Dunnamaggin is a small farming village in south County Kilkenny, and like a lot of small Kilkenny villages its life runs on hurling. The clearest measure of that is who it produced: Noel Hickey, the full-back who anchored Kilkenny’s defence through their great run of All-Ireland titles in the 2000s, is a Dunnamaggin man who won his first medal here at the age of eleven.
Be honest about why you’d stop, though. There’s no castle, no visitor centre, no sight to tick off. The best reason to pull in is a championship match at the GAA grounds, when the whole parish turns out; failing that, the village works as a quiet base for the medieval ruins at Kells Priory and the run south into Kilkenny City.
The name
The official Irish name is Dún Iomagáin, ‘the fort of Iomagán’. The better-known version is older folklore: in the 19th century the scholars Eugene O’Curry and John O’Donovan both read it as Dún na mBogán, ‘fort of the softness’ – O’Curry taking that to mean soft eggs, O’Donovan the low, boggy ground around it. The parish church, dedicated to St Leonard, was built in the village in 1790 to replace an older one at nearby Danganmore, and the old graveyard is said locally to hold one of the seven bishops put to death on the orders of Margaret FitzGerald, Countess of Ormond.
The hurling club
The GAA club is the institution here. Its own banner dates the club to 1886, though the GAA’s records put the founding at 1897; either way it waited the best part of a century for a county title, finally taking the junior trophy in 1994. The club shares the parish with Kilmoganny’s footballers, and the grounds (eircode R95 NP86) are the social centre of the three-village community of Dunnamaggin, Kells and Kilmoganny. Match fixtures are posted a few weeks ahead on the community website, dkk.ie.
Walks nearby
A few minutes’ drive north, the Castlemorris Wood Looped Walk near Knocktopher is a well-marked 5 km trail through the woodland of the old Castle Morres demesne – the easiest proper walk in the immediate area.
The village’s central position is its other asset. The imposing walls and towers of Kells Priory are a few kilometres east, the round tower and church ruins at Aghaviller are close by, and Kilkenny City – with Kilkenny Castle and the Medieval Mile – is a short drive on.
A village on the up
Dunnamaggin has been quietly reinventing its centre. The former Credit Union building has been converted into a community hub for meetings and small events, and the Dunnamaggin Development Group lodged plans in September 2023 to turn the old Madge’s Garden site on Main Street into a community park and arts centre, with landscaped walks, a play area and an indoor space for exhibitions and workshops.
Getting there
The village sits on the R699 between Callan and Knocktopher, east of the R697 turn for Kells and Kilmoganny. There’s free parking at the GAA grounds. Buses run to Callan and Kilkenny; the nearest train station is in Kilkenny, on the Dublin–Waterford line.
If you can, time a visit for a summer championship fixture – it’s the one day the village is genuinely worth a detour. Otherwise pair it with Kells Priory ten minutes east and make a half-day of it.