placenames.ie
Population centre

Ballynagall or Ballydavid

Baile na nGall

Baile na nGall on Smerwick Harbour connects the working history of a fishing community with the development of Irish-language broadcasting.

Watercolour and fine ink illustration of Ballydavid fishing pier, Baile na nGall.
Illustration of Ballydavid's fishing pier, based on an April 2011 photograph.
Recorded locationBallynagall or Ballydavid52.19109° N · 10.36933° WInteractive map supplied by OpenStreetMap.
Approximate recorded location · Logainm.ie

The name

bailetownland, town, homesteadgallforeigner; standing stone

These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.

An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.

Recorded forms

  • Baile na nGall · Irish · main form · validated name
  • Ballynagall or Ballydavid · English · main form

Place & story

Fishing and the demand for better piers

Ballydavid's fishermen sought help from the Congested Districts Board to extend their pier in 1905. A parliamentary reply declined funds, while acknowledging continuing consideration of the district's needs. In 1911 another question grouped Ballydavid with Dingle, Brandon and Ventry, where roughly a thousand people worked in fishing altogether. Those exchanges place the village within a regional industry whose catches depended on harbour facilities and transport connections. [2] [3]

A regional home for Raidió na Gaeltachta

Baile na nGall became one of Raidió na Gaeltachta's regional studio locations, alongside Doirí Beaga in Donegal and the headquarters at Casla in Galway. The Oireachtas Library's account of the station's first annual report places these studios within the service launched on Easter Sunday 1972. The Kerry studio gave broadcasting a local base in Corca Dhuibhne, connecting spoken Irish in the district with an audience beyond the peninsula. [4]

People & connections

Diarmuid Ó Súilleabháin at the studio

The singer Diarmuid Ó Súilleabháin worked as a programme-maker and journalist at Raidió na Gaeltachta in Baile na nGall from the early 1980s. He came there after teaching and working in RTÉ radio and its Dublin newsroom. His professional association with the village belongs to the later part of his life; he lived at Baile Bhiocáire near Dún Chaoin. He died in a road accident in 1991. [5]

Geographic information

Place type
Population centre
County
Kerry
Civil parish
Kilmalkedar
Within
Murreagh
Coordinates
52.19109, -10.36933 (approximate)
Logainm ID
1165468 ↗

Sources & further reading

  1. Logainm.ie — Ballynagall or Ballydavid. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
  2. Kerry Fishing Industry,HouseofCommons3August1905 · UK Parliament,Hansard
  3. Fishing Industry(Dingle,CountyKerry),7March1911 · UK Parliament,Hansard
  4. April2022display: Raidió na Gaeltachta annualreport1973 · Oireachtas Library
  5. Ó Súilleabháin,Diarmuid(1947–1991) · Diarmuid Breathnach and Máire Ní Mhurchú,ainm.ie
  6. Ballydavid fishing pier, Baile na nGall illustration: based on a Ballydavid Pier by George Causley. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.