Galbally, County Limerick 3.06

Galbally is a village in southeast County Limerick, Ireland, on the border with County Tipperary. It is located at the foot of the Galtee Mountains and at the western approach to the Glen of Aherlow. The Aherlow River, flowing down from the Galtee mountains, runs by the village, to meet the Suir at Kilmoyler a short distance north of Cahir. Galbally is in quite a picturesque location, in a valley overlooked by the Galtee Mountains.OverviewGalbally is part of the Catholic ecclesiastical parish of Galbally & Lisvernane which straddles the Limerick-Tipperary border. Its sister village is Lisvernane in the Glen of Aherlow in County Tipperary.In 1994, Galbally was selected as the prettiest town in Ireland in the annual Irish Tidy Towns Competition and has won the Limerick competition nine times.A well known folk song, "The Galbally Farmer", (with a tune also known as "Thank God we're surrounded by water"), tells of the trials suffered by a hired labourer working for the miserly farmer of the title, Darby O'Leary.Places of interestThe graveyard contains the ruins of a thirteenth-century church, on the end wall of which there are two effigies of odd human figures, one which looks like a couple, the other a single person. The graveyard bears witness to the reason for name of the village, with many of the oldest graves bearing what seem more like English names than native Irish, names including; Sampson, Blackburn, Richardson and Dawson.