placenamesCockhill
Cnoc an Choiligh
Cockhill’s church and school preserve an important part of the religious and community history of the Buncrana area.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Cnoc an Choiligh · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Cockhill · English · main form
- Cock Hill · English · main form
Place & story
Building during the Famine
Saint Mary’s at Cockhill replaced an earlier chapel in the adjoining graveyard during the Famine years. Buncrana parish’s history associates its construction with Bishop Edward Maginn, who travelled to raise funds and accepted contributions across religious denominations. The earlier chapel has disappeared. [2]
The church and its interior
Saint Mary’s combines a long nave with a square, three-stage bell tower. A substantial sacristy was added around 1870. Inside, the architectural inventory records an elaborate Gothic reredos, decorative panelled ceiling, marble altar and font, and a gallery carried on cast-iron columns. Figurative stained glass lights the chancel. [3]
School and community life
The parish credits Maginn with establishing a school at Cockhill as part of his nineteenth-century educational work. When a new school was built in 1984, the plans incorporated a community centre for the area. School building thus also provided space for wider local activities. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Donegal
- Barony
- Inishowen West
- Civil parish
- Fahan Lower
- Within
- Buncrana Urban
- Within
- Ballymacarry
- Within
- Tullyarvan
- Coordinates
- 55.15036, -7.44163
- Logainm ID
- 1411295 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Cockhill. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Parish of Buncrana: A little bit of history · Buncrana Parish
- St Mary’s Catholic Church, Cock Hill, record 40902924 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- St Mary's RC Church, Cockhill, County Donegal illustration: based on a St. Mary's R C Church, Cockhill, Co Donegal by Dr Neil Clifton. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2026-05-27. How this page was prepared.