placenamesGrey Abbey
An Mhainistir Liath
The 1926 return distinguishes the townland total from the village within it.
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 Mhainistir Liath · Irish · main form
- Grey Abbey · English · main form
Place & story
Town and townland in 1926
Grey Abbey townland had 637 inhabitants in 1926, 311 male and 326 female, in 152 occupied houses; twenty-seven houses were uninhabited. Greyabbey town accounted for 615 of those inhabitants and 146 occupied houses. A footnote confirms that the town stood on the townland of the same name, with its area included in the townland’s 213 acres, three roods and four perches. Both were recorded in Grey Abbey electoral division, Newtownards Rural District. [2]
The abbey nearby
The nearby Cistercian abbey was founded in 1193 by Affreca, wife of John de Courcy, as a daughter house of Holm Cultram in Cumbria. Dissolved in 1541, it was granted to Sir Hugh Montgomery in the early seventeenth century. Its nave subsequently served parish worship until the late eighteenth century. The surviving church, cloister and associated buildings stand in Rosemount’s parkland. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Townland
- County
- Down
- Barony
- Ards Lower
- Civil parish
- Greyabbey
- Coordinates
- 54.53637, -5.56358
- Mapped area
- 0.9 km²
- Logainm ID
- 1166456 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Grey Abbey. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Census of Northern Ireland 1926: County Down, Table 3, printed page 34 and footnote (a) · Government of Northern Ireland; His Majesty’s Stationery Office, Belfast, 1928
- Grey Abbey: official monument account, DOW 011:010 · Department for Communities
- Boundary geometry retains its source attribution and licence in the downloadable geographic record. Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2019-06-27. How this page was prepared.