Kilmeaden
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Kilmeadan Cill Mhíodáin
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|---|---|
| Village | |
 Kilmeadan
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| Coordinates: 52°14′03″N 7°14′37″W / 52.234167°N 7.243611°WCoordinates: 52°14′03″N 7°14′37″W / 52.234167°N 7.243611°W | |
| Country |
 Ireland
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| Province | Munster |
| County | County Waterford |
| Time zone | WET (UTC+0) |
| • Summer (DST) | IST (WEST) (UTC-1) |
Kilmeadan or Kilmeaden (Irish: Cill Mhíodáin) is a village in County Waterford, Ireland. It is on the R680 regional road. The town is 36km from Dungarvan and 8km from Waterford.
Kilmeadan shares its name with a world-famous cheese brand that was, until 2005, produced in a factory in the heart of the village.
Kilmeadan is also the site of St. Mary's Church, a Church of Ireland Chapel, located in the north-western part of the village, Old Kilmeaden, near the railway station, on the R680 regional road towards Carrick-On-Suir.
The school serving the Kilmeadan area is found in Ballyduff, a neighbouring village, which is also home to the Catholic Church of the area, St. Nicholas' Church. Both the GAA and soccer teams of the area are also named Ballyduff Lower GAA and Ballyduff AFC respectively.
Kilmeadan, lying in a linear pattern along the R680 (former N25 national primary road section), was in the last century home to a train station on the line from Waterford City to Mallow Junction in County Cork. In recent years, a section of the line has been reopened as a tourist line, known as the Waterford & Suir Valley Railway.
As part of the new Waterford City bypass, Kilmeadan is now bypassed by a dual-carriageway section of the N25. This brings great relief to the previously overcrowded road through the village, now reclassified as R680.
Throughout much of the twentieth century, Kilmeadan was also home to a very successful co-operative. The farmers of the area benefited greatly from the sale of their produce (mostly butter and milk) to the co-op, and as it expanded, a general store was opened in May 1920, which is still present today as a Centra outlet.
In 1964, all of the co-ops in Waterford amalgamated, and was registered as Waterford Co-op. This led to the construction of a cheese factory on a green field site opposite the general store, and Kilmeadan cheese was to become one of the most recognised and successful cheddar brands in the world. This is evident as the brand won a gold and bronze medal in the World Cheese Awards in London in 2005. However, production of the cheese ceased at the Kilmeadan plant in 2005, and the production of Kilmeadan Cheese moved to Ballyragget, County Kilkenny.
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