The Battle of Ballinalee takes place on November 4, 1920, during the Irish War of Independence.

Members of the North Longford Irish Republican Army (IRA) column, led by Seán Mac Eoin, drives a mixed group of Crown forces consisting of Black and Tans and Auxiliary Division personnel from the village of Ballinalee in County Longford.

Crown forces hope to burn the town of Ballinalee as a reprisal for the deaths of several Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) personnel in the preceding days. This includes the killing of an RIC inspector, Philip St. Johnstone Howlett Kelleher, the previous week and an RIC Constable, Peter Cooney, the previous day. Cooney had been suspected of being a spy and his execution is reputedly ordered by Michael Collins. At the time of his killing, Cooney is allegedly carrying coded dispatches with the names of Longford IRA men.

The Crown forces, numbering 100 men in eleven trucks, are defeated by about twenty-five IRA members, of which four are involved in the main battle. Mac Eoin had placed several groups at the roads leading into the village, including one at a house, Rose Cottage, on the approach to the village centre. This group, referred to in some sources as the “Rose Cottage Four,” engage the much larger RIC force using rifle fire and grenades, and force their retreat after a two and a half hour gunfight.

The IRA column remains in the village for a week.