Ball Alley, Alley Road, Crossmaglen, Co.Armagh, BT35 9HY

Moybane Handball Alley, Crossmaglen, County Armagh

This is a freestanding handball court, known locally as a "ball alley", constructed in 1926, extended in 1942, and restored in 1992. It stands on Alley Road close to the junction with the Dundalk Road, on the grounds of the former Moybane Roman Catholic Chapel. The listing covers the ball court itself, the alley surface, and the boundary gate and fence.

Historical Background

Handball is one of Ireland's oldest sports, with written records dating back to the statutes of Galway in 1527. The game grew exceptionally popular during the 19th century and, although it can be played informally against any available wall, purpose-built three-walled courts or "alleys" have been in use for at least 250 years. The earliest recorded purpose-built ball alleys or "ball yards" date from the mid-18th century in Dublin, and construction surged in the first half of the 19th century, including the building of an alley in Armagh. Handball remained a favourite pastime in Ulster through the social dislocation of the Famine and into the 1870s. Court size was standardised in 1885, and an Irish amateur handball union was established in 1912. The first GAA-sponsored championships were held in 1923, followed by the inauguration of the Irish Handball Association in 1924, with All-Ireland championships contested annually from 1925 onwards. It was in this context of growing formal organisation that the Moybane alley was constructed in 1926. Large sums of money were typically wagered on the outcome of matches, and cash prizes were offered to winning players.

The site has a layered history extending back to the early 19th century. Moybane Roman Catholic Chapel is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1835 and is mentioned by name in several statistical surveys of Creggan parish between 1836 and 1840. Shaw Mason records five Roman Catholic chapels in Creggan parish in 1814, and it is likely that Moybane was among them, suggesting a construction date of around 1810. The 1837 Townland Valuation records the chapel as 67½ feet long, 23½ feet wide, and 11 feet in height, slated and "slightly decayed but in good repair." The chapel is believed to have closed for worship following the completion of Crossmaglen Roman Catholic Church in the late 1830s, though it remained in valuation records for several decades and is shown intact on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1862. By 1904 it was recorded as a ruin, and no identifiable remains are shown on the third edition map of 1907.

Between 1907 and 1933, a recreation hall was constructed on the site, overlapping the footprint of the former chapel. This hall, which shared a wall with the ball alley at its gable end, measured 36 by 26½ feet and stood 11 feet high. It had rubble masonry walls with a corrugated iron roof. Interior details recorded at the time of inspection in 1933 include a wood floor, dado, and ceiling, plastered walls, and fixed form seating around the walls. By 1933 it was in "rather poor repair" and being used as a store for agricultural produce. It was struck from valuation records in 1946, and given its short lifespan it does not appear on any historic map editions.

The wall shared between the recreation hall and the ball alley coincides with the position of the former western gable of the chapel. It is considered highly likely that the recreation hall was built using at least the foundations of that chapel gable, together with any upstanding fabric or available fallen stone. It is also believed locally, and considered plausible, that the remains of the old chapel were used informally for handball from the mid-19th century onwards, and that the construction of the ball alley in 1926 formalised a long tradition of using the site for the sport.

A plausible sequence of construction, consistent with the known facts, is that the gable wall of the recreation hall was built up to a level height, perhaps with wing walls attached using available stone from the old chapel and rendered on one side to form a playing surface, before the court was extended and raised in concrete — this being, in part, the "extension" recorded in 1942.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Moybane was a small centre of community recreation. A dance hall, built of concrete block and still present nearby, held dances on Sundays and holidays for up to 300 people and also operated briefly as a cinema before 1933, when "pictures did not pay and were given up." Together with the recreation hall, the ball alley, and a small grocer's shop, Moybane village formed a local hub for meeting and entertainment. By 1939, however, the dance hall and recreation hall were facing competition from a new recreation hall at Cullaville. Despite this, the ball alley was extended in 1942, indicating its continued use. The dance hall was later damaged by RAF occupation during the Second World War and became an agricultural outbuilding in 1955.

The handball court appears for the first time on the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1956, captioned "Ball Alley." A new recreation hall, now truncated in length but still present, was constructed to the rear of the court between the fourth edition map of 1956 and a large-scale map of 1982. The wing walls of the court are depicted as shorter on the 1982 map, suggesting they were extended in length after that date. A plaque mounted on the road-facing elevation of the alley records the key dates in its history: Built 1926. Extended 1942. Restored 1992. Opened 28th June 1992 by Father Donal Sweeney.

Armagh had eight handball courts in 1982. A recent online survey records only four outdoor courts remaining, and a court at St Joseph's High School in Crossmaglen was demolished in 2019.

Description

The alley is three-walled with an open aspect to the north-east. It conforms to the standard large-alley court size of 60 by 30 feet, the size that was in use across Ireland from at least the 19th century and that remains in use today alongside the smaller 40 by 20 foot format introduced in Ireland in 1969, the two sizes being used in separate competitions.

The high rear wall is constructed in rubblestone at its lower levels, extended and raised in reinforced concrete, with four piers at the uppermost level. The rubblestone section is the remnant of the former recreation hall gable, which itself incorporated fabric from the earlier chapel. The raked side walls are also of reinforced concrete, buttressed externally by three piers each.

The site is grassed and delineated from the road verge by a concrete two-rail fence and an arched metal gateway. A vertical timber-boarded fence above a stone wall forms the boundary to the south-west, with hedgerow marking the remaining boundaries. A simple bench is set in front of the hedgerow on the north-east boundary.

A detached single-room structure is located behind the main hitting wall to the south-west. It is single-skin construction with a sand-cement render finish and a dual-pitched corrugated metal roof. On the north-west elevation it has a single square-headed door opening and a metal-framed casement window. On the south-east elevation there is a square window opening with a metal casement incorporating top-hung and side-hung opening lights.

Significance

This building is of considerable architectural and historical interest. It is a rare surviving example of an outdoor handball alley in County Armagh, and its layered fabric — incorporating the remnant of a chapel gable of around 1810 within the rear wall of a 1926 reinforced concrete court — makes it a physically legible record of social, cultural, and sporting change across nearly two centuries. Its construction in 1926 coincides precisely with the critical period of formalisation and national organisation of the sport by the GAA, and it reflects the important place that handball once held in the social life of rural Irish communities. The changes to the building over time, from chapel to recreation hall to ball alley and then to enlarged alley, are visible in the fabric of the structure and enhance rather than diminish its interest.