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
Cill Chaoi· Irish · main form · validated name
Kilkee· English · main form
Place & story
A bathing place for Limerick visitors
By 1837 Kilkee was already attracting visitors from Limerick to its sheltered strand. Lewis recorded 153 houses in the 1831 census and noted that more houses and bathing lodges had since appeared. Jonas Studdart provided tepid baths, adding a purpose-built facility to the attraction of the sea. A coastguard station, police station, schools and dispensary served the growing settlement. Its development as a resort was therefore well underway before the later arrival of the railway and the larger holiday town.[2]
People & connections
Isabella O'Brien's fish pantry
Near the Pollock Holes at Kilkee's West End, a large embanked enclosure preserves the site of Lady Isabella's Fishpond. Isabella O'Brien married local landowner Charles McDonnell in 1718 and lived at Kilkee House. The pond kept caught fish alive until they were needed for the household's table. Westropp measured the enclosure at about 350 feet by 150 feet. Although Isabella held no formal title, the local name preserved her association with an unusual piece of the town's earlier estate landscape.[3]
Folklore & tradition
Devotion at Senan's well
Westropp's 1911 account records beliefs that the water of Senan's well at Kilkee could help sore eyes and swollen limbs. Visitors washed there as part of those healing customs. The well also supplied drinking water to the resort, bringing devotional practice and the needs of the growing town into the same small place. Westropp noted that an external washing tank had been provided by 1875, altering how people used the well without removing its connection with the saint.[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.
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Kilkee — 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.
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Kilkee Legal Town, Clare — Legal town, CSO 2006 report — census population
Kilkee Legal Town and Environs, Clare — Legal town and environs, CSO 2006 report
2002–2006: legal town and environs
1,325people · 2006
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
Kilkee Legal Town and Environs, Clare — Legal town and environs, 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
Kilkee Legal Town, Clare — Legal town, CSO 1996 report — census population
Kilkee Legal Town and Environs, Clare — Legal town and environs, CSO 1996 report
1991–1996: legal town and environs
1,331people · 1996
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
Kilkee Legal Town and Environs, Clare — Legal town and environs, 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.
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Kilkee, Clare — Legal town, CSO 1986 report — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Kilkee, Clare — 2011 legal town and environs; 2016 census settlement
Published census settlement populations
972people · 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.
View population figures
Kilkee, Clare — 2011 legal town and environs; 2016 census settlement — census population
placenames