County Down has ten townlands called Ballykeel. Can you take my word for it that this road runs through the right one?
This Ballykeel lies between Crossnacreevy and Moneyreagh. Here is the road leading from Ballykeel into the village of Moneyreagh.
According to PLACENAMESNI.org, the name Ballykeel comes from the Irish An Baile Caol meaning ‘the narrow townland’. Looking at the map, I see nothing narrow about Ballykeel, so let’s go with their suggestion that the townland was named from a narrow farm. The roads are pretty narrow, too.
When I visited in November the trees were bare.
And the grass had been stored as silage in these polythene-wrapped bales. Can you see a tiny, fuzzy grey Scrabo Tower in the distance?
The nearest graveyard is in the village of Moneyreagh, where I found this headstone for the Orr family of Ballykeel.
If you’ve been following this blog since 2016, you may remember my post from another Ballykeel, near Holywood.
more information
Which county is Ballykeel in? County Down
Which civil parish is Ballykeel in? Comber
Which townlands border Ballykeel? To the north, Crossnacreevy. To the east, Lisleen and Moneyreagh. To the south, Monlough and Clontakelly. To the west, Lisnabreeny and Clontonakelly.
Click here for a map of Ballykeel on Townlands.IE.
And finally, click here to read about the townland’s name on my usual source – PLACENAMESNI.ORG.
Townlands of Ulster 
[…] Here is an INDEX of all the townlands covered so far. Click on the name to go straight to my page about that townland. Or skip straight to this month’s new posts: Ballykeel […]
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[…] And the townland lies in the middle of a ring of townlands that have already appeared in this blog: Ballykeel, Braniel, Gilnahirk, Lisleen, Lisnabreeny and Slatady. I don’t know how or why I’ve […]
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[…] To the south, Moneyreagh and Ballykeel. […]
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My Goodness, I am doing genealogy (now 86) and here is a tombstone of my distant relatives, the Orrs. I am now doing a paper on my gt. grandma, Maggie McGowan, all of a sudden,noting where they came to America from, I became aware of Orrs, McKittricks, and they ALL lived in NO. Ireland. Trying to figure out if they are originally from Scotland, and Presbyterian is all over these people. So my association with St. Patty’s Day, walking in Irish parades, baking a green Pistachio cake and frosting to celebrate THAT day and wearing” o’ the green” suddenly took on a big question mark as to their/my heritage. Thankyou for posting this!
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