placenames.ie
Population centre

Palmerstown

Baile Phámar

Palmerstown near Killala retains a long stone bridge and a country house whose fabric records the replacement of an earlier residence.

Watercolour and fine ink illustration of Palmerstown Bridge over the Cloonaghmore River, County Mayo, as photographed in June 2007.
Illustration, Palmerstown Bridge over the Cloonaghmore River, County Mayo, as photographed in June 2007
Recorded locationPalmerstown54.22744° N · 9.27206° WInteractive map supplied by OpenStreetMap.
Recorded place location · Logainm.ie

The name

bailetownland, town, homestead

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

  • Baile Phámar · Irish · main form · non-validated name
  • Palmerstown · English · main form

Place & story

The earlier Palmer house

The University of Galway’s Landed Estates database identifies Palmerstown in Rathnawooraun as the seat of a Mr Palmer in Wilson’s account of 1786. By the first Ordnance Survey map of the late 1830s, the original house was marked as a ruin. The sequence distinguishes the former residence from the later house created out of its yard buildings. [2]

People & connections

Henry Augustus Knox’s adaptation

Henry Augustus Knox adapted the old stable complex as a house during the mid-nineteenth century. The surviving building has a symmetrical front, a fanlit entrance with cut-limestone dressings and sash windows. The architectural inventory also records retained joinery and fireplaces. Adjoining outbuildings and a walled garden help explain its origins as part of a larger estate. [3]

Eleven arches across the river

Palmerstown Bridge was in existence by 1777 and appears in Taylor and Skinner’s road mapping. Eleven round arches carry the road across the river, with triangular stone cutwaters protecting the piers. The inventory notes carefully worked limestone dressings and a survey benchmark. The bridge preserves both eighteenth-century engineering and a later trace of Ordnance Survey mapping. [4]

Geographic information

Place type
Population centre
County
Mayo
Barony
Tirawley
Civil parish
Templemurry
Within
Doonamona
Coordinates
54.22744, -9.27206
Logainm ID
114156 ↗

Sources & further reading

  1. Logainm.ie — Palmerstown. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
  2. Palmerstown, County Mayo: property 230 · University of Galway, Landed Estates database
  3. Palmerstown House, registration 31301415 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
  4. Palmerstown Bridge, registration 31301417 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
  5. Palmerstown Bridge over the Cloonaghmore River, County Mayo, as photographed in June 2007 illustration: based on a Palmerston bridge over the Cloonaghmore River by Liz McCabe. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2026-07-01. How this page was prepared.