placenamesOld Connaught
Seanchonach
Medieval church walls, an eighteenth-century house and restored working gardens preserve distinct chapters of Old Connaught’s history.
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
- Seanchonach · Irish · main form
- Old Connaught · English · main form
Place & story
A church with uncertain beginnings
The ruined church at Old Connaught is probably late medieval, but its earliest documentary connections remain uncertain. The Medieval and Historic Bray Project identifies a rector of Konagh in 1349 and references to a church at Connagh in documents concerning 1529–34. Neither establishes how much of the surviving structure existed then. The Civil Survey of 1654–56 described only church walls on Thomas Walsh’s holding, indicating that the building was already unroofed by the mid-seventeenth century. [2]
Old Connaught House
William Gore, Bishop of Limerick, built Old Connaught House in 1783–84. Its long frontage centres on an Ionic portico and a pedimented projection, with the principal rooms raised above a basement. The house subsequently became associated with successive generations of the Plunket family, including William Conyngham Plunket, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. After sale in 1946 and later institutional use, it was renovated and extended in 2000–02 for conversion into apartments. [3]
The walled gardens restored
The estate’s garden walls date from the 1780s, while their internal layout was remodelled in 1871 for William Conyngham Plunket, later Archbishop of Dublin. Festina Lente, founded by Mary Brophy in 1988, took a lease of the gardens and stable yard in 1996. Its restoration reinstated paths and pools and repaired walls, combining garden conservation with employment and learning projects for people with disabilities. The charity took its name from the Plunket family motto. [4]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Old Connaught. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Old Connaught Church: Notes on its Historical Background · Medieval and Historic Bray Project
- Old Connaught House, NIAH 60260073 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Our Story · Festina Lente
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2010-02-02. How this page was prepared.