdivision_type = Sovereign state, Country , subdivision_name = Republic of Ireland, Ireland , subdivision_type1 = Provinces o ...

on the N62 regional road in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. It is south of

Athlone Athlone (; ) is a town on the border of County Roscommon and County Westmeath, Ireland. It is located on the River Shannon near the southern shore of Lough Ree. It is the second most populous town in the Midlands Region with a population of ...

and east of the

River Shannon The River Shannon ( ga, Abhainn na Sionainne, ', '), at in length, is the longest river in the British Isles. It drains the Shannon River Basin, which has an area of , – approximately one fifth of the area of the island of Ireland. The Shan ...

. It contains the Roman Catholic St. Colmcilles Church, completed in 1902 to a design in the Early English Gothic-style by

William Hague William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

History

For more than nine centuries the village was the residence of the Malone family, who resided in

Ballynahown House Ballinahown (), also spelled Ballynahown, is a village in County Westmeath on the N62 regional road in Ireland. It is south of Athlone and east of the River Shannon. It contains the Roman Catholic St. Colmcilles Church, completed in 1902 ...

, a country house and estate on the site of an old castle.

Sport

In 2012, Mark Rohan, a former Under 21

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

from Ballinahown who played with

Westmeath "Noble above nobility" , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Westmeath.svg , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Ireland , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = , subdivis ...

until he had a motor cycle accident, won two gold medals in the

2012 Summer Paralympics The 2012 Summer Paralympics, branded as the London 2012 Paralympic Games, were an international multi-sport parasports event held from 29 August to 9 September 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. They were the 14th Summer Paralympic Gam ...

in the individual H1 handcycle time trial and road race

Geography

Ballinahown is south of

and east of the

by air. Clonydonnin Bog is located to the east of the village. An example of a Midlands Raised Bog, it consists of high bog, fringed areas of cutover bog, scrub and low-lying agricultural land. It is inhabited by species such as ling heather (''Calluna vulgaris''),

cross-leaved heath ''Erica tetralix'', the cross-leaved heath, is a species of flowering plant in the family Ericaceae, native to western Europe, from southern Portugal to central Norway, as well as a number of boggy regions further from the coast in Central Europ ...

(''Erica tetralix''),

bog asphodel ''Narthecium ossifragum'', commonly known as bog asphodel, Lancashire asphodel or bastard asphodel, is a species of flowering plant in the family Nartheciaceae. It is native to Western Europe, found on wet, boggy moorlands up to about in ele ...

(''Narthecium ossifragum''),

carnation sedge ''Carex panicea'', commonly known as carnation sedge, is a plant species in the sedge family, Cyperaceae. It is known as grass-like sedge and can be found in Northern and Western Europe, and also in north-eastern North America. The plant produ ...

(''Carex panicea'') and

cottongrass ''Eriophorum'' (cottongrass, cotton-grass or cottonsedge) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cyperaceae, the sedge family. They are found throughout the arctic, subarctic, and temperate portions of the Northern Hemisphere in acid bog h ...

(''Eriophorum spp.'').

Landmarks

The village contains the Roman Catholic St. Colmcilles Church, which was designed in the Early English Gothic-style by

. Construction began on 11 October 1896 but Hague died in 1899 and was completed after his death by his younger partner T. F. McNamara, who finished it in 1902. It opened on the 15 October 1902. According to the Irish

National Inventory of Architectural Heritage The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH) maintains a central database of the architectural heritage of the Republic of Ireland covering the period since 1700 in complement to the Archaeological Survey of Ireland, which focuses on arc ...

, it consists of a "four-bay nave, single-bay transepts to the east and west, a shallow single-bay chancel to the north and a two-stage tower (on square-plan) adjoining to the west end of the entrance front (south), having corner pinnacles and a spire on octagonal plan over (with lucarnes)".

References

{{County Westmeath Towns and villages in County Westmeath