placenamesBallapousta
Bealach Púiste
Ballapousta’s church and school gave a centre to a locality extending across Kilpatrick and Drakestown, while a recorded tradition offered another explanation of the church’s location.
The name
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
- Bealach Púiste · Irish · main form · validated name
- Ballapousta · English · main form
Place & story
A locality centred on St Catherine’s
Ballapousta is a local area name rather than a townland name, spanning the vicinity of Kilpatrick and Drakestown south of Ardee. Archaeologist Kieran Campbell’s report places St Catherine’s Church in Drakestown and describes an earlier chapel site in neighbouring Kilpatrick. A thatched church built in 1787 was replaced in 1831. The sequence explains the church’s importance as a fixed centre for a locality crossing townland boundaries. [2]
A chapel school joins the national system
The school’s own history records John Taaffe’s application to the Kildare Place Society in October 1823. A £40 grant helped meet the £130 construction cost. John and Rose O’Neill taught in two rooms, with 46 children initially enrolled. The school later joined the National Board of Education on 23 December 1836. Its origins on chapel grounds show how local patronage and national educational bodies combined in the village. [3]
The bird and the fallen chapel
Campbell’s report cites a tradition published by MacIvor in 1948: an earlier chapel collapsed during its first Mass, and a bird carried debris to the place where St Catherine’s was subsequently built. This is an attested foundation story, rather than an established account of the church’s construction. Monitoring in 2002 found no archaeological remains at the house-development site within the field associated with the older chapel. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Louth
- Barony
- Ardee
- Civil parish
- Kildemock
- Within
- Drakestown
- Within
- Kilpatrick
- Coordinates
- 53.82169, -6.55743
- Logainm ID
- 126015 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Ballapousta. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Kilpatrick: archaeological monitoring report 2002:1350, licence 02E1382 · Kieran Campbell, Excavations.ie
- History of Ballapousta National School · Ballapousta National School
- St Catherine's Church, Ballapousta, County Louth illustration: based on a St. Catherine's Church, Ballapousta by Kieran Campbell. 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 2026-07-15. How this page was prepared.