placenamesHorse Island
Oileán an Chapaill
Lewis’s 1837 account records mining, workers’ housing and hand cultivation on the Roaringwater Bay island.
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
- Oileán an Chapaill · Irish · main form · validated name
- Horse Island · English · main form
Place & story
A mining community in the 1830s
Samuel Lewis described copper workings on Horse Island in Skull parish that had passed through several operators. The West Cork Mining Company began work in 1835 and found a substantial ore body near the island’s eastern point. Its output was sold at Swansea. Writing in 1837, Lewis recorded about one hundred miners and houses built for them. He also described the island’s uneven ground being cultivated mainly by hand with spades, placing mining beside small-scale farming. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Townland
- County
- Cork
- Barony
- Carbery West (W.D.)
- Civil parish
- Skull
- Coordinates
- 51.51511, -9.47041
- Logainm ID
- 13378 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Horse Island. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Horse Island, Skull parish: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland1837 · Samuel Lewis
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.