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
Droim Dhá Thiar· Irish · main form · validated name
Dromahair· English · main form
Drumahaire· English · main form
Place & story
Margaret O'Brien's Franciscan foundation
Creevelea friary was founded in 1508 by Margaret O'Brien of Thomond, wife of Eoghan O'Rourke, lord of West Breifne. Consecration followed in 1511, and both founders were buried there. An accidental fire in 1536 destroyed valuable books and sacred vessels; their son Bryan Ballach O'Rourke restored the friary. The surviving complex includes church, cloister and domestic buildings. Carvings in the cloister show St Francis, including a scene of him preaching to birds. These details bring the founders' patronage and the friars' religious imagery into the same architectural setting.[2]
Drumlease church and its changing fabric
Dromahair's Church of Ireland church at Drumlease was constructed in the early nineteenth century and rebuilt with Board of First Fruits support. A three-stage tower carries a clock, battlements and pinnacles, while the nave, chancel and vestry preserve different phases of work. The windows combine timber and limestone tracery with stained glass, giving particular interest to the interior light and exterior stonework. A date plaque stands over the tower entrance. The churchyard, stone boundary wall, gate piers and stile complete a religious enclosure close to the village's main street.[3]
People & connections
Dromahair in Yeats's faeryland poem
William Butler Yeats set the opening of The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland among a crowd at Dromahair. His imagined man is absorbed in love until fish poured into a heap seem to sing of an island beyond ordinary time. The poem then follows him through other named landscapes, where small voices repeatedly disturb his earthly concerns. Dromahair supplies the first recognisable place in this literary journey. The supernatural episode belongs to Yeats's poem, giving the village a precise connection with his imaginative geography of the north-west.[4]
Both counts use the 2016 settlement boundary, allowing like-for-like comparison. CSO supplies the 2022 count on this older boundary for comparison only. The official 2022 Built Up Area has different boundaries.
View population figures
Dromahair — Census 2016 settlement footprint — census population
These are the historical areas published in the 2006 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
View population figures
Dromahair, Leitrim — Census town, CSO 2006 report — census population
These are the historical areas published in the 1996 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
View population figures
Dromahair, Leitrim — Census town, CSO 1996 report — census population
Figures cover the historical town area printed in the 1986 report. Boundaries may have changed between censuses. Legal town, environs and suburb totals remain separate and differ from modern settlement boundaries.
View population figures
Dromahair, Leitrim — Census town, CSO 1986 report — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Dromahair, Leitrim
Published census settlement populations
808people · 2016
Settlement boundaries changed during this period. Differences may reflect boundary changes as well as population change. Where a 2011 legal-town-and-environs count is shown, it has not been recalculated onto the 2016 settlement boundary.
placenames