placenamesKilcummin
Cill Chuimín
The wider Kerry parish preserves histories of agricultural improvement and local institutions beyond Kilcummin village.
The name
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
- Cill Chuimín · Irish · main form · validated name
- Kilcummin · English · main form
Place & story
Blue limestone in the uplands
Carrigdulkeen’s quarry supplied blue limestone in a district of mountain and bog. Samuel Lewis’s 1837 account emphasised its isolation: no other quarry lay within several miles. Stone served both building work and agriculture, where lime helped improve the parish’s heavy soils. His description connects quarrying with the cultivation of ground otherwise characterised by mountain pasture, bog and rough arable land. [2]
Small debts at Five-mile-bridge
Five-mile-bridge hosted an occasional manor court in Lewis’s account. The Earl of Kenmare’s seneschal presided for the manors of Ross and Molahiffe, hearing claims for debts no greater than forty shillings in the older currency. This was a local mechanism for recovering small sums, recorded alongside the parish’s farms, quarries, churches and schools. [2]
A temporary home for monks
Rath More House in Kilcummin civil parish became a home for Cistercian monks before their move to Mount Melleray in Waterford. The Cronin family had occupied the house before leasing it to the order. The University of Galway’s estate record identifies its subsequent use as a presbytery; by Griffith’s Valuation, the Reverend Edward Walsh leased the property, valued at £17. [3]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Kilcummin. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Kilcummin, Magonihy, Kerry: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland,1837 · Samuel Lewis
- Rath More House, Landed Estates property2201 · University of Galway, Landed Estates Database
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-06-27. How this page was prepared.