placenames.ie
County

Derry

Doire

Historical sources may use Derry, Londonderry or the older County Coleraine, making the source’s own name and date important evidence.

Recorded locationDerry54.95260° N · 6.88946° WInteractive map supplied by OpenStreetMap.
Approximate recorded location · Logainm.ieOpen in OpenStreetMap ↗

The name

doire(oak-)wood, grove, thicket

These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.

An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.

Recorded forms

  • Doire · Irish · main form · validated name
  • Derry · English · main form

Place & story

The county between waters

Lewis’s county article, headed Londonderry, places the county between Lough Foyle, the Atlantic and Antrim, with Tyrone inland to the south. Its earlier territorial account follows the O’Kane country and the Roe valley. These references help locate the region without accepting every ancient tribal identification or speculative derivation in the directory. A river valley, coastal settlement and upland parish are different local settings within the same county. [2]

Coleraine and Londonderry

The directory records an earlier County Coleraine and discusses the later London plantation association. Its Coleraine entry also distinguishes the older western-bank settlement at Killowen from the later town. County and town naming changed within that wider political history. This guide uses Derry as its county query while retaining Londonderry in the title of the source actually consulted. Historical aliases are recorded as evidence, rather than silently rewritten or treated as separate counties. [2] [3]

Preserve the smaller place

Lewis notes that county courthouse and prison remains stood at Desertmartin despite Coleraine’s intended administrative role. An institution’s location cannot therefore be inferred merely from a county’s name. For family research, retain townland, parish, river bank and source date. An old reference to Derry may mean the city or county, and the popular town name is not enough to establish which. The document’s exact jurisdiction and locality should decide the match. [2] [3]

Geographic information

Place type
County
County
Derry
Coordinates
54.95260, -6.88946 (approximate)
Mapped area
2,121.25 km²
Logainm ID
100011 ↗

People & family history

Census figures refer to the matched historical census area for each year. Boundaries and spellings can change over time.

1926 census

This year is outside the available dataset’s coverage. This does not indicate a population of zero.

Explore this county

Up to 50 places per page, ordered by name.

Sources & further reading

  1. Logainm.ie — Derry. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
  2. County Londonderry, historical county article — A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis · 1837
  3. Coleraine — A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis · 1837
  4. Boundary geometry retains its source attribution and licence in the downloadable geographic record. Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2021-04-08. How this page was prepared.