Overview
In the winter of 1920–21, Abercorn Barracks at Ballykinler held more than 2,000 republican internees from all thirty-two counties – among them Seán Lemass, a future Taoiseach, and Peadar Kearney, who wrote the words of the national anthem. That internment camp is what put this otherwise quiet corner of County Down on the map, and the barracks is still here, though as live army land you can’t get into it.
What you can do is walk the coast. Ballykinler is a village of a few hundred people on the Lecale Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, about 12 km south-west of Downpatrick, set among low drumlins and marshes with the Mourne Mountains rising behind Dundrum Bay. The shoreline, not the history, is what most people come for.
The coast walk and the beaches
If you’ve only an afternoon, walk the Ballykinler-to-Killough stretch of the Lecale Way. It threads out of the village, runs along the shore with open Irish Sea views and passes the Blue Flag beach at Tyrella – the best single thing to do here.
Tyrella is a wide sand beach with summer lifeguards and seasonal toilets, showers and a small café; both the beach and its dunes are a designated Area of Special Scientific Interest. One honest warning: it gets mobbed on a bank holiday, so come early or out of season if you want it to yourself. A few kilometres along the bay at Dundrum, Murlough National Trust reserve protects a 6,000-year-old dune system, with a boardwalk that stays flat and accessible for families and pushchairs.
Parts of the old range land carry First World War practice trenches, where the 36th (Ulster) Division trained and which archaeologists have since excavated – a worthwhile detour if the firing ranges aren’t in use. The Ministry of Defence still controls the shoreline ranges and closes the coastal path whenever they’re active, so check the schedule before you set out rather than turning back at a red flag.
The barracks and its history
A rifle range went in here around 1900 to ready troops for the Boer War, and the camp grew into one of the largest military building projects in British history during the First World War; by 1917 nearly 4,000 convalescing soldiers were stationed at Ballykinler. The internment camp came next: during the War of Independence the site became Ireland’s first mass internment camp, and life inside was busier than you’d expect – prisoners ran an orchestra, drew cartoons and circulated handmade cardboard ‘camp tokens’.
In the Second World War the barracks trained British and American forces, with American GIs and a group of Maltese refugees among those housed here; German prisoners of war helped with construction work on the grounds. The camp stayed in military use through the Troubles, and its closure was announced in 2014, though the MoD keeps the surrounding firing ranges for training.
You can’t visit the barracks, so the place to actually get inside the story is Down County Museum in Downpatrick. In 2019 it opened the Ballykinlar History Hut – an exact replica of one of the camp’s timber Armstrong huts, built with EU funding of about €238,871 – which tells the stories of the soldiers, internees and refugees who passed through. A proposed £10 million cross-community GAA Centre of Excellence, with full-size pitches and a museum of County Down’s Gaelic games, would put the wider barracks grounds back into community use.
The village
The Irish name is Baile Coinnleora, ‘townland of the candles’: at the Norman conquest of Ulster around 1177 the settlement was called Lesscummalscig, and its tithes later went to Christ Church, Dublin to pay for wax candles. The village itself is small – a shop, a filling station, three sports pitches and several football teams. Ballykinlar GAA, the local Gaelic football club, was founded in 1932; its grounds are named for Tadhg Barry, the Cork nationalist, trade unionist and journalist. The railway is long gone: Ballykinlar Halt opened in March 1915 and closed on 16 January 1950.
Getting there and practical notes
Ballykinler is easiest by car on the A2 coastal road, with a regular bus from Downpatrick via Clough. There are free village car parks near Tyrella Beach and at the start of the coastal walk; parking inside the barracks perimeter is for authorised MoD use only. Visitor facilities beyond the seasonal beach amenities at Tyrella (roughly May to September) are limited, so bring what you need.
The firing ranges run on most weekdays. Signage along the path shows when closures are in effect – stick to marked trails and stay off range land when the flags are up.
Nearby stops
- Ardglass – a fishing village a short drive north, with a medieval castle and one of Ireland’s oldest coastal golf links at Ardglass Golf Club.
- Dundrum – along the bay, for Murlough’s dunes and the Norman keep at Dundrum Castle.
- Castlewellan – forest park with a lake, arboretum and the famous peace maze.
- Tollymore Forest Park – riverside walks and ornamental stone gates at the foot of the Mournes.
To see the barracks story without a fence in the way, time a trip with Down County Museum in Downpatrick, where the History Hut and gaol are sometimes open for free guided tours.