Ballyvourney
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Ballyvourney Baile Bhúirne |
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| Coordinates: 51°56′41.2″N 9°9′47.67″W / 51.944778°N 9.1632417°WCoordinates: 51°56′41.2″N 9°9′47.67″W / 51.944778°N 9.1632417°W | |
| Country | Ireland |
| Province | Munster |
| County | County Cork |
| Irish Grid Reference | W195770 |
| Baile Bhúirne is the only official name as it is situated in a Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking area). | |
Ballyvourney (Irish: Baile Bhúirne, meaning "Town of the Beloved", also spelled Baile Mhúirne, Irish pronunciation: [ˈbˠalʲə ˈvʷuːrˠnʲə] ), is a Gaeltacht village in southwest County Cork, Ireland. It is a civil parish in the barony of Muskerry West, and is also an ecclesiastical parish in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cloyne.
The village stretches along the N22 road which links Cork city (to the southeast) with Killarney (to the northwest). The nearest large town is Macroom, while the nearest international airport is Cork Airport. There is a proposal to construct 22 km of dual carriageway from Coolcour at the eastern side of Macroom, bypassing Macroom to the north and finishing west of Ballyvourney.
The village lies on the River Sullane:
"The river Sullane has its source in the parish, in the mountains bordering on the county of Kerry, and after intersecting it longitudinally pursues an eastern course through the parish of Clondrohid to the town of Macroom, to the east of which, at the distance of a mile, it discharges itself into the river Lee;"
In this part of Cork, the rivers mainly drain longitudinally from west to east; this is true of the Lee and the Munster Blackwater. Between these rivers lies the valley of the Sullane. To the north of the parish, the Derrynasaggart Mountains and the Boggeragh Mountains separate the valley from the Blackwater valley. To the south, the upland area of Reananerree and the Shehies separate it from the Lee valley. The surrounding district of Muskerry straddles the counties of Cork and Kerry. The highest point in the parish, at 694m, is Mullaghanish (Irish: Mullach an Ois) located just northeast of the village.
While it is the western part of the county, it would not be considered to be part of the area informally known as West Cork because it lies north of the river Lee. Neither would it be thought part of the Golden Vale, unlike the rich pasture towns to the north of the Boggeragh mountains (e.g. Charleville). The mountainous terrain and poor quality of the land has instead made it a virtual enclave within the county, best expressed in the old Gaelic tuatha of Muskerry. As the tuatha was relatively less desirable from an economic viewpoint, it may explain why the Gaelic way of life persisted into the 20th century and why Muskerry attained Gaeltacht status.
Bantry Bay is the district's nearest point to the sea. It is accessed by bad minor roads over the Reananerree uplands to the neighbouring Gaeltacht parish of Béal Átha an Ghaorthaidh where the R584 road crosses the Lee, passes the Shehy Mountains via the Pass of Keimaneigh (Irish: Céim an Fhia) (meaning the "pass of the deer's leap") and thence to Ballylickey.
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Wikipedia