Ardclough, officially Ardclogh[1] (/ɑːrdˈklɒx/; Irish: Ard Cloch, meaning 'high stone'), is a village and community in the parish of Kill, County Kildare, Ireland.

It is the burial place and probable birthplace of Arthur Guinness, who is said to have returned to the maternal homestead of the Reads at Huttonread to give birth in the tradition of the time.

Ardclough is located below two detached foothills of the Wicklow Mountains, Lyons Hill and Oughterard on some of the most fertile soils in Ireland.

While the original townland of Ardclough was situated west of the canal in land that is now inaccessible, and contained the site on the opposite bank of the canal of the original (1810) parish church of Lyons and a group of quarries there, the place now referred to Ardclough approximates more closely to the townlands of Tipperstown and Wheatfield, where housing was built in 1876 and 1989.

The soil is principally a rich loam, varying from 10 to 16 inches (410 mm) in depth, and resting on a hard and compact substratum of floetz limestone.

It was the site of the masshouse (later old Ardclough church), school and the three largest of seven local quarries, on the opposite bank of the canal.

More than 35 species of birds have been identified and coarse fishing for pike, perch, roach and rudd is common along the canal bank.

[citation needed] Amongst the settlement's buildings today are a national school, a church, Ardclough GAA Club, and one shop "Buggys".

The earliest evidence of human habitation at Ardclough was the discovery of a flint dated to 4800–3600BC, at Castlewarden below Oughter Ard Hill, rare for a dry-land location from the time.

A marble font, brought from Rome by Valentine Lawless and presented to the church, was removed to Lyons House for safekeeping but remains the property of the parish.

From 1777 a local river, the Morrel was proposed as water feeder for the canal, construction resumed and the first passenger boats were towed to Sallins in February 1779.

Cargo traffic continued to use the canal for another 108 years, peaking at 379.045 tons in 1865 when an average of 90 barges a day passed through Ardclough.

A railway accident on 5 October 1853, the third-worst in Irish rail history, killed 18 people including four children in the townland of Clownings.

[36] The Barnewell homestead at Lyons was the headquarters of anti-treaty forces in north Kildare during the Irish Civil War.

[37] On 22 June 1975 Whitechurch resident Christy Phelan was killed when he engaged a group of men planting a bomb on the railway line near Baronrath.

This is one of a number of British undercover operations carried out against civilian targets in the Republic during the Troubles, currently under investigation by the Barron Commission.

Boston Lime Company reduced the price to six shillings per load[42] in 1875 but a footnote in the 1891 census returns attributes the decline in population from 75 to 21 in Ardclough townland to the closure of quarries.

The census reports of the mid-19th century indicate how the small townland of Ardclough came to give its name to the adjoining district, but by 1901 there were only six people living there.

A cluster of warehouses and workshops at Lyons lockyard village was largely constructed in the 1820s, featuring a mill (leased to William Palmer 1839 and Joseph Shackleton, second cousin of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, 1853, converted to roller mill 1887),[44] hotel (leased by Patrick Barry 1840-60), police station (active 1820-73[45][46] ) and boatyard.

[47] Ardclough GAA (community associated with Hazlehatch Irish Harpers 1887-8, active as Ardclough 1924-5, refounded 1936) is the smallest community to win a Kildare County Senior Football Championship, defeating an Army team that featured All Ireland and inter-provincial players in the replayed final of 1949.

[49] Ardclough Camogie club (founded 1962 by Mick Houlihan, revived 1983 by Phyllis Finneran) won a Kildare senior championship in 1968.