placenamesNewquay
An Chéibh Nua
Newquay’s coastal setting brings together a fishing harbour, Lady Gregory’s holiday house and rocks that record the passage of glaciers.
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
- An Chéibh Nua · Irish · main form
- Newquay · English · main form
Place & story
A quay with a literary afterlife
Newquay’s pier belongs to the development of Galway Bay’s fisheries during the nineteenth century. The Geopark heritage trail records the Fisheries Board’s replacement of an older quay that stood a little farther west. The harbour also entered literary geography: George Bernard Shaw placed a scene from Back to Methuselah on this pier. The trail identifies it as the setting for ‘The Tragedy of Two Elderly Gentlemen’, linking a working coastal landing place with the imaginative world of his play. [2]
Mount Vernon Lodge
Mount Vernon Lodge stands along the coast west of Newquay. The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage dates the house to 1788 and records its later use as Lady Gregory’s holiday home. A full-height central bow distinguishes its three-bay, two-storey front, while a fanlight lights the round-headed entrance. The recorded property also includes a walled garden, a Liscannor-flagged yard and former stables and coach house adapted for residential use. Later extensions form part of the surviving building. [3]
Reading the Flaggy Shore
The Flaggy Shore extends from Newquay towards Finavarra Point. Its limestone shore carries evidence of a landscape shaped by ice as well as by the sea. The Geopark explains that some cobbles and boulders are granite or sandstone rather than the local grey limestone: these glacial erratics provide clues to the movement of former ice sheets. Across the inlet, the low cliffs of Aughinish expose thick sediment deposited during the last glaciation and subsequently cut back by coastal erosion. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Clare
- Barony
- Burren
- Civil parish
- Abbey
- Within
- Ballyvelaghan
- Coordinates
- 53.15366, -9.07638 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1165720 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Newquay. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Flaggy Shore Heritage Trail: New Quay · Burren and Cliffs of Moher UNESCO Global Geopark
- Mount Vernon Lodge, NIAH 20400303 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Flaggy Shore: Geosite and geology · Burren and Cliffs of Moher UNESCO Global Geopark
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2012-12-21. How this page was prepared.