A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
Conmhaigh· Irish · main form · validated name
Convoy· English · main form
Place & story
The village before the woollen mills
Lewis described Convoy in 1837 as one long street of seventy-three houses on the road between Stranorlar and Raphoe. Three annual fairs served the settlement beside the Deele. Its religious buildings included the Church of Ireland church built in 1822, a Catholic chapel and Presbyterian meeting houses. Convoy had become a separate parish only in 1825. This account captures a small village several decades before its largest industrial development.[2]
A tower above the factory
The woollen mills opened in 1883 and expanded substantially in 1905 and 1911–12. The complex's five-stage Italianate tower rises beside the main three-storey block. Boiler houses, stores, finishing and dyeing accommodation accompanied the manufacturing buildings. Their scale and varied rooflines record successive enlargement on the north bank of the Deele. Surviving iron gates and railings complete the setting of a workplace which became a dominant feature of Convoy.[3]
Uniform cloth and a new use
The mill supplied large quantities of cloth to the Irish military after independence, including serge for uniforms and whipcord for breeches. Employment reportedly reached about four hundred at one stage. Business declined after the Second World War, and the works closed in the mid-1980s. Conversion into an enterprise centre in the 1990s brought commercial and craft activity back into the buildings, preserving a major part of Convoy's industrial and social history through reuse.[3]
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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Convoy — 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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Convoy, Donegal — Census town, 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.
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Convoy, Donegal — Census town, 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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Convoy, Donegal — Census town, CSO 1986 report — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Convoy, Donegal
Published census settlement populations
1,526people · 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.
placenames