Stradbally (from Irish An tSráidbhaile, meaning 'the (one) street town',[2] IPA:[ˈanˠˈt̪ˠɾˠaːdʲˌwalʲə]) is a small village in County Waterford, Ireland.

[2] In 1215, King John granted the custody of the counties of Waterford and Desmond (most of Cork and Kerry) to Thomas fitz Anthony.

When Thomas de Dene's son Reginald died in 1302, he held a quarter of the town of Stradbally from the king.

In 1300, when King Edward I levied his Irish domains to finance his war against Scotland, Stradbally was one of five towns in the county to be assessed for special payments.

In 1654 the Civil Survey described Stradbally as ‘a County Towne with a greate many howses’, which suggests that the medieval settlement had survived in some form up until then.

When Fr Casey died in 1885, the sisters moved into the former parochial house behind Holy Cross Church, renaming it Mount St Joseph's.

The industry was successful and lasted for over thirty years, but mass production and cheap imports led to its closure in 1925.

In 1806, local Catholic landowner Pierce Barron opened a school ‘for the gratuitous education of the poor of the parish’.

[citation needed] Gaelic games were played in a variety of locations in the district, before the club acquired a permanent pitch in the early 1970s.

The GAA ground is named after local priest Fr Pat Cummins, who trained the Stradbally team in the early 1940s.

Just inside the south doorway is a stoup or font for holy water, carved out of a single block of sandstone.

The west gable was once surmounted by a bell-cot (a small shelter for the church bell), which was still there when John O’Donovan from the Ordnance Survey visited in 1841.

In the sanctuary, against the east gable, is the burial place of the Powers of Ballyvoile – the inscription on the gravestone outlines their genealogy in detail, although doubt has been cast on elements of it.

[citation needed] In 1540, at the height of the Reformation, the church and rectory of Stradbally were taken over by the Crown, and came under the control of the Bishop of Lismore.

[citation needed] Around the edge of the stone is an inscription, the surviving portion of which reads: ‘YSABELLA GAL… JACET PLNI’.

The top of the stone is covered in a variety of symbols, most of which seem to have some Christian significance, including the lily (symbolising the Resurrection) and the all-seeing eye, though this is a matter of interpretation.

Indeed, one 19th-century scholar thought that the stone had nothing to do with anyone named Ysabella, and suggested – improbably – that if the inscription was complete, it would read: 'Beneath this altar lie the remains of Blessed Paulinus'.