Ballymascanlan

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Ballymascanlan (Irish: Baile Mhic Scanláin), also known as Ballymascanlon, is a small village and townland in County Louth, Ireland. It sits about 4 km northeast of Dundalk on the Cooley Peninsula, along the road to Carlingford. The village is part of a civil parish of the same name, and the townland reaches down to the coast. It is bordered by the Flurry River to the south, which flows to the sea, and by another small watercourse to the east.

The name means “town of the son of Scanlan,” referring to Scanlan, son of Fingin, a chief of the Uí Méith who died in 672. The Uí Méith were rulers in the kingdom of Oriel until the Anglo-Norman era; one Uí Méith is credited with defeating the Danes in Dundalk Bay in 833. The nearby village of Omeath also takes its name from this group.

In 1185, during the Norman-English period, the area of Ballymascanlan as far north as Carrickarnon was given by Hugh de Lacy to Mellifont Abbey. After Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, the lordship of Ballymascanlan was granted to Sir Edward Moore, ancestor of the Marquess of Drogheda. Sir Garret Moore, 1st Viscount Moore, inherited the title and estates in 1600 and was a friend of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, who visited Mellifont and Ballymascanlon. The lands were transferred from Armagh to Louth around 1630 and stayed in the Moore family until the mid-18th century. In 1688, Malcolm and Archibald Mcneill, officers of William III, landed at Dundalk and defeated the Celtic Scanlons in the Battle of Ballymascanlon.

Ballymascanlan House Hotel is a Victorian-style house on historic estate grounds. The hotel has a leisure centre and swimming pool with paid public access, and the grounds include a golf course. On the hotel grounds, in the neighboring Proleek townland, are a ruined wedge tomb and a portal dolmen known as The Giant’s Load, featuring a 40-tonne capstone and three supporting stones.