placenamesBullaun
An Ballán
Bullaun’s historical parish records and the Turoe Stone connect this part of Galway with different periods of religious organisation and artistic work.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- An Ballán · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Bullaun · English · main form
Place & story
A parish divided between church offices
Lewis’s 1837 entry, under the spelling Bullane, placed the parish on the Loughrea–Castleblakeney road. Its Church of Ireland revenues were divided between the prebendary of Annacalla, the sacristan of Clonfert Cathedral and the incumbent of Kilcolgan. The Catholic parish arrangement differed: Bullaun formed part of the New Inn district and contained a chapel. These overlapping institutions give a more precise account of its nineteenth-century church connections than a single parish label. [2]
The decoration of the Turoe Stone
The Turoe Stone associated with the Bullaun area is an Iron Age carved monument in the care of the Office of Public Works. Its domed upper surface carries interlocking spirals, circles and trumpet-shaped patterns, worked in relief above a horizontal band of angular decoration. The OPW links its earlier setting with the rath of Feerwore. Its published notice records conservation work and states that the stone is unavailable for viewing. [3]
Testing the ground at Gortcam
A geophysical survey at Gortcam, Bullaun, detected apparent pits and faint curved features ahead of a proposed housing development. Testing on 1 February 2008 opened three trenches but found no archaeological remains. Instead, the excavator recorded bands of shale and decayed bedrock and suggested that these geological variations probably explained the survey anomalies. The result concerns that tested site; it does not establish an absence of archaeology across the parish. [4]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Bullaun. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Bullane: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis, digitised by A Vision of Britain through Time
- Turoe Stone · Office of Public Works, Heritage Ireland
- 2008:521: Bullaun, Galway · Dominic Delany, Excavations.ie
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.